IT’S A (British) FACT…
- Properties in the care of English Heritage include: 116 castles and forts, 59 prehistoric sites, 45 London statues, 56 Roman sites, 90 ecclesiastical sites, 34 domestic medieval buildings, 32 houses and halls, 11 monuments, six historic bridges, six industrial sites, and one Cold War bunker.
- Iron Bridge, one of Britain’s bestknown industrial monuments, was the world’s first iron bridge and was erected over the River Severn in 1779.
- In February 1859, workmen began excavating the Roman baths at Wroxeter, Shropshire. By April, much of the site was exposed and thronged with visitors, including Charles Dickens. Donated by the landowner for public viewing, it became one of the rst archaeological visitor attractions in Britain.
- Painting and sculpture were Olympic events from 1912 to 1948. Artworks had to have a sporting theme and there were ve medal categories: architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture. London hosted the Olympics in 1908, 1948 and 2012.
- In 1896 while doing 8mph in a 2mph zone, Walter Arnold was the first man to be fined for speeding.
- In 1811, nearly a quarter of all women were called Mary.
- Elizabeth I was the first British monarch to have a fitted flushing toilet.
- The estimated total number of objects in the English Heritage collection is 480,800. They are located in 115 historic houses, museums, churches and stores. More than 153,000 of them can now be found in a new warehouse at Wrest Park in Bedfordshire. More than half of the collection is made up of archaeological objects, followed by books and archives (30 per cent), decorative arts (8.7 per cent) and artefacts relating to social and industrial history (4.2 per cent).
- The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, in Oxford, is our oldest public museum. It was established in 1683 with objects collected on the voyages of naturalist John Tradescant.
- Chester is the only place in Britain to have retained the tradition of midday public proclamations by its town crier, taking place every day, except Mondays, from May to August.
- Wales has more castles per head than anywhere in the world. Northumberland is another top spot for castles, owing to centuries of border tension with Scotland.
- Glamis and Chillingham castles are thought to be the UK’s most haunted castles.
- Britain has 25 Unesco World Heritage sites including Stonehenge and the St Kilda archipelago. Uninhabited since 1930, there is evidence of over 2,000 years of human occupation on St Kilda.
- The Museum of London has 47,000 Roman items that were found in London, most of which were discovered during building projects in the city.
- The world’s oldest bowling green still in use is in Southampton. It has been used since 1299.
- Sausages were introduced by the Romans around AD 400. There are now 470 recipes for British sausages.
- The longest pencil in the world, which measures nearly 8 metres, can be found in Keswick at the Cumberland Pencil Museum.
- The shortest scheduled flight in the world takes less than two minutes. The journey is from Westray to Papa Westray in the Orkney Islands.
- During the 14th century, water was so dirty that, in Herefordshire, babies were baptised in cider.
- The British Museum is home to at least 8 million objects, with only one per cent of them (80,000) on display at any one time. Many objects cannot be displayed because of light sensitivity.
- Although many believe John McAdam invented tarmac, it was the brainchild of Edgar Hooley from Nottinghamshire, in 1901. The rst tarmac road was laid in Nottingham in 1902.
- The Old Course at St Andrews Links in Scotland is believed to be the oldest golf course in the world, dating back to at least 1552.