The Guide Spring 2016 by MYPEC

the SPRING 2016

GUIDE A GUIDE TO BRITAIN FROM BRITAIN’S BEST GUIDES

THE REAL BEALE ACTOR SIMON RUSSELL BEALE ON SHAKESPEARE

THE STORY OF BRITISH THEATRE • OSCAR WILDE IN LONDON • THE RUINED ABBEYS OF YORKSHIRE • LEGENDS, LIES AND LORE

Contents 4

News Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary; 150 years of London’s Blue Plaques; pioneering photography; Queen Victoria’s romantic intrigue

Interview Actor Simon Russell Beale on the challenges of playing Shakespeare Philippa Owen, Chair to the British Guild of Tourist Guides

14 Legends, Lies and Lore Fact and fiction from British history

A WARM WELCOME TO ‘THE GUIDE’...

16 Play On Comedy, tragedy and fighting in the stalls – Marc Zakian looks at the history of British theatre

26 Tour de Force Two Blue Badge guides tell us about their tours: Oscar Wilde’s life in London and the abbeys of North Yorkshire

34 My Favourite… Blue Badge Guides on engine houses, skate nights and a classic view of Cambridge

Editor: Marc Zakian E: marczakian@blueyonder.co.uk

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Editorial Assistance: Mark King

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ENGLAND

LONDON

WALES

NORTHERN IRELAND

SCOTLAND

GREEN BADGE

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Welcome to the Spring issue of The Guide. This issue is dedicated to theatre, as this year the whole country will be marking the 400th anniversary since William Shakespeare’s death. Stratford-upon-Avon, where he died on April 23 – his presumed birthday – will be marking his passing in a series of events that include a new exhibition at New Place – his final home. I find it ironic that in the 18th century New Place’s owner deliberately pulled down the house that once belonged to Shakespeare, his irritation being with too many tourists wanting to see and touch the mulberry tree said to have been planted by the great man himself. As exciting as anything in this commemorative year will be the opening to visitors of young Shakespeare’s schoolroom and Guildhall. Drawing on the Classics and Rhetoric he studied there, our English language has been enriched and stretched beyond all measure. The great actor Simon Russell Beale will be playing Prospero this November in the RSC’s production of The Tempest in the ‘Shakespeare 400’ season. In an interview with Sophie Campbell, he tells us about his preparation for the role and his fascination for the Bard. We explore the wider aspects of British drama with stories of our great actors and writers, as well as notable productions that have established our world-class theatre culture. All this is uncovered in Marc Zakian’s article on the history of stage. In this issue, Blue Badge guide, David Thompson takes you on a walk with Oscar Wilde, now acknowledged as one of our most loved playwrights. Wilde’s memorial was only added to the beautiful east-facing window of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey in the 1990s, long after his death. Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey is a Valhalla for many of our greatest writers and a few who were great once but now long forgotten. The Dean of Westminster Abbey chooses who should be honoured and that in itself gives a fascinating insight into taste and fashions. And talking of fine religious buildings, just in time for Spring, guide Sarah Cowling takes us on a visit to Yorkshire’s ruined monasteries, a stunning historic landscape I urge you to visit. If you have been inspired by our magazine, I hope you will book a Blue Badge tourist guide to take you on one of the tours you’ve read about.

NEWS History, Culture and Events New Place

Your Bard

Henrietta Ferguson, Blue Badge Guide

BLUE BADGE TOURIST GUIDES Blue Badge Tourist Guides are the official, professional tourist guides of the United Kingdom – recognised by the local tourist bodies and VisitBritain. The Blue Badge is the UK’s highest guiding qualification, awarded only after extensive training and thorough examination. There are over 1000 Blue Badge Guides in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – each region has its own badge. We guide in all the UK’s major tourist attractions, as well as its cities and countryside. The Blue Badge is the qualification of excellence in heritage guiding.

In 2014 Guild guides worked with over 1.5 million UK visitors The British Guild of Tourist Guides is the national association of Britain’s Blue Badge guides. Since its foundation in 1950, the Guild has dedicated itself to raising and maintaining the highest professional standards. Our guides work in the UK’s museums, galleries, churches and lead walking, cycling and driver-guided tours throughout the country. Our members work in over 30 different languages. If it can be guided, we will guide it.

To find out more or to book: +44 207 403 1115 guild@blue-badge.org.uk www.britainsbestguides.org

This year marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. Stratford-upon-Avon – the town where he was born, schooled, died and is buried – is celebrating the writer with a series of projects. In April, the Schoolroom and Guildhall will open. The 15th century Guildhall has been restored with a lottery grant, providing public access to the schoolroom where young William learned to read and write. An exhibition will detail Tudor school life, evoking the writer’s own image of the schoolboy ‘creeping like a snail unwillingly to school’. The public opening provides the missing link in the story of William

Shakespeare in Stratford. The site of New Place – Shakespeare’s Stratford home that was demolished in 1759 by irascible clergyman Francis Gastrell – is being re-displayed for the anniversary. The foundations of the kitchens and cellars will be on view for the first time and the sunken Knot Garden will be restored to the original design alongside the Great Garden. Opening in June, this attraction features a dynamic new exhibition that follows Shakespeare’s life in his Stratford home. For a Blue Badge Shakespeare tour in Stratford visit: www.britainsbestguides.org

Shakespeare’s Schoolroom & Guildhall

A PICTURE OF THE PAST

Fox Talbot, 1846 © National Media Museum, Bradford

London’s Science Museum is telling the story of William Henry Fox Talbot, a pioneer of photography. The exhibition charts the life of the man who, during the 1830s, created the first working photographic negative, as well as inventing the science of developing and printing images. By drawing on one of the world’s most comprehensive and important collections of Talbot’s work, this exhibition tells the story of how photography was born and how it changed the way we see the world. Fox Talbot: Dawn of the Photograph at the Science Museum from April 20 to September 11. You can also visit his family home and museum at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire.

