Bruce Castle is a Grade I listed 16th-century manor house in Lordship Lane, Tottenham, London. It is named after the House of Bruce who formerly owned the land on which it is built. Believed to lie on the site of an earlier building, about which little is known, the current house is one of the oldest surviving English brick houses. It was remodelled in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The house has been home to Sir William Compton, Richard Sackville, the Barons Coleraine and Sir Rowland Hill, among others. After serving as a school during the 19th century, when a large extension was built to the west, it was converted into a museum exploring the history of the areas which constitute the present London Borough of Haringey and the history of the postal service. The building also houses the archives of the London Borough of Haringey. Since 1892 the grounds have been a public park, Tottenham's oldest. The building was Grade I listed in 1949 and the 17th-century southern and western boundary walls of the park were Grade II listed in 1974. In 1969, the castle additionally became home to the regimental museum of the Middlesex Regiment. (Full article...)
Samuel Johnson was an English author. Beginning as a Grub Street journalist, he made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and political conservative, and has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". His early works include the biography The Life of Richard Savage, the poems London and The Vanity of Human Wishes, and the play Irene. After nine years of work, Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755; it had a far-reaching impact on Modern English and has been described as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". His later works included essays, an influential annotated edition of William Shakespeare's plays, and the widely read novel Rasselas. In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland; Johnson described their travels in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, a collection of biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets. (Full article...)
Image 2Mo Farah is the most successful British track athlete in modern Olympic Games history, winning the 5000 m and 10,000 m events at two Olympic Games. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 5The Christmas Pantomime 1890. Pantomime plays a prominent role in British culture during the Christmas and New Year season. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 18Music hall evolved into variety shows. First performed in 1912, the Royal Variety Performance was first held at the London Palladium (pictured) in 1941. Performed in front of members of the Royal Family, it is held annually in December and broadcast on television. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 37King Edward's Chair in Westminster Abbey. A 13th-century wooden throne on which the British monarch sits when he or she is crowned at the coronation, swearing to uphold the law and the church. The monarchy is apolitical and impartial, with a largely symbolic role as head of state. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 44The Notting Hill Carnival is Britain's biggest street festival. Led by members of the British African-Caribbean community, the annual carnival takes place in August and lasts three days. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 49The Oxford Union debate chamber. Called the "world's most prestigious debating society", the Oxford Union has hosted leaders and celebrities. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 55Emmeline Pankhurst. Named one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century by Time, Pankhurst was a leading figure in the suffragette movement. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 57King Alfred the Great statue in Winchester, Hampshire. The 9th-century English king encouraged education in his kingdom, and proposed that primary education be taught in English, with those wishing to advance to holy orders to continue their studies in Latin. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 58The Beatles are the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed band in popular music, with estimated sales of over one billion.
Image 74William III and Mary II Presenting the Cap of Liberty to Europe, 1716, Sir James Thornhill. Enthroned in heaven with the Virtues behind them are the royals William and Mary who had taken the throne after the Glorious Revolution and signed the English Bill of Rights of 1689. William tramples on arbitrary power and hands the red cap of liberty to Europe where, unlike Britain, absolute monarchy stayed the normal form of power execution. Below William is the French king Louis XIV. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
Image 78Cricketer W. G. Grace, with his long beard and MCC cap, was the most famous British sportsman in the Victorian era. (from Culture of the United Kingdom)
World War I was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel participated, making it one of the largest wars in history. An estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilians died as a direct result of the war with losses exacerbated by technological developments and the tactical stalemate caused by trench warfare(pictured). The war is also considered a contributory factor in a number of genocides and the 1918 influenza epidemic, which caused between 50 and 100 million deaths worldwide. Unresolved rivalries at the end of the conflict contributed to the outbreak of World War II about twenty years later.
A map of the Battle of Jutland, a naval battle fought by the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet against the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The only full-scale clash of battleships in the war, the Germans intended it to lure out, trap and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, as the German naval force was insufficient to openly engage the entire British fleet. Fourteen British and eleven German ships were sunk, and more than 8,000 people were killed. Both sides claimed victory, and dispute over the significance of the battle continues to this day.
The National Gallery at night, illuminated for an event to promote the launch of a Pepsi commercial.
The National Gallery in London is an art gallery designed by William Wilkins. It holds part of the National Collection, particularly Western European art from 1250 to 1900. The collection of 2300 paintings belongs to the British public.
The "Hampden" portrait of Elizabeth I of England was painted by the Flemish artist Steven van der Meulen in the mid to late 1560s. Art historian Sir Roy Strong has suggested that this is "one of a group produced in response to a crisis over the production of the royal image" as a number of old-fashioned and unflattering portraits of the queen were then in circulation. This is the earliest full-length (2 m or 7 ft tall) portrait of the young queen, and depicts her in red satin trimmed with pearls and jewels. It represents a phase in the portraiture of Elizabeth I before the emergence of allegorical images representing the iconography of the "Virgin Queen". In November 2007 it was auctioned by Sotheby's for ₤2.6 million, more than twice the maximum predicted.
A diagram of movement within a roundabout in a country where traffic drives on the left.
A roundabout is a type of road junction, or traffic calming device, at which traffic streams circularly around a central island after first yielding to the circulating traffic. Unlike with traffic circles, vehicles on a roundabout have priority over the entering vehicle, parking is not allowed and pedestrians are usually prohibited from the central island.
Beachy Head is a chalk headland on the south coast of England, close to the town of Eastbourne in the county of East Sussex. The cliff there is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising to 162 m (530 ft) above sea level. The peak allows views of the south east coast from Dungeness to the east, to Selsey Bill in the west.