This content contains affiliate links to Bookshop.org. When you buy through these links, I may earn an affiliate commission. Not long ago I wrote about the former coal-mining area of Speedwell in urban Bristol, along with the ways the present vegetation helps to reveal its unsettled history. In this post, I’m going to explore a …
This content contains affiliate links to Bookshop.org. When you buy through these links, I may earn an affiliate commission. Working in the Urban Design and Heritage department at Bristol City Council, my brother Pete has done a lot of digging (sometimes literally) into the history of Bristol’s various neighbourhoods. One he has recently been working …
This content contains affiliate links to Bookshop.org. When you buy through these links, I may earn an affiliate commission. To celebrate St Patrick’s Day, let me introduce you to some of my favourite places in Ireland: Galway’s islands. Having grown up on the Isle of Wight, islands have always had a special fascination for me. …
This content contains affiliate links to Bookshop.org. When you buy through these links, I may earn an affiliate commission. Between the end of World War I and 1970, thousands of miles of railway line were closed in Britain due to various cost-cutting and efficiency measures. The most famous round of closures came in the 1960s …
This content contains affiliate links to Bookshop.org. When you buy through these links, I may earn an affiliate commission. Whenever I’m staying with family in the West Country, I always make a point of visiting one of my favourite places: the Somerset Levels. This 650 km2 landscape is a mixture of raised bog, former and …
We headed to Oslo for a short break in mid-June with two main aims. The first was to get to the Bislett Games Diamond League athletics after a two-year Covid enforced delay. The second was to explore some of the forest that engulfs Norway’s capital city. Oslo is more or less surrounded by forest on …
I’m currently visiting family in Bristol and couldn’t resist planning some visits to some of my favourite wildlife hotspots while I’m here. Weymouth’s nature reserves are some of the UK’s best urban reserves, so I headed down earlier in the week on the train from Bristol. RSPB Radipole Lake The train journey is a lovely …
This walk around the Ness of Sound is one of my favourite Lerwick walks as we can do it from the house with no car or bus involved. It follows one of Shetland’s Core Paths, set up to provide waymarked routes and ‘reasonable access’ in various locations across the islands. We always head to the …