from around the UK

A Sign of the Times

ITV’S YOUNG VIC

A national broadcaster is filming an ambitious eight-part drama following the early life of Queen Victoria. The series follows the monarch from her accession to the throne aged 18, through to her courtship and marriage to Prince Albert. Jenna Coleman, best known for her starring role in Dr Who, takes the part of Victoria. The early episodes explore the queen’s relationship with the raffish Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne (played by Rufus Sewell). Their close relationship became a popular source of gossip that threatened to destabilise the Government. It is the first drama to be filmed in the

newly opened Yorkshire Studios. Exterior locations include the grand 18th century stately home, Castle Howard and the minster school yard in York. The series will air later this year on ITV, opening with a 90-minute special and followed by seven one-hour episodes. Based on the diaries Victoria kept as a teenager, according to producers it will ‘explore the scandal, corruption and romantic intrigue, involving everyone from the humblest dresser to the Mistress of the Robes, the lowliest bootboy to the Lord Chamberlain’. ITV are hoping that it will be the popular successor to Downton Abbey.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of London’s Blue Plaque scheme. In 1866 the Royal Society of Arts started to place commemorative plaques on buildings across the capital. The roundels are now part of the urban landscape, highlighting famous but unlikely neighbours: Jimi Hendrix lived next door to GF Handel (separated by one wall and three centuries) while George Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf both lived at the same address a few years apart. The oldest surviving plaque dates from 1867, commemorating Emperor Napoleon III on his former residence in King Street, Westminster. The oldest plaque to a woman is for writer Fanny Burney, whose 1885 plaque is at 11 Bolton Street, Mayfair. There are now more than 800 commemorations across the capital. English Heritage took over the running of the London Blue Plaque scheme in 1986. There was a pause in 2013 due to government cuts, but now the scheme survives thanks to donations. Nominations for recognition come from members of the public. English Heritage is marking the anniversary with a series of events on May 7 and 8. Tour London’s Blue Plaques with a Blue Badge Guide: www.britainsbestguides.org

Castle Howard

News

Costume Drama At this year’s BAFTA ceremony, the award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema went to world’s oldest theatrical and film costumier, Angels. Morris Angel opened his secondhand clothing and tailor’s shop near Covent Garden in 1840. Its proximity to London’s theatres made it popular with actors – who at that time had to buy their own costumes. When a thrift-minded thespian came in hoping to ‘borrow’ some clothes, a theatrical hiring business was born. 175 years later, Angels is the largest

Seventh-generation family boss, Tim Angel

professional costume house in the world. Their giant warehouse in north London boasts eight miles of rails, storing one million items of clothing that has featured in famous films, including: James Bond, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Harry Potter. For Shakespeare in Love, Angels dressed over a thousand extras in Elizabethan costumes. During the filming of Evita Madonna became pregnant, and they had to remodel her dresses to cover up the bump. When Robert De Niro was playing

Frankenstein he couldn’t do a fitting, so he sent over a body cast. The company is led by its seventhgeneration family boss, Tim Angel. Two decades ago he opened a fancy dress store on Shaftsbury Avenue, close to Morris’s original tailor shop. Some of the items hired to the public are from original film stock, so party goers can find themselves wearing original outfits from the Spice Girls Movie or Kevin Costner’s jerkin from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Apparently politicians and royalty are regular customers.

Inspirational home of the Brontë family Set against the stunning Yorkshire moors, the Brontë Parsonage Museum houses the world’s largest collection of Brontë manuscripts, furniture and personal possessions. Visits by groups of 10+ can be tailored to suit a particular interest. Please contact us and we will be happy to suggest a talk, walk or special tour that will bring your visit to life. OUR 2016 EXHIBITION:

Charlotte Great and Small During 2016 we will be marking the bicentenary of the birth of Charlotte Brontë with a special exhibition curated by best-selling author Tracy Chevalier. This will be supported by a full programme of other celebratory events. Keep in touch with the latest news at www.bronte.org.uk.

Haworth, Keighley West Yorkshire BD22 8DR 01535 642323 www.bronte.org.uk Open November-March 10am-5pm daily, April-October 10am-5.30pm. Last tickets sold 30 minutes before closing. Closed during January. Honorary Patron: Sarah Lancashire Reg Charity: 529952 Reg Company: 73855

10 Gr sci

Sp o n s

Interview: Simon Russell Beale www.britainsbestguides.org

Beale in King Lear at the National Theatre ÂŠ Mark Douet/ArenaPal

Actor Simon Russell Beale talks to Sophie Campbell about his passion for the Bard

SIMON’S SHAKESPEARE “I don’t know exactly how The Tempest is going to work,” said Simon Russell Beale,“I must give the director a ring.” The actor, who so effortlessly commands the massive stage of the Olivier and holds enormous audiences rapt, was tucked into the very smallest corner table in his favourite hotel in Covent Garden, drawing on an e-cigarette and ignoring a plate of tiny pastries on the table. He was talking about his role as Prospero this coming November, in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s final production of its Shakespeare 400 season, celebrating four centuries since the playwright’s death. You may have seen the posters of the actor’s face, luminous, staring out of a background of digital blue. Gregory Doran is the director in question. Russell Beale is working with him on The Imaginarium and has already been to the performance capture studio in Ealing to have his face and body measured so they can ‘digitise’ the actor. “Gregory rather cleverly sent me an email about trying to find the modern equivalent of the 17th century masque,” he says.“The idea is to recapture the concept but not the reality – we’ll never know exactly what form they took. ”The email was clever because it piqued Russell Beale’s interest during a year when he is more in demand than ever as a leading classical actor and one of our finest Shakespearians.

“Actually, I find The Tempest a very cold play,” he remarks.“I think it reflects Prospero as a control freak, high-handed to say the least. Shakespeare was dealing with old age, and assessing the end of life. ” But he knows that Doran’s production will be a digital and acting spectacle, an assault on the senses, and that does intrigue him. He also believes in a flexible approach to the Shakespearean canon; he doesn’t feel the plays should be set in stone. Some time ago he found himself doing a season of plays for the former director of the Globe Theatre, Dominic Dromgoole. He realised he was speaking words he didn’t really understand.“The word ‘grece’, for example, means ‘step’,” he explained. “Nobody knows that, and I thought, hang on, Shakespeare’s a genius, but he’s not God. So I changed it to ‘step’ and nobody noticed. I didn’t tell Dominic. He’s much stricter than I am. But many people only come to see a particular Shakespeare play once and my job is to communicate it clearly. Fortunately it’s a very malleable text.” Simon Russell Beale was born in 1961 in the Federation of Malaya. Both his parents were doctors. His father was in the army and travelled widely with his wife and six children, so Russell Beale boarded at St Paul’s Choir School in London, as his father had before him. He also followed him to Clifton College in Bristol and to Gonville and Caius College at

