Category: Geography & Environment

The Lake District is in Cumbria and is a World Heritage Site. It is the second largest national park in the UK at 885 sq. miles and its many mountains, dales, lakes and reservoirs attract fifteen million tourists every year. The landscape, formed by glaciers in the last Ice Age, inspires artists, poets, writers and photographers.

It was the poet William Wordsworth’s ‘Guide to the District of the Lakes’ of 1810 which first caught the attention of the public and a programme of railway and road building followed. It has also been an area of valuable mining industries. Slate, copper, gypsum, iron-ore, graphite and coal have all been extracted.

Although it is called the ‘Lake District’ (or ‘Lakeland’), only one of its bodies of water has the word ‘Lake’ in its name ~ that being Bassenthwaite Lake. A few are called ‘-mere’ (Old English for ‘lake’), such as the largest lake of the District, Windermere. Many are called ‘-water’ and others ‘tarn’ (Old Norse for ‘small lake’).

(Image: Kate Jewell at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

The little robin is the national bird of the UK and has won this status for being an easily-recognisable, tame, cheery companion to British gardeners all round the country. It is very common to find a robin perched nearby when digging and turning the soil.

The ‘robin redbreast’ is so called for obvious reasons, with male and female adults looking very similar to each other. Robins eat insects mainly, but will not turn down a few cake crumbs or sunflower hearts. They may even eat these from your hand. Robins tend to hide away in the summer but are otherwise seen in all seasons, although a few do migrate to Spain or Portugal in winter, just like their human compatriots.

(Top image: Alan Cruickshank at Flickr.com / CC BY-ND 2.0)

There are almost 150 airports in the UK, of which 60 accommodate scheduled passenger airlines. The world’s oldest commercial airfield is at Brighton City Airport, which opened as ‘Shoreham Airfield‘ in 1910.

Of course, one of the world’s busiest airports is Heathrow in west London, which opened in 1946 as ‘London Airport’. In 2017, a total of 78 million passengers used its services, flying to and from 85 different countries.

Two more UK airports to change their names have been the Liverpool John Lennon Airport, which was re-branded in 2001 in honour of the Beatle who was murdered in New York in 1980; and the George Best Belfast City Airport, re-named in 2006 after the death in 2005 of Northern Ireland’s legendary footballer.

(Image: Tony Hisgett at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)

There are two types of seal found close to the British coastlines ~ the grey seal (or horsehead seal) and the harbour seal (or common seal). Both are found in the cold waters around Scotland and the east of England, and the smaller harbour seal is also found off west Wales and Cornwall.

They come ashore to rest on the beach and bask, and to give birth, but spend most of their time swimming in the sea, catching any type of fish that comes their way. They can submerge for up to half an hour.

They are protected by the Conservation of Seals Act 1970, so cannot be hunted in Britain. However, fish farmers may apply for a licence which allows them to shoot any seals that threaten their stocks. Nevertheless, any kind of culling is opposed by animal welfare groups and sealskin jackets, boots and other products have long since disappeared from UK shops.

(Image: Hugh Venables at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, England, was designated as a ‘New Town’ in 1967. Among the projects that this inspired was the 1978 open-air sculpture by Canadian Liz Leyh of six concrete cows, half the size of real ones. The three adults and three calves are hollow inside and have been vandalised by pranksters in various ways over the years, such as re-painting, beheading, the addition of extra parts and actual bodily theft.

The original cows are now in the Milton Keynes Museum. A replica set of five cows was built as a more long-term feature, as it was realised that they had become a famous landmark. These stand near to the A422 road.

(Image: G Laird at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Snowdonia is the name given to a group of mountains in north-west Wales, the tallest of which is the 3,560ft high Mount Snowdon. This is the second highest mountain on the UK mainland (after Ben Nevis) and it attracts many thousands of visitors every year. Snowdonia and its environs, which take in numerous lakes, waterfalls and forests, were designated a National Park in 1951 and its 530,000 acres make it the UK’s fourth largest.

In times past, the area’s main industry was slate mining but today it is tourism. Outdoor activities such as hiking, mountaineering, boat trips and riding the zip-line are on offer. There is also a train to the summit of Mount Snowdon for non-climbers.

(Top image: I Love Colour at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

The London Eye has become one of the must-see tourist attractions in the English capital. It was built for the new millenium and opened to the public on 9th March 2000 after a slight technical hitch. It is the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe, standing at 443 feet, and it sits on the banks of the River Thames in Lambeth.

The wheel has 32 pods or capsules and it rotates at a speed of just over 1/2 mph, giving passengers a fantastic aerial view over London with plenty of time for taking photos.  Tickets are best bought in advance and the Eye is open all year round except for a few weeks in January. It operates from 10am or 11am until 6pm or 8.30pm in summer.

(Top image: pixabay.com)

British Summer Time (BST) was an idea put forward by a wealthy businessman in Kent ~ William Willett (1856-1915) ~ who produced pamphlets and campaigned for a daylight saving scheme in the early 20th century. He suggested four weekly adjustments of 20 minutes each!

Willett’s complicated version was rejected, thankfully, but the principle remained somewhat valid at that time ~ that putting the clocks forward for summer, then back to normal for winter, would make the most of the available daylight, thereby saving coal and reducing accidents in the dark.

A year after Willett died, it was Germany who first put this into practice, during World War 1 in 1916, with a much simpler one-hour shift in one go. Britain did the same a few weeks later and has continued with it to this day. The north of the country experiences the effects the most and BST has been subject to various tweaks over the decades, with many people now wanting it to be abolished completely.

(Image: pixabay.com)

The Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol was initially designed by the celebrated engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, in 1830, when Brunel was only 24. Due to various financial problems, there were many interruptions to the building schedule and it eventually stopped with only the end towers completed.

Brunel died in 1859. Two other engineers ~ William Barlow (1812-1902) and Sir John Hawkshaw (1811-91) ~ brought the design up-to-date and the Institution of Civil Engineers raised enough money to have the bridge’s construction re-started. Chains from Brunel’s bridge at Hungerford, which was being demolished, were purchased for re-use and the Clifton Suspension Bridge was finally finished in 1864.

It is, perhaps, Bristol’s main tourist attraction. It is 702 feet long and 249 feet above the high-water level of the River Avon below.

(Image: John Winder at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

The first motorway in Britain was opened in 1959 and since then, the country has seen more motorways and more traffic than was ever envisaged. Smart motorways are an attempt to ease traffic flow in the most cost-effective way. However, they have a major downside.

Motorways generally have three lanes and a hardshoulder – a lane on the left for emergency use only, whose foundations are not designed for regular traffic. Since 2006 the Highways Agency has gradually been re-building hardshoulders in order to give four lanes for traffic without having to acquire extra land.

Stopping for emergencies is now restricted to ‘refuge areas’, provided the driver is lucky enough to be near one, as they are spaced 1.5 miles apart. The breakdown services, such as the RAC and the AA, will only come out to assist if you are parked in one of these refuge areas. They will not come to your rescue if you break down in a lane, as it is much too dangerous. Smart motorways are therefore a highly controversial introduction, requiring more Highways patrols and more surveillance cameras.

However, due to widely-expressed safety concerns, in 2023 the Government directed the Highways Agency to cancel the roll-out of more smart motorways.

(Top image: Department of Transport at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)