Category: Geography & Environment

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)

In Britain, we like to think of ourselves as ‘animal lovers’ and there are many organisations that are devoted to the care and conservation of domesticated and wild animals. One exampe is the Wildlife Aid Foundation (WAF).

This is a charity that was set up by Simon Cowell, from his home in Leatherhead, Surrey, as a ‘hobby’ back in 1980. It now admits around 20,000 injured or sick wildlife animals each year and has more than three hundred volunteers working in various roles. It has also had its own TV programme for a number of years and has earned Simon a well-deserved MBE!

Animals and birds of all kinds can be taken in and cared for in the WAF hospital while they recover. Simon and his rescue team will also come and free animals from precarious situations, such as being stuck in wire netting. Once they are certain that the animal or bird is fit and healthy, they release it back into the wild, as in this video of Simon with a buzzard, from the WAF YouTube channel:

(Top image: Twitter.com)

The UK, Great Britain, the British Isles, England… these are not just different names for the same landmass! The differences are illustrated below:-

• The British Isles refers to all of the islands, including the country of Ireland.
• The United Kingdom‘s full name is ‘the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’ and its abbreviation is ‘the UK’.
• Great Britain comprises England, Wales and Scotland (not Northern Ireland) and ‘Great’ is often omitted informally.
• England is the largest by size and population of the four constituent nations of the UK.

If this seems confusing for you non-Brits, be assured that even many of those born and raised here are not entirely sure of their own geography! Sad but true.

(Top image: pixabay.com)

Ascension Island, grouped with St. Helena and Tristan de Cunha islands, is one of fourteen British ‘overseas territories’. It is the tip of an underwater volcanic system in tropical mid-Atlantic, naturally arid with almost no native vegetation, and was once home to millions of sea birds.

The British were the first people to settle there in 1815 and Charles Darwin (1809-82) visited in 1836. His friend, the botanist Sir James Hooker (1817-1911) made his own trip there in 1843 and on his recommendation, trees and shrubs started to be imported from 1850 onwards in order to make settlement more feasible.

Today, the Island is dominated by a USA military airbase along with various tracking, transmitting and listening stations. In 1982 the Island suddenly hosted an immense increase in traffic, both airborne and maritime, when it became a stopping-off and refuelling point for those involved in the Falklands Conflict.

There is so much that is strange about this island, as this BBC article explains. It is not currently possible to fly to Ascension as a tourist other than from Johannesburg via St. Helena once a month and with a valid entry permit.

(Top image: Jerrye & Roy Klotz MD at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0)