Interview: Simon Russell Beale

Simon Russell Beale and Sam Mendes, BBC Shakespeare Festival 2016 © BBC/Guy Levy

Cambridge. There their paths diverged: instead of becoming a medic, he went to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. “I remember having to read the ‘Dogs of War’ speech from Julius Caesar at choir school,” he said,“I don’t think I was shy, but I wasn’t musically very St Paul’s Cathedral Choir School

competent. Suddenly, the headmaster gave me this speech and I remember thinking ‘wow, I like this, this fits very well.’” His first stage part was Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, wearing an ivory and gold dress made for him by his formidable grandmother, who would come to take him out from school every fortnight. He played Desdemona in Othello at Clifton and his talent was noted by his English teacher.“Weirdly, he was always rather sneery about actors and he hated the RSC – though he thought Alec Guinness’s Macbeth was good and he loved Guys & Dolls. When my parents came after exams he said: ‘He must do English,’ and then, ‘I wonder if Simon has ever considered a career in the theatre?’” In the end it was the RSC that transformed his career. First he captured audiences’ hearts in a series of often outrageously camp comic roles. Then, in the early 1990s, he received spectacular reviews for his performance as Konstantin in Chekov’s The Seagull and went on to work with the rising young director Sam Mendes, then based at the RSC, later founder of the Donmar Warehouse.

Since 1995, he has been a regular at the Royal National Theatre and has tackled an incredible range of roles in a variety of media. He made such a memorable Widmerpool in the Channel 4 film of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time that the Anthony Powell Society made him its president; he cantered the stage as King Arthur in the Monty Python spoof Spamalot; and nailed the role of George Smiley, John Le Carré’s anti-hero, in the radio series The Complete Smiley. When did he know he was more than a jobbing actor?“I don’t know when I first realised that people were coming to see me,” he replied,“I think perhaps the stuff I did with Sam Mendes… there have been moments

Since 1995, he has been a regular at the Royal National Theatre and has tackled an incredible range of roles in a variety of media

Washington DC, the largest repository of Shakespeare material in the world. All of which reinforces his reputation as a formidably intelligent performer, who describes himself as ‘an academic manqué’. He is too modest to mention his First Class degree in English from Cambridge. When I met Russell Beale, he was tired at the end of a successful run of Mr Foote’s Other Leg in the West End, ready for a few days off before a hectic year of Shakespearean events, including curating the BBC’s website for Shakespeare’s birthday on April 23 (though the material will be accessible until the end of the year.) He was deciding between chilling down in London, which he has grown to love almost as much as his home county of Wiltshire, or escaping for a short break. Did it ever get to him, the relentless pace of theatre? “The thing is,” he said, “you can’t say ‘could you just give me five minutes? 7.30, that’s it, you’re on stage. I have occasionally thought ‘I could walk out’. But only occasionally.” And taking another drag on his e-cigarette, he finally gives in to a tiny pastry.

Richard Eyre and Simon Russell Beale Photos: Nobby Clark

when things really changed – when I played Konstantin, or during the Season of Fops at the RSC. But I never feel safe. And that’s not actorly hyperbole.” Meanwhile he has dabbled in Shakespearean tourism, dragging his personal trainer, who is a friend, on a walk around Shakespearean London and is fascinated by the Rose Theatre in Southwark. Though, to his embarrassment, he has never visited Anne Hathaway’s cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon. “Isn’t that terrible?” he said, rolling his eyes, “But I have been to the birthplace and the Visitor Centre, which is next door. I am a Shakespeare anorak, so I loved it.” His anorakdom includes a fascination with the printing and production of the plays: “Why was Troilus & Cressida not available for the First Folio? Did they put in Timon of Athens instead? Why is the first quarter of Hamlet such a mess?” He is intrigued by David Garrick and the other great 18th and 19th century Shakespearean actors; he has made a documentary on the First Folio and is a governor of the Folger Library in

Joseph Millson, Simon Russell Beale and Dervla Kirwan in Mr Foote’s Other Leg

Interview: Simon Russell Beale www.britainsbestguides.org

“Actually, I find The Tempest a very cold play,” he remarks.“I think it reflects Prospero as a control freak, high-handed to say the least” The Tempest Royal Shakespeare Company

off the rails

During the early da ys of the railways in the 1840s, third-class carriages were open-topped. Poorer travellers would ge t wet in the rain an d were blasted with steam and soot in tunnels . To stop them sneaking into second or first class there were no corridors betwee n carriages, so guar ds had to pass along the train outside on the runn ing board.

Money in the Kitty The 18th century courtesan Kitty Fisher is known as our first female ‘celebrity’. She gave pictures of herself to potential lovers concealed in the lid of a snuffbox. In 1759 she became the talk of London when she fell off a horse in St James’s Park and was revealed not to be wearing underwear. When the Italian diplomat and seducer Casanova visited London he witnessed Fisher eating a thousand-guinea bank note on a slice of bread and butter. Legend has it that the nursery rhyme ‘Lucy Locket lost her pocket/Kitty Fisher found it’ refers to a spat she had with a rival prostitute.

LEGE

PORKY DINE

pig’s trotter. Not any trotter, but the The food fad of the Ancient Britons was a ritual that continued for centuries. porker’s right foreleg – a mysterious food Age site in Glamorgan have shown this Thousands of animal bones found at an Iron excavated were of pigs’ right front legs, s curious pattern. Three-quarters of pig bone must have been an ancient super snack. leading archaeologists to conclude that it

LOT of

STONES

In 1915 Cecil Chubb went to a public auction in Salisbury. His wife had sent him to buy dining chairs but instead he bought Lot 15 – Stonehenge. Chubb purchased the ancient monument for £6,600, possibly as a romantic gesture to his wife. The more likely explanation is that he wanted to keep the monument in local hands, stating that he thought a ‘Salisbury man ought to buy it’. Chubb gifted Stonehenge to the nation at the end of World War One.

LIE FACTS AND

NDS

ES,

BOTTOM FEEDER Off London’s Strand, on Carting Lane, is a lamp built to be powered by sewage from the Savoy Hotel. This is the city’s only remaining example of a Webb Patent Sewer Gas Lamp. Today it uses mains gas, however a flue from the Savoy’s sewers used to pipe the hotel’s waste gases to the lamp on 'Farting Lane'. The current version is a replica.

AND

No Space

Invaders The Outer Space Act of 1986 allows magistrates to issue warrants against invading aliens, unless they have a licence to invade.

Baa Codes

Sheep recognise members of their flock. A team of British scientists have shown that sheep can remember at least 50 of their friends’ woolly faces.

