Tips and tidbits for travel and for fun
A Room of One’s Own
The Angel Hotel, Bury St. Edmunds
With one façade facing St. Edmundsbury Cathedral and the beautiful Abbey Gardens, and the other the shopping bustle of Bury St. Edmunds, the Angel is as superbly located for visitors to this small Suffolk cathedral city as it could possibly be. Though the old coaching inn has a history dating back to 1452 and retains its friendly ambience, the hotel today maintains a 4-star standard, with 2 AA rosettes for its cuisine.
Charles Dickens famously stayed at The Angel and immortalized it in The Pickwick Papers. His room, complete with 19th-century furnishings, is still available. Each of the hotel’s 75 bedrooms is tastefully and individually appointed. For following Jean Paschke’s footsteps in this charming town, or exploring the Suffolk-Norfolk borders and such nearby towns as Newmarket and Cambridge, The Angel is hard to beat.
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PHOTOLIBRARY/ALAN BLAIR
The Angel Hotel
3 Angel Hill Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk IP33 1LT Tel: 01284 714000 www.the angel.co.uk
The British Heritage
PUZZLER
Last issue we posed this: “I was born in York in 1907. As a young man, they named a school of writers after me. I became the technical virtuoso of 20th-century poetry. As an older man, I became well known for my eccentricity, wit and faith. My portrait hangs in the refectory gallery at Christ Church College, Oxford. Who am I?”
W.H. Auden was the poetic darling of the 30s. “The School of Auden” included such writers as Louis MacNeice, Christopher Isherwood, Stephen Spender and C.D. Lewis. In 1939, Auden emigrated to America, later becoming a U.S. citizen.
Now ponder this: I was meant to be a grand castle, a reflection of the glory of my builder, the Lord Chamberlain. Unfortunately, I was never completed. Work stopped when my lord was perhaps the first person executed at the Tower of London. Where am I?
Be a Puzzler player and email your answer to [email protected]. Yes, all entries are acknowledged.
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TIME & LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES
In the British Heritage Mailbag
“Oh, let us go to England, dear sons – To its distant, island shores. We shall live our stories of today, And learn of times that are now no more.”
“I have been a delighted reader of British Heritage for many, many years. In that time, I have made use of the magazine’s engaging articles to help plan trips to the UK, to relive experiences from those trips and to simply delight in learning more about Britain. In the spring of 1994, our family traveled to England as well as Scotland. Prior to that trip I wrote a poem for my sons, ages 7 and 10, to help them anticipate our travels. We read it several times together before our arrival in Britain. As we traveled to the places mentioned, such as Glastonbury, Stonehenge, Chester, York and others, it pleased them to already have a connection to what they were seeing.”
Ruth Anne Wilson-Jones LaGrange, Georgia
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Sites for the Savvy
- www.historynet.com A great archive of British Heritage articles
- www.english-heritage.org.uk More than 400 historical and archaeological sites preserved
- www.dailymail.co.uk All the bumph on leading attractions across Britain
- www.visit-burystedmunds.co.uk The info site for the visitor to Suffolk’s cathedral city
- www.visitbritain.us The British travelers’ web portal without peer
- www.metoffice.gov.uk Check the British weather, from forecasts to history
Penny Wise
Membership has its Privileges
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Rambling around Britain visiting an assortment of stately homes, gardens and castles must be one of the world’s great travel pleasures. Though it happens a little at a time, those admission charges can add up to big numbers in your travel budget. The best way of minimizing those fees is to join.
A 12-month membership to The National Trust costs £48.50 and includes free admission to literally hundreds of Trust properties all over England and Wales. You can join online at www.nationaltrust.org.uk and they will email you a temporary membership card so that you can begin your visits right away. Or join the Trust’s American affiliate, the Royal Oak Foundation, with individual membership at $55 and dual membership at $80. You can’t actually join the Royal Oak online, but you can download the membership form at www.royal-oak.org.
The best membership deal of all, though, is The National Trust for Scotland, which offers membership for £46 annually (£32.50 for adults over 60) and provides admission to the scores of historic properties and places of natural beauty in its care as well as to National Trust sites in England and Wales. Join at www.nts.org.uk
Caring for more than 400 abbeys, palaces, stately homes and more, English Heritage offers memberships as well at www.english-heritage.org.uk, with individual memberships at £44 a year and discounts for joint memberships and seniors.
Just a few visits using your membership pays for itself—and lets you skip the admissions queue at the gate.
Coming Up in British Heritage
- Pots of Appeal in The Potteries
- Your Passport to Hidden England
- Mistletoe in The Marches
- Finding the Best in Covent Garden
- Cheltenham: Town of Festivals
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DANA HUNTLEY
Author, Author!
You have seen her byline for years in British Heritage; now meet Jean Paschke, in her own words.
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MICHAEL’S PHOTOGRAPHY
A practicing Anglophile since childhood, when I romped with Winnie the Pooh and explored with Alice, my first trip to Britain some years ago found me filled with excitement and trepidation. Could the Britain I had imagined ever live up to reality? The answer was a resounding yes. From the moment I glimpsed a manor house set in lush grounds on the approach to Gatwick, I was as wide-eyed as Alice. I loved it all—Buckingham Palace, allotments, Barclay’s Bank, bobbies, the Houses of Parliament, colorful cottage gardens, houses painted two different (clashing) colors, a man sunning his boa constrictor in St. James’s Park, buskers in the tube defiantly performing under “No Busking” signs, a bagpiper bare-kneed in a gale on the Scottish border. I returned many times, made some good friends and in 1990 began writing for my favorite magazine. When I’m not in Britain or writing about it, I write nonfiction for a number of publications. As Jean Adair, I write the occasional short story and poem. I provide gags for some of the nation’s top cartoonists, and I co-authored a cartoon book, Menopause Country! I sing in two choirs, collect antique buttons, dote on my twin grandsons, work for my local historical society, cruise and travel with husband Roger, (the only one of us with a sense of direction) and constantly look forward to my next trip to Britain.
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