Millbrook Vehicle Proving Ground, Bedfordshire

In the mid 1960s Vauxhall Motors and Bedford decided that whilst the new and almost deserted M1 motorway close to Luton presented some good testing opportunities a better policy for future vehicle development was to build a dedicated Proving Ground.

A task force scoured the UK for a suitable site with the pre-requisite of being both flat and hilly thus ruling out many former airfields. The Millbrook site was located and a clone of the North American General Motors Proving Grounds was designed and built in Bedforshire.

Half Day Off Road

Ferry Cross the Mersey

The River Mersey is internationally famous thanks to the music of the 1960s known as Merseybeat and its strong association with Liverpool, which produced songs such as "Ferry Across The Mersey".

Mersey Beat

GCHQ, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation which reports to the Foreign Secretary and works closely with the UK's other intelligence agencies (commonly known as MI5 and MI6).

GCHQ moved to Cheltenham in 1952. The local residents referred to it as 'the Foreign Office' for many years and were discreet about the secret organisation in their midst which was still largely unheard of outside Whitehall and the Cotswolds.

GCHQ made a major breakthrough in the field of secure communications in 1973 when it developed what is now known as public-key encryption.

A Conflict of Loyalties: GCHQ 1984-1991

Kielder Water, Northumberland

Tucked away at the top of Northumberland, close to the Scottish Border and Hadrian's Wall, beautiful Kielder Water is the largest man-made lake in Europe.

The lake is owned by Northumbrian Water, and holds 200 billion litres of water to ensure the people and industry of North East England always have enough for their needs. Local tourist literature claims that if every person on Earth had their own toilet, each one could be flushed five times and still not enough water would have been used to empty Kielder Water.
(Thanks to mmChronic)

High In The Sky-Northumberland

London Eye, London

The London Eye has become, quite literally, the way the world sees London. It is one of the most spectacular and popular attractions in the world, drawing visitors from far and wide.is

Originally conceived by architects David Marks and Julia Barfield as an entry for a millennium landmark competition, the London Eye project took six years and the expertise of hundreds of people from five European countries to turn it into a reality. It is shown here during construction lying on its side over the river Thames.

London 360 Degrees

Castle Howard, Yorkshire

Castle Howard is a magnificent 18th Century house with extensive collections and breathtaking parkland and gardens.

Between 1979 and 1981, Castle Howard was the main location for the filming of Granada Television's adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. Although it is not certain that Waugh identified his Brideshead with Castle Howard, for many people, these two places have come to epitomise nostalgia for pre-war England.


Brideshead Revisited

Leeds Castle, Kent

Leeds Castle, set in 500 acres of parkland in the midst of the Kent countryside, takes it name not from the city of Leeds but from its first owner, a man named Leed, or Ledian, who built himself a wooden castle in 857. The first stone castle was built in 1119 on an island in the lake, and was later rebuilt and extended by Edward I, who added a set of outer walls, a barbican and the 'gloriette', a D shaped tower built on the smallest of the two islands in the lake.

The castle was a royal residence for six of England's medieval queens and a palace of Henry VIII. Much of the castle was restored and rebuilt in the 19th century, and many of the lavishly decorated rooms are open to the public.

Best of Britain's Castles