Y R O T IS H H IS IT R B M O FR N IO T FIC

Feature Les Miserables, The Barricade. Photo: Johan Persson

Marc Zakian looks at the history of British theatre

PLAY ON

www.britainsbestguides.org

CURTAIN UP

Modern British theatre was born in Elizabethan London. In 1576, in a little-known parish on the edge of the City, a wooden building was nailed into place. This was England’s first playhouse, the Theatre, a new home for acting and entertainment and the forefather of every stage ever built in Britain. Londoners loved their new playhouse. They were not short of entertainments – public hangings, taverns, bawdy houses and bear baiting – but the theatres eclipsed them all. New stages shot up around the city, packing in any punter prepared to part with a penny. By

1600, some 20,000 people a day went to see the plays, one in ten of the city’s population. The theatres launched England’s first celebrities: tragedian Richard Burbage, comedian Will Kempe and writers Will Shakespeare and his rival Kit Marlowe – said to have been a spy who faked his death and went into hiding. The more Londoners loved the theatre, the more the city officials hated it. They denounced playhouses as breeding grounds for ‘vagrants and whoremongers’ – not entirely without reason, Philip Henslowe, owner of the Rose Theatre, also ran a

brothel – places for ‘corrupting youth and lewd and ungodly practices’. The Puritans’ attempts to close the playhouses were thwarted by theatreloving royals, who patronised acting companies and paid them to entertain at court. But in 1649 the king was beheaded and Protector Oliver Cromwell took charge. Actors were condemned as paid liars and ‘rogues and vagabonds’. Stages were demolished, players whipped and anybody caught witnessing a performance fined five shillings. A two-decade long interval curtain fell on the business of show.

Bankside, the Th ameside setting fo r the Rose, Globe and Swan theatre s, was home to the ‘Winchester Geese’, prostitut es who plied their trade from brothe ls on land owned by the Bish op of Winchester. Stan ding on the shoreline, they wa ved in potential clients, arms turning like the necks of geese.

d by s were playe Female role re’s ea p es ak in Sh young boys lads became time. These d -dressers an skilled cross le to hand their ability ’s skirts on en m heavy wo s the term stage gave u ’. ‘drag queen

Marlowe

The Globe Theatre

An Elizabethan theatre

The more Londoners loved the theatre, the more the city officials hated it 17

Feature

Charles II © National Portrait Gallery

FIT FOR A KING

King Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660. One of his first acts was to grant royal patents for the performance of plays. Writers rushed to devise work for the newly licensed playhouses. In Shakespeare’s time theatre had played to both commoner and noble, but Restoration drama was to become the preserve of aristocrats and the wealthy. Congreve, Dryden and their contemporaries populated plays with characters the audience would recognise, telling stories of society shenanigans, rakish behaviour and courtly cuckolds. Women had been banned from performing in Tudor and early Stuart England, with female roles played by boy actors; this led to a series of mishaps involving boys appearing in drag. One such incident occurred when a performance Charles II was watching stopped unexpectedly. The king sent servants backstage who

William Con greve is a muc h (mis)quoted Re storation writer . He has left us seve ral well-know n sayings, includ ing: ‘Music ha s charms to soot he a savage breast’, ‘heave n has no rage like love to ha tred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorne d’, and ‘o fie, miss, you m ust not kiss and te ll’.

Nell Gwynne © National Portrait Gallery

discovered that the actor playing the main female part was still shaving. So, in 1662 Charles issued a royal warrant declaring that all women’s roles should only be played by females. The Merry Monarch loved the theatre, and he loved its actresses even more.

NELL GWYNNE

‘Pretty, witty Nell’, as diarist Samuel Pepys dubbed her, has been called England’s first female celebrity. Born into poverty, her mother drowned while drunk in a ditch near Westminster. Nell became a folk heroine, the Restoration rags-toriches Cinderella who began work as an ‘orange girl’ selling fruit in the King’s Playhouse. A year later she was acting at Drury Lane. She was reputed to have been illiterate, which makes the task of learning roles in some 50 plays a year extraordinary. The love affair between Charles and the actress began in 1668 when Gwynne was watching a play. In the next box sat the king, more interested in Nell than the performance. Charles invited her to dine, along with his brother James. After supper, the royals discovered they had no money to pay and Gwynne had to foot the bill.“Od’s fish!” she exclaimed, imitating the king,“but this is the poorest company I ever was in!” Gwynne became the king’s ‘official mistress’, soon bearing two sons by him. Legend says that one day Charles called on Nell and she summoned her eldest by yelling: “Come here, you little bastard, and say hello to your

father.”When the king protested at her coarseness, she replied,“your Majesty has given me no other name by which to call him.” Charles immediately titled the little boy Earl of Burford. Nell retired from the stage aged 21 and was gifted houses close by the royal palaces in Windsor and at Pall Mall. Charles’s deathbed wish was: “Let not poor Nelly starve”. King James II honoured his brother by paying Gwynne’s debts and awarding her a pension of £1,500 pounds a year, equivalent to £10 million in today’s money.

APHRA BEHN

Behn was Britain’s first female playwright and one of the first women to earn her living by writing. Like Gwynne, she was the daughter of a poor family and rose from obscurity to attract the attention of King Charles II. Employed as a spy, under the code name Agent 160 she travelled to the Netherlands with instructions to turn an enemy agent for the Crown. The mission left her bankrupt and, after a short period in debtor’s prison, she started writing for money. Behn wrote and staged 19 plays, as many as the most popular male writers of the time. Her most famous, The Rover, is a comedy of Englishmen adventuring in Italy, featuring nuns, courtesans and jilting wenches. She published under several pseudonyms, including Mrs Bean and Astrea. Behn is buried in Westminster Abbey, not in Poets’ Corner, but outside in the East Cloister.

Vanbrugh was a man of extraordinarily broad talents. He was the architect of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard, an MP and political activist involved in the plot to overthrow James II and playwright behind several of the Restoration’s most popular, but radical plays. The Provoked Wife, first staged in 1697, is the story of a wife trapped in an abusive marriage who wants to leave her husband and take a lover. The play’s liberal attitude to women’s status outraged some sections of Restoration society.

A SERIOUS STAGE

Libertine theatre of the ‘Merry Monarch’s’ England gave way to censorious drama in the early 1700s. Managers avoided new plays, fearful of prosecution for staging work that was not ‘morally instructive’. One show bucked this trend. The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay premiered in 1728, becoming the most popular stage production of its time. It was the first drama to mix dialogue and popular songs, creating the genre of the musical. The opera satirised politics, poverty and corruption.

