Visit the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham

First opened in 1962 in a former methodist chapel in the village of Cookham, Berkshire, the Stanley Spencer Gallery collects together some works of art by celebrated English painter and Cookham resident Sir Stanley Spencer. 

There can be no more fitting place to view the work of an artist so closely associated with both the village of Cookham than the chapel in which he once worshiped as a member of the congregation and many of the works on show feature Cookham, which was very much a theme of the artist's work, and where - particularly in later life - he could often be seen wandering the lanes of Cookham pushing a pram in which he carried his materials for painting. The pram is on show in the gallery.

For more, see http://stanleyspencer.org.uk/

See the Uffington White Horse

Though a number of white horses and other white figures exist on the chalk downland of Southern England, the Uffington Horse is particularly special as it is believed to date from the the Iron Age or the late Bronze Age, making it significantly older than many of its contemporaries. 

The horse is found close to the ancient trackway known as the Ridgeway and sits just below Uffington Castle, an ancient hill fort with which it is often assumed to be connected.

For more, see http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/white-horse-hill/

Celebrate Tom Bawcock's Eve

To the tiny village of Mousehole in Cornwall, where today locals and visitors will be celebrating Tom Bawcock's Eve, as they do every 23rd December, remembering 16th century fisherman Tom Bawcock, who set out onto a stormy sea when no other boats were able to fish and the residents faced starvation, and returned with fish for everyone in time for Christmas. 

The festival combines with the annual Christmas lights in the village to make it a festive hotspot, and still sees the making of Stargazy pie, a pie of baked pilchards, egg and potatoes, with the heads of the pilchards poking out to prove that there are fish inside.

For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Bawcock's_Eve

_{^Picture © Rod Allday used under a Creative Commons license^}

Rather English - Drink from St Ann's Well, Buxton

Thanks to ubiquitous plastic bottles of the stuff, Buxton is now known around the country for its mineral water, and the Peak District town still takes great pride in its waters. For those seeking a more authentic experience than getting it off the shelves at their local corner shop, it still comes straight out of the ground at St Ann's Well on the Crescent in the centre of town. 

The current well casing was installed around 1940 as a tribute to Councillor Emelie Dorothy Bounds, on a site where wells have stood since Roman times. The well sees water gush from the mouth of a bronze lion's head, and features a statue of St Ann and child.

For more, see http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-463339-st-anns-well-derbyshire

Eat at the Pheasant Inn, Higher Burwardsley

Your author passed a very pleasant evening by the fire yesterday at the Pheasant Inn at Higher Burwardsley, a great little pub at the end of a network of Cheshire lanes which traces its history back to at least the seventeenth century. 

We are told that Burwardsley once meant 'clearing in the woods', and today the pub is a haven for walkers, sitting as it does on the Sandstone Trail, as recently featured on this website. For those looking to stay a little longer, the pub has comfortable rooms and even serves a good Christmas Dinner, as your author experienced a couple of years. ago.

For more, see http://www.thepheasantinn.co.uk
_{^Picture © Peter Styles used under a Creative Commons license^}

Wander the Rows of Chester

A distinctive aspect of the city centre in Chester is the Chester Rows, with half-timbered galleries, accessed via steps, forming a second row of shops above those at street level. A feature of the streets radiating from Chester Cross, they are found in Watergate, Eastgate and Northgate Streets and in Upper Bridge Street.

Though their origins of the Rows are subject to debate, it is thought that they date from at least the 13th century. A number of suggestions about how they came to be exist, with some believing that as Chester's Roman buildings slowly crumbled, medieval traders built their shops along the top of this debris accessed by a path or steps from the roadside, with subsequent alterations seeing stalls spring up along the road to display goods. Another suggestion is that the constructions were designed to help prevent a repeat of a fire that all but destroyed the city in 1278. Whatever their origins they are an interesting feature of Chester.

For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Rows
_{^Picture © orangeacid used under a Creative Commons license^}

Wander the Rows of Chester

A distinctive aspect of the city centre in Chester is the Chester Rows, with half-timbered galleries, accessed via steps, forming a second row of shops above those at street level. A feature of the streets radiating from Chester Cross, they are found in Watergate, Eastgate and Northgate Streets and in Upper Bridge Street.

Though their origins of the Rows are subject to debate, it is thought that they date from at least the 13th century. A number of suggestions about how they came to be exist, with some believing that as Chester's Roman buildings slowly crumbled, medieval traders built their shops along the top of this debris accessed by a path or steps from the roadside, with subsequent alterations seeing stalls spring up along the road to display goods. Another suggestion is that the constructions were designed to help prevent a repeat of a fire that all but destroyed the city in 1278. Whatever their origins they are an interesting feature of Chester.

