British history

Devil's Stone Shebbear is a one-night custom in north Devon, held every 5 November at 8pm, when a crowd of bellringers and villagers heave a boulder over with crowbars to flush the Devil out. On...

Every autumn a group of Cheshire men carries a real horse's skull into the pub and performs a sword fight, a death and a resurrection, and nobody rehearses it. Halloween now means plastic pumpkins, supermarket...

A market town with two MPs in Parliament and more trade than Hull now lies under the Humber, and nobody has found the exact spot yet. Stand at Spurn Point on a clear day, and...

Few people ever stop to list the things Britain gave the world, but when you do, the scale of it is hard to take in. From the steam engine that powered the Industrial Revolution...

A county that changed British history more than once—yet is barely remembered. Leicestershire, in the heart of England, appears tranquil, its landscape dotted with green fields and market towns. Yet beneath its surface lies a...

Ancient summer festivals continue across England, from Derbyshire's flower garlands to Gloucestershire's cheese-rolling. Discover these centuries-old customs before summer ends. Many associate English summer with large festivals and muddy fields, overlooking a parallel calendar of...

In the 1530s, Henry VIII dissolved over 800 monasteries. North Yorkshire was particularly affected. For centuries, abbeys influenced North Yorkshire's spiritual, economic, and social life. Cistercians farmed sheep, Augustinians ran hospitals and schools, and Carthusians...

Before churches, before Christianity, before any written record of this land, the springs were already being used. Somerset has more named holy wells than most English counties. Many have been buried, piped, forgotten, or built...