SIR JOHN VANBRUGH

Sir John Vanbrugh © Gabrielle Enthoven Collection

The Beggar’s Opera

Aphra Behn © Victoria & Albert Museum

r Prime Ministe a is on er am David C of nt de en sc direct de IV King William s es tr ac e th d an a Dorothe Jordan.

One of its targets was Prime Minister Robert Walpole. The PM was outraged and in 1737 responded by introducing The Licensing Act which authorised the Lord Chamberlain to censor or ban plays. This act remained in place until 1968.

STAGE FIGHTS

Elizabethan playgoers were more like football hooligans: shouting, drinking, pissing and brawling their way through performances. The Georgian audience was equally rowdy. There were only two London theatres licenced for plays and when the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane burned David Garrick down in 1809, the playhouse in Covent © National Portrait Gallery, London Garden increased its ticket prices. Riots broke out during a performance and people refused to leave, so the Bow Edmund Kean Street police were called. This simply © National Portrait Gallery, London inflamed the situation and protests continued until 2am. Rioting continued for 64 days. At one point, a coffin was carried in bearing the message ‘here lies the body of the new price’. The theatre manager hired celebrated boxer Daniel Mendoza to calm the crowds. This tactic misfired, infuriating the mob until finally the old prices were reinstated. Even the royal family indulged in the occasional theatrical fisticuffs. In the late 1790s King George III and his son The Prince of Wales attended the same performance. The pair hated each other and when both arrived at the same time the king, in a rage, punched his son in front of a shocked auditorium. The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane was licenced by the monarch, so to avoid further incidents the management built two royal boxes; one for the king, one for the prince, with separate entrances for the feuding Georges – features that are still in place today. When the Thea tre Royal, Drury Prince George Lane caught fire in 18 09 its owner, M had infuriated his P and playwright Rich ard Sheridan, w straight-laced as in parliament mak ing a speech. H father by reviving e made his way back to the thea the royal tradition of tre and sat down in a tavern oppo having affairs with si te. His friends rem onstrated with actresses. His very him, was this no public mistress was t too upsetting to w atch? “Not at Mary Robinson, a all,” he quippe d,“a man performer, dramatist, may take a glas novelist and celebrity s of wine at his ow figure nicknamed ‘Perdita’ n fireside.”

for her defining role in The Winter’s Tale. The prince’s brother – the future King William IV – followed suit. Dorothea Jordan, the actress daughter of a stagehand was his mistress and life-long companion. During a 20 year relationship they had ten illegitimate children.

DAVID GARRICK

At only five feet four inches, with a muted voice and an ‘inclination to stoutness’, David Garrick was an unlikely matinée idol. Yet the late 18th century performer became one of the most important actors in British history. As a boy he attended Samuel Johnson’s school for gentlemen near Lichfield; there were only three pupils and Garrick amused everyone with impersonations of his brilliant but chaotic headmaster. When the school closed due to lack of money, Johnson and his former pupil walked down to London to find fame and fortune. Garrick soon tasted success. As leading man at Drury Lane Theatre he moved away from the bombastic style of his peers, developing a more natural, easy way of performing that is familiar today, but was revolutionary at the time. He was the first actor to be buried in Westminster Abbey, in Poets’ Corner, next to the monument to William Shakespeare. An actor could now be regarded as a member of respectable society. In later years, actors including Henry Irving and Laurence Olivier were buried alongside Garrick.

EDMUND KEAN

As a child, Edmund Kean ran away from school to be a cabin boy. He hated life at sea so much he pretended to be lame and deaf, deceiving doctors into sending him home. Clearly, performing was in his blood. Desperate to be a serious actor, he started touring in pantomime and circus until Drury Lane rescued him from poverty and obscurity. He triumphed as Richard III, Shylock and Hamlet – to such acclaim that one critic observed: “Seeing him act was like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.” Kean was a roustabout rogue, the prototype ‘bad boy’ actor. He would gallop his horse through London and up the theatre stairs, and even kept a tame lion in his drawing-room. He founded the Wolves’ Club in the

As a child, Edmund Kean ran away from school to be a cabin boy. He hated life at sea so much he pretended to be lame and deaf basement of the Coal Hole pub on the Strand. Supposedly for oppressed husbands ‘forbidden to sing in the bath’, in reality it was an excuse for drinking and womanising. Kean’s affair with the wife of a City businessman ended in a public shaming. His Drury Lane audiences reacted by booing and pelting him with fruit. Kean’s last appearance was in 1833, playing Othello. During the performance he broke down, crying in a faltering voice: “O God, I am dying”. The great actor was carried home, where his last words were: “Dying is easy; comedy is hard.”

The 19th century saw a huge growth in demand for theatrical entertainment. At the start of the Victorian period there were still only two licensed playhouses in London. But the old duopoly was unworkable and in 1843 the Licensing Act was repealed, ushering in a boom that resulted in the building of modern London’s 40 West End theatres, numerous ‘fringe’ venues and hundreds of regional playhouses. The two licensed London theatres went in different directions: Covent Garden became the home of highbrow musical drama (today, the Royal Opera House), and Drury Lane turned to pantomime and melodrama featuring spectacular stage effects such as working paddle steamers and charging horses. As electric lighting and hydraulics were introduced, the scale and excitement of the on-stage pyrotechnics grew. In the 20th century these evolved seamlessly into the modern megamusical. Playgoers developed a taste for comedy. By the 1870s, a generation of writers including Arthur Wing Pinero and Oscar Wilde were fashioning sophisticated, witty dramas for the Victorian middle classes.

Oscar Wilde © Victoria & Albert Museum

KINGS OF COMEDY

WILD ABOUT OSCAR

The dramatist, novelist, poet, and wit Oscar Wilde rose on a tide of comic genius, then sank in one of the great personal tragedies of Victorian England. During the 1890s, he won fame and fortune with three hugely successful society comedies, including his theatrical masterwork The Importance of Being Earnest. Though married, Wilde was gay and fell in love with young Lord Alfred Douglas. When the details of his private life emerged Wilde was arrested, convicted on charges of sodomy and gross indecency then sentenced to two years’ hard labour. Though he continued to write brilliantly, he was a broken man. On leaving prison Wilde exiled himself to a shabby hotel in Paris. Bankrupt and mortally ill, a month

before he gave up the ghost he quipped: “I am in a duel to death with the wallpaper, one of us has to go.” In his last days, sipping champagne in the cheap hotel he muttered: “I am dying beyond my means.” When he finally succumbed, he was only 46.

