Christopher explores the West Midlands taking in a ride on the world’s first bicycle in Warwickshire, three Cotswold villages in Gloucestershire with literary connections, a trip to the moon from Herefordshire, a view of the whole of Middle England from the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire, and the house in Birmingham where the modern world was shaped.

Places to visit:

Coventry Transport Museum

St Giles, Coberley

Cowley Manor

Colesbourne Park

Whitbourne, Herefordshire

The Malvern Hills

Soho House, Handsworth

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Christopher visits a quiet corner of Bedfordshire where the Celestial Light shines most brightly, the oldest house in England, in Huntingdonshire, the room in Rutland where the Gunpowder Plot may have been hatched, the burial place in Leicestershire of the last Plantagenet king, and George Washington’s ancestral home in Northamptonshire.

Link to some places to visit in this episode:

Visit Leicester

Sulgrave Manor Trust

The Manor, Hemingford Grey

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Christopher visits the birthplace of English song in Berkshire, Heaven on Earth in Oxfordshire, a country churchyard in Buckinghamshire where we have all the time in the world, the launch site in Middlesex for the first balloon flight over England and the exact spot in Hertfordshire where a young man made a momentous decision that changed the world for good.

Link to some places to visit in this episode:

Abbey Quarter

The Society of Antiquaries

Stoke Park

Honourable Artillery Company

Wadesmill, Hertfordshire

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Christopher visits a handsome village in Dorset resting place of a farmer whose enterprise, and whose wife, helped save millions of lives, the Devon landscape beloved of a Hollywood legend, the most perfect combination of sculpture and scenery you will ever find, in Cornwall, an enchanted Somerset combe that inspired great poetry and the Computer Age, and an ancient temple in Wiltshire restored with marmalade.

Link to some places to visit in this episode:

Visit Dorset

Visit Dartmoor

Tate

Visit Exmoor

English Heritage

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Christopher visits a mountain side house in Surrey where larks ascend, a desert in Kent where a famous film director lived out his final days, a beautiful ancient hilltop town in East Sussex, with an enviable literary heritage, the loveliest room in the world in a castle in West Sussex, the spot in Hampshire where a naval hero was felled in his moment of triumph, and a medieval space ship on the Isle of Wight.

Link to some places to visit in this episode:

National Trust (Leith Hill)

National Trust (Lamb House)

Arundel Castle

The Quarterdeck of HMS Victory

English Heritage

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In this feature length Christmas special Christopher goes in search of the Great British Christmas, discovering magical Christmas stories and fascinating Christmas facts from around the nation that shine a light on the origins and traditions of Britain’s favourite celebration.

List of places and Gazetteer

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