For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Rows
_{^Picture © orangeacid used under a Creative Commons license^}

Rather Welsh - Stay at Gladstone's Library

Your author has left England to travel three miles into the Welsh county of Flintshire for a stay at Gladstone's Library, Britain's only residential library, and also our only Prime Ministerial Library, established in the 19th-century in the village of Hawarden by William Ewart Gladstone, who is said to have transferred some 32,000 books half a mile down the road from his home at Hawarden Castle by wheelbarrow when already in his 80s.

As well as a fine collection of 250,000 books, journals and pamphlets on history, theology and a wide range of other subjects, the Library also has twenty-six well-furnished study bedrooms where visitors can stay for a period of time to study, think or rest, a relaxing lounge providing for enlightening conversation by a roaring fire and a fine restaurant providing decent meals daily.

For more, see http://www.gladstoneslibrary.org/

Visit the Imperial War Museum North

Situated on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal in Salford, the Imperial War Museum North opened in 2002 to complement the Museum's other operations in Duxford and London.

The Museum's distinctive building is clad in aluminium and designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, and entry is free, attracting more than 2.5 million visitors over the decade since its opening. Your author found the experience every bit as informative as a visit to its 92 year old southern sister, with the added benefit of being situated in a purpose-built space which is used very well.

For more, see http://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-north
_{^Picture © Gavin Llewellyn used under a Creative Commons license^}

Ride the 'world's first passenger railway'

A regular exhibit at Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry allows visitors to take a ride on the site where the first passenger steam trains once travelled, on what was the Liverpool & Manchester Railway.

The Musum occupies the buildings of Liverpool Road station, the oldest surviving passenger railway station in the world and on some days visitors even get to ride behind Planet, a replica 1830 Robert Stephenson and Company steam locomotive. For TV fans the short journey also runs alongside Granada Studios, offering the chance to peer in and see where TV classics such as Coronation Street and Sooty were filmed.

For more, see http://www.mosi.org.uk/whats-on/train-rides.aspx

Visit the People's History Museum

Tracing its origins from the Trade Union, Labour and Co-operative History Society, Manchester's People's History Museum is just as you might imagine it, started in the 1960s as a small collection which was exhibited in a museum in Limehouse Town Hall in London between 1975 and 1986, it's difficult to say whether it says more about the political polarisation of our country or about the fine work in encouraging regional museums.

We are told that the museum came to Manchester due to funding offers from the local authorities, and opened in 1990 on Princess Street in the city. After a refurbishment between 2007 and 2010, it reopened on the left bank of the River Irwell where it is still open for free daily. The result is a fine collection of artefacts and exhibits on social history around the country, with an occasional particular focus on Manchester.

For more, see http://www.phm.org.uk/
_{^Picture © David Dixon used under a Creative Commons license^}

Walk Cheshire's Sandstone Trail

A 34 mile distance walking path connecting Whitchurch in north Shropshire with Frodsham on the banks of the Mersey estuary, the Sandstone Trail follows a ridge of wooded sandstone hills which stretches all the way across an area of countryside known as the Cheshire Plain

Along the route, the trail takes in Bronze Age and Iron Age hill forts, Roman roads, Medieval churches and castles, and some spectacular views, and also inevitably passes some lovely pubs including the 17th century Pheasant Inn at Higher Burwardsley in the Peckforton Hills - itself built in red sandstone - at which your author once spent a fantastically snowy Christmas.

For more, see http://www.sandstonetrail.com
_{^Picture © Jeff Buck used under a Creative Commons license^}

Visit Blists Hill Victorian Town

Some think it's a bit naff, but your author has always quite liked the recreated Victorian town at Blists Hill in Shropshire, above Ironbridge Gorge. Largely created since the 1970s amongst the remains of blast furnaces, brick & tile works and other industrial workings, as well as a stretch of Canal, the town today offers a window on what life might have been like in the area in Victorian times. 

The town has been put together through a mixture of new buildings and those brought from elsewhere, and even has its own pub in the shape of The New Inn, which was taken down and transported brick by brick from the its previous position on the corner of Green Lane and Hospital Street in Walsall in the early 1980s. Whilst the buildings and shop interiors are interesting readers should be warned that they may encounter people dressed up as Victorians attempting to interact with them.