Feature

Sir Henry Irving as Dr Primrose; Ellen Terry as Olivia in Olivia © National Portrait Gallery, London

Lord Olivier, the first-ever actor to be made a peer, and on his death was honoured as the last person ever to be buried in Westminster Abbey.

THE MASTER

Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh

IRVING AND TERRY

Henry Irving and Helen Terry were the most celebrated actors of Victorian England. In 1871, at Hyde Park Corner, Irving jumped out of a carriage that was carrying his pregnant wife. Her constant mocking of his theatrical ambitions had culminated in the final insult: “Are you going to make a fool of yourself like this all your life?” Irving walked off into the night, never to see her again. Irving became the great classical player of his time; the actor-manager, who ruled London’s Lyceum Theatre for two decades. He invited Helen Terry into his company to play Ophelia to his Hamlet and Portia to his Shylock. Live Irving, Ellen Terry left a spouse for a career on the stage. As a teenager, she married the celebrity artist George Fredrick Watts – she was 16, he was 46. Ten months later she abandoned him to return to the stage. In 1895 Henry Irving became the first actor to be knighted and Terry later became the second actress to be made a Dame. No longer branded as thieves and professional liars, actors had reached the status of society Sirs and Ladies. Writer Bram Stoker was also Henry Irving’s business assistant. The actor’s gaunt aspect and quirky mannerisms were the inspiration for the character of Count Dracula in Stoker’s eponymous novel.

MY LORD!

Sir Noël Coward was known as ‘The Master’, the genius of the theatrical and musical world famed for his legendary witticisms and cool poise. He never stopped writing, maintaining that “work is more fun than fun”. Coward took Oscar Wilde’s drawing-room comedy tradition and remodelled it for the 20th century, writing some 50 plays including Hay Fever, Private Lives and Blithe Spirit. These are still regularly revived today. Toward the end of his life, Coward was asked by an interviewer: “How do you account for your success in so many fields – acting, directing, writing, painting, music?” Noël replied: “Talent”.

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE

In 1952 a murder mystery opened in the West End. 64 years and over 26,000 performances later, The Mousetrap is the longest-running play in the world. More than 400 actors have appeared in the Agatha Christie drama since it opened, including the late Richard Attenborough. One member from the original cast is still in the show, the late Deryck Guyler, who died in 1999, provides the pre-recorded voice of the newsreader in the first act. A prop also survives from the opening night – the clock above the fireplace in the main hall.

NOTHING TO BE GLUM ABOUT

An adaptation of a 3,000 page French novel about political conflict in Paris is an unlikely candidate for show biz success and back in 1985, the stage version of Les Misérables (aka in theatrical circles as ‘The Glums’) was panned by critics. But the ticket-buying public saved the show from oblivion and it is now the longest-running musical in the world, with over 12,000 performances in London alone.

Laurence Olivier was the most acclaimed stage actor of the 20th century. His high-velocity performances in Shakespeare brought a new energy to classical acting. A battle-ready Henry V and spidery Richard III demonstrated a physical daring that culminated in a famous headlong deathfall off a 12-foot-high platform in Coriolanus – performed when the actor was 52. These performances inspired later generations of actors from Anthony Hopkins to Kenneth Branagh. Olivier’s personal and professional relationship with actress Vivien Leigh turned him into a celebrity. The glamorous couple were Noël Coward the ‘Brangelina’ or ‘Posh and Becks’ of postwar Britain. In 1970 ‘Sir Larry’ was ennobled as

Deryck Guyler

The Mousetrap

64 years and over 26,000 performances later, The Mousetrap is the longestrunning play in the world

Les MiseĚ rables, One Day More. Photo: Johan Persson

Feature Playwrigh t George Bernard S Winston haw sent Churchill an invitati Pygmalion on to , saying: “ Here for the op ening of m are two tickets y new pla for you, a y. One nd bring a friend – if have one you .” Church ill returne tickets, re d the sponding : “I’m sorr a previou s engagem y that precludes ent my attend ing your opening n ight. I sha ll be happy to come to th e second n ight – if Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 1812 there is o © Victoria & Albert Museum ne.”

Bristol Old Vic: Jon Craig

Bristol Old Vic auditorium: Philip Vile

THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE is the oldest continuously working theatre in London. There have been four playhouses built on this site, the first dating back to 1663. The present theatre with its lavish 2,000 seat auditorium dates from 1812. It is best known for staging big musicals and is owned by composer and producer (Lord) Andrew Lloyd Webber. It also claims to be the world’s most haunted theatre, with no less than four resident ghosts, including the ‘Man in Grey’, an 18th century nobleman with a cloak and sword whose body was discovered in a walled-up side passage. Actor Charles Macklin regularly haunts the backstage, wandering the corridor where, in 1735, he killed a fellow performer in an argument over a wig. And when an actor is nervous, the friendly apparition of pioneering early 19th century English clown Joseph Grimaldi turns up to guide them on stage. THE THEATRE ROYAL AT THE BRISTOL OLD VIC opened in 1766 and is the oldest continually operating theatre building in Britain. With its horseshoeshaped auditorium and red and gold decor, the Georgian building remains one of the most beautiful theatrical spaces in the world. The theatre has launched careers of several leading contemporary stars including Jeremy Irons and Daniel Day-Lewis.

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THEATRE ROYAL, RICHMOND, YORKSHIRE.

Built in 1788, this is the most complete Georgian theatre remaining in Britain. Originally known as the Courtyard Theatre, it is laid out in a horseshoe to mimic the inn-yard performance spaces used by travelling players in medieval times before the advent of permanent playhouses. The theatre seats 214, but in the 18th century they squeezed in up to 400 spectators to make as much money as possible. The galleried auditorium has three levels; at the top were the cheap seats with a kickingboard balcony that Georgian patrons would stomp on disapprovingly if they didn’t like the acting. In its long history, the theatre has hosted Georgian star Edmund Kean and contemporary luminaries including Dame Judi Dench and Alan Bennett.

Theatre Royal, Richmond

One can only imagine what those pioneering Elizabethan players nearly 500 years ago would make of Britain’s remarkable theatrical heritage in this second Elizabethan age.

John Owen Jones (The Phantom) as Red Death in Masquerade. Photo: Catherine Ashmore © Cameron Mackintosh Ltd & Really Useful Theatre Co.

Visits THE VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM THEATRE & PERFORMANCE COLLECTION is the most important in the UK. It includes papers, manuscripts and memorabilia of many of Britain’s great theatre luminaries. The museum’s new Curtain Up exhibition runs until 31 August 2016. It explores the theatre traditions of London’s West End and Broadway, with costume displays and set models from The Lion King, Matilda the Musical, War Horse and A Chorus Line. THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY is home to the largest collection of actors’ portraits in the country – including many of images featured in this article. For a theatre tour with a Blue Badge Guide visit www.britainsbestguides.org

Tour de force Words and pictures: Marc Zakian

David Thompson follows the story of Oscar Wildeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life in London

A WALK ON THE WILDE SIDE

James Fox Cigar Merchant

“When I was an art student in the 1970s, Oscar Wilde was our fashion icon,” says David Thompson.“The floppy hair, the sweeping jackets, the flowers; he wasn’t afraid to be seen and that’s what we wanted to be at art school; noticed. If we could be as stylish, witty and brilliant as Oscar we would surely make it.” “Three decades later I rediscovered Wilde. I was a newly-qualified London Blue Badge tourist guide leading gay history walks in Soho. Oscar was the lead character in a story of outsiders living in the West End at a time when homosexuality was punishable with life imprisonment. “Wilde developed his flamboyant style while a student at Oxford. He was a poster boy for the aesthetic movement that championed art for the sake of beauty. Oscar decorated his university rooms with peacock feathers, lilies, sunflowers, china and other exotic objects, remarking: ‘I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china’. “By the time Wilde came down to London in the 1880s he was an established society figure in search of a reputation. After a decade of writing poetry and novels, three brilliantly successful drawing-room comedies propelled him to celebrity. But, at the apex of his fame, he was destroyed by a devastating personal scandal.

Statue of Oscar Wilde

“Oscar’s very public demise played out across the capital. Wilde’s marital home was on Tite Street in Chelsea, where he lived with his wife Constance – the wealthy daughter of a leading barrister – and their two children. It was a loving marriage and they were feted as the ideal Victorian couple. “But across town in the West End, Oscar lived another life. He kept gentleman’s chambers at the Albemarle Club in Mayfair, where he would work, sleep and entertain. These were conveniently close to the St James Theatre where Wilde’s plays were being performed to resounding acclaim. “It is a short walk from the theatre to the Savoy Hotel on the Strand. En route was The Crown, one of Victorian London’s gay pubs, where Oscar would meet his ‘downtown boys’. It was at the Savoy where Wilde first encountered his distinctly uptown lover: the spoiled, reckless aristocrat Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas. Oscar was 37, Bosie 20; to many it appeared that the celebrated playwright was taking advantage of the younger man. “When Douglas’s father, The Marquis of Queensberry, found out about his son’s liaison he headed to the premiere of The Importance of Being Earnest armed with rotten vegetables to throw at Wilde. The playwright

“By the time Wilde came down to London in the 1880s he was an established society figure in search of a reputation” arranged for the police to guard the doors and to deny him access. Queensberry spent three hours prowling round the building, ‘gibbering like a monstrous ape’. “Determined to confront his son’s lover, on 18 February 1895 Queensbury burst into the Albemarle Club demanding to see the playwright. Finding him absent, Queensberry left a calling card addressed to: ‘Oscar Wilde, posing as a ‘somdomite’’ (misspelling sodomite). “Bosie hated his father and urged Wilde to sue for libel. Oscar’s friends met Wilde at the Café Royal and tried to dissuade him. To no avail – Oscar had Queensberry arrested and charged with criminal libel. “Wilde was the star of the Old Bailey libel case, running rings around bemused lawyers to scenes of near hysteria in the press and public galleries. But when the defence produced witness statements from rent boys giving details of Oscar’s

Tour de force

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO OSCAR We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. There is no sin except stupidity. There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go liaisons with ‘illiterate, working class, East End boys’, Wilde’s case collapsed. “The revelations led to criminal charges of sodomy and gross indecency against Wilde. As he awaited his arrest at the Cadogan Hotel in Knightsbridge, his friends urged him to escape to France, but Oscar could only mutter ‘The train has gone. It’s too late.’ “Oscar eloquently defended himself in court, speaking of ‘the love that dare not speak its name’. To no avail, Victorian society had turned against Wilde and he was sentenced to two years’ hard labour. “On release from jail he left England, living in impoverished exile in Italy and France. Although Douglas

had been the cause of Wilde’s misfortunes, in 1897 they were briefly reunited, until their families threatened to cut off funds. “Wilde’s final days played out at the shabby Hôtel d’Alsace in Paris. Unable to work he remarked: ‘I have lost the joy of writing’. On 30 November 1900, aged 46, he died. “London made and destroyed Oscar Wilde. For many of us he was a martyr; the first major public figure to stand up for his sexuality at a time when gay relationships were a criminal offence. “Ironically, the city that destroyed Wilde’s reputation now celebrates him. His statue stands opposite Charing Cross station where he

boarded a train to leave England, never to return. Mayfair remembers him at the site of the florist shop where he bought his famous green carnations – Victorian symbols of ‘gay pride’. The St James tobacconist James J Fox is home to a small museum that proudly exhibits Oscar’s bills for his favourite black cigarettes. “And Soho, the streets where men like Wilde roamed as outcasts in Victorian times, is now a welcoming home to London’s proud gay culture. We have much to thank him for.” For a tour with David Thompson contact him at: dtguiding@btinternet.com

Sunderland is an ideal place for groups and coach parties who want to explore this vibrant city by the sea. Visitors will be surprised and delighted by its fascinating history, coastal scenery, beautiful green spaces, heritage and cultural attractions and world class events that bring Sunderland to life.

For more information on these attractions and to find out what other things you can see and do in Sunderland visit

www.seeitdoitsunderland.co.uk /seeitdoitsunderland

@SeeitDoitSund

Tour de force

Sarah Cowling tells the story of Yorkshireâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s historic monasteries