For more, see http://www.ironbridge.org.uk/our_attractions/blists_hill_victorian_town/

_{^Picture © Martin Burns used under a Creative Commons license^
From November 2012 until January 2013, Tired of London, Tired of Life will briefly be posting as RatherEnglish.com and featuring interesting things to do in England}

Drink at the Crooked House

Found at the end of a long leafy lane in Gornalwood on the outskirts of Dudley, though technically just inside rural Staffordshire, the Crooked House was first built in 1765 as a farmhouse, and later became a public house known as the Siden House, owing its name - we are told - to the Black Country dialect, in which Siden means crooked. 

The reason for the crookedness of the house was mining in the area during the 19th century, which caused subsidence and threatened the very existence of the pub when it was condemned in the 1940s, only to be saved by Wolverhampton and Dudley Breweries who embraced the interesting nature of the place and arranged for it to be reinforced with supporting buttresses and girders. Inside, your author found a warm welcome out of the driving rain outside, and discovered that the building is just as crooked inside as out, with heavy doors installed at a slight angle to add to the effect.

For more, see http://www.thecrooked-house.co.uk/ 

Admire the Leaning Tower of Bridgnorth

The Shropshire town of Bridgnorth is an attractive place, with a high town set on a sandstone cliff above the River Severn, connected to the area known as the Low Town on the riverbank by an electric funicular railway. It isn't hard to see why - in 1101 - Robert de Belleme chose the top of the cliff as the spot for his castle, from which the surrounding area could be monitored. 

Today, all that remains of the castle is a formal gardens frequented by yappy dogs and the huge remains of one of the castle's towers, leaning at a rather alarming rate which locals claim is even greater than that of the bell tower at Pisa. Though the tower still stands, the rest of the castle was destroyed following a three week siege during the English Civil War. Following his victory, Cromwell ordered that the castle be demolished.

For more, see http://www.visitbridgnorth.co.uk/attractiondetails.php?estid=440>

Visit the Morgan Museum

The Morgan Motor Company has been making cars in the Worcestershire spa town of Malvern for over 100 years, and unlike many other British car manufacturers they are still doing so.

The company also has a visitors centre and museum at their factory in the town's Pickersleigh Road, with guided tours of the factory available and interesting exhibitions five days a week, as well as a fine display of Morgan cars.

For more, see http://www.morgan-motor.co.uk/mmc/factoryvisits.html

_{^Picture © Bob Embleton used under a Creative Commons license^}

Drink at the Woolpack

One of your author's favourite pubs in the world, the Woolpack is a beautiful little freehouse in the heart of the sleepy Slad Valley made famous by the author Laurie Lee in his autobiographical book, Cider With Rosie, in which the pub itself played a starring role, as the young Lee gazes in through its steamed windows.

Lee remained a regular sight at the pub until his death in 1997 often sitting outside on long summer afternoons and - legend has it - taking American tourists who arrived looking for Laurie Lee's grave on wild goosechases around the churchyard.

The pub traces its history back to the 1640’s, when the wool industry was the main source of wealth in the area, and woolpacks such as the ones that appear on the pub sign were a common sight in the Slad Valley. Today, its compact interior is popular with locals and visitors most evenings, serving great food and fine ales from the local Uley and Stroud Breweries to thirsty punters.

For more, see http://www.thewoolpackinn-slad.com/

_{^Picture © BazzaDaRambler used under a Creative Commons license^}

Attend Stroud Farmers Market

Often cited as Britain's best farmers market, Stroud Farmers Market has a place close to your author's heart. Just over an hour and a half by train from London at the heart of five valleys, the market at Stroud takes place every Saturday until 2pm and boasts around 60 stalls a week, with a significant amount of organic produce.

The town of Stroud has a tradition of nonconformity and was at the forefront of the organic food movement, and the Woodruffs Cafe - just a short walk from the main market - claims to be Britain's first wholly organic cafe, so it is probably not a surprise that the market has bloomed and won various awards over the years, having been featured in various guides and - we are told - in the Sunday Telegraph, The Observer, The Independent, The Guardian Weekend, The Times and the Country Living Guide to Farmers' Markets. Those who particularly enjoy the local nature of the produce sourced from within 30 miles of the market, could also consider visiting the Made In Stroud shop nearby which sells only products from local artists and manufacturers.

For more, see http://www.fresh-n-local.co.uk/markets/stroud.php

_{^Picture © BazzaDaRambler used under a Creative Commons license^}