ABBEY ROADS 30

Rivaulx Abbey

“In the 12th century an argument broke out on the remote North York moors,” says Sarah Cowling.“In the white-robed corner, on one side of the river Rye were the Cistercians, a group of monks who arrived at Byland in 1131. In the greyrobed corner, a rival order of Savigniacs, who in 1143 provocatively plonked themselves across the river from the white monks. “The two monasteries rang their prayer bells at different times of day; confused monks were turning up for worship at the wrong time. But the Cistercians stood their ground, winning the ‘battle of the bells’ and the Savigniacs packed up and moved on.” Sarah Cowling has strong links with the battling abbey: “My ancestors worked at Byland Grange for generations. When the abbey was in its heyday they probably laboured for the monks as part of the great monastic medieval business empire.” Today Byland is a magnificent ruin, a majestic monument in the countryside that Sarah returned to in 2014 when she qualified as a Yorkshire Blue Badge guide.“I’d been away for nearly thirty years, but wanted to return. As my aunt says, ‘the good ones always come back, that’s what happens with Yorkshire’. I hope she’s right! “Yorkshire was the monastic kingdom of the North. One of the jewels in its crown was Whitby Abbey. Founded in 657, today it is one of the most evocative and dramatic remains in Britain, commanding the cliff-top from a windblown headland, the ruins visible for miles around. BBC History magazine named it as one of the 100 Places That Made Britain. “Whitby was founded by Saint Hilda. The abbess turned a plague of local snakes to stone so that her church could be built. According to local legend, this explains the serpentine ammonite fossils found on the sea shore. “Whitby was one of the earliest monasteries in Yorkshire. One of a string of abbeys founded by black-hooded Benedictines who arrived here some 1400 years ago on a mission to bring ‘prayer and work’ to the wilderness. “But much of the ’work’ was done by local peasants who were expected to give two days labour a week in return for the monks praying for their souls. The abbeys also provided education, hospitals for the sick and dying and alms for the poor.

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“Yorkshire was the monastic kingdom of the North. One of the jewels in its crown was Whitby Abbey. Founded in 657, today it is one of the most evocative and dramatic remains in Britain”

Whitby Abbey

“Many of these poor souls found charity at St Mary’s Abbey in York. Established in 1088, it was one of the wealthiest monasteries in the country – the abbey church was larger than the city’s great minster. York was so rich in religious institutions that mendicants would work their way around the city seeking alms in one place after the next – a sort of medieval ‘benefits tourism’. But how did monasteries like St Mary’s become so rich? “There was profit in prayer. Kings and knights who killed enemies in battle would pay for a monk to chant for them, hoping to absolve these sins and finance their way to heaven. “The ‘pay to pray’ abbeys inherited huge legacies from patrons seeking salvation in exchange for land and money. Silent meditation was replaced by noisy commerce and monastic estates – some of which encompassed entire counties and taxed everyone on their land. St Mary’s Abbey swung a toll rope across the river Ouse, charging boats travelling into the city of York. In 1266 the angry, overtaxed townsfolk rioted – St Mary’s repelled them by building a three-quarter mile long wall around the Abbey. “In response to this unholy greed, a new order of monks decided to take monasticism back to basics. The Cistercians, who wore white robes as a symbol of purity and poverty, were determined to return to St Benedict’s mission of prayer and rigid discipline. Benedict’s Rule – written in balmy 6th century Italy – made no reference to underpants as monastic clothing, so even in the freezing Yorkshire winters the Cistercians wore nothing under their habits. “Bare-bottomed piety arrived on the Yorkshire moors in 1132 when twelve Cistercian monks founded Rievaulx Abbey. They started by living in simple huts, but over time these were replaced

“The Cistercians became a business brand. At Fountains Abbey they developed a breed of ‘super sheep’ that produced high quality fleece”

Rievaulx Abbey

by grand, stone buildings housing 140 monks, 40 lay brothers and 260 hired men who worked the abbey’s 6,000 acres and shepherded its 14,000 sheep. “Like the Benedictines, the Cistercians eventually rejected the life of an austerity monk. The brothers abandoned Rievaulx’s dormitories, living in private rooms with fireplaces, upstairs bedrooms and en suite toilets. St Benedict ruled that, ‘unless they were sick, monks should not eat the meat of four-footed creatures’. So the brothers ignored refectory meals and dined in the infirmary where, on weekly feast days, they would consume 16 courses, some 6000 calories a day, ten times that of a labourer – the legend of ‘merrie monk’ Friar Tuck’s stout girth is based on truth. “The Cistercians became a business brand. At Fountains Abbey they developed a breed of ‘super sheep’ that produced high quality fleece, establishing Yorkshire’s international dominance in the wool trade. Their abbeys were a kind of medieval ‘Ikea’ – they all used same floor plan, featured the same furniture and books, spoke

the same language (Latin) and followed the same rules and customs. It was said that you could take a blind Cistercian from France and drop him in an English abbey and he wouldn’t notice the difference. “But the monasteries’ empirebuilding and money-making ventures would be their downfall. Ordinary people resented their power and in the

1530s King Henry VIII seized the abbeys’ land and treasures and ransacked their buildings. “The legacy of this devastation has left an extraordinary imprint on the Yorkshire landscape – dozens of ghostlike ruins that rise on the moors, shores and valleys. Beautiful echoes of a monastic empire that once ruled the county.”

For a tour of Yorkshire with Sarah Cowling contact her at sarah@sarahyorkshireguide.com or www.sarahyorkshireguide.com Byland Abbey

MY FAVOURITE

Blue Badge Guides show you their favourite places around the UK

...CLIFF TOP

…is where waves pound below the Botallack Crowns engine houses. Standing proud against a backdrop of soaring cliffs, their motors ceased forever when the mines finally closed in 1914. The buildings are part of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site, where tales abound of fortunes gained and lost in the struggle to win tin and copper. The dramatic cliff top is carpeted with pink thrift, golden gorse and purple heather. The Crowns engine houses and nearby Wheal Owles have become TV stars, as mining locations in the recent BBC Poldark series. This combination of great views and relics of a past era never disappoints. Viv Robinson Blue Badge Guide for South West England bluebadge@absolutours.co.uk

...SPORTING ACTIVITY ...is The Friday Night Skate. It’s a 10-mile skate around London’s streets every Friday evening. Anyone may join and there are often over 100 skaters. We whizz past the capital’s favourite monuments – St Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square – accompanied by a portable sound system playing dance music. The atmosphere is great, especially when we skate past pubs and are cheered on by the people outside. So join us or cheer us on, shout or dance when we pass you on the street. It’s all about having fun – and what a great way to see the sights! Juliet Navratilova London Blue Badge Guide julietguide@hotmail.co.uk

...VIEW …is of King’s College from The Backs in Cambridge. A meadow full of grazing cows leads to the river and beyond the chapel rises above a formal lawn, on which only college Fellows may walk. Just five minutes from the bustling city centre, it feels as though you are in the middle the countryside. It is a vista with many layers, appearing timeless but the landscaping is only 200 years old and as man-made as the chapel. I love to show this to visitors. It is a view that says ‘Cambridge’.

Allan Brigham, Cambridge Blue Badge Guide, townnotgowntours@btinternet.com

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