South West England
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Avebury’s stones draw crowds around midwinter, but the story behind the solstice here is more nuanced than the Stonehenge version. Here is what the heritage bodies actually say, and how to visit.
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Bath is a long day from Southampton’s cruise terminals, but a through train makes it possible if your ship stays late. Here is the train time, the Roman Baths hours and prices, and how to check your own all-aboard time.
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Southampton cruise passengers can reach Salisbury by direct train, with the Stonehenge Tour bus continuing to the stones. Here is how to choose a main stop and plan the day around your ship’s all-aboard time.
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Ten stone courtyard houses on a Cornish hillside, left by a farming community that lived through the Roman period in the far south-west. Here is the history, and where English Heritage’s closure leaves visitors.
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A ruined circular castle above the Fowey valley, Restormel was a hunting retreat for the earls of Cornwall and twice hosted the Black Prince. Here is its story, and how to visit.
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A small Elizabethan manor near Newquay, shaped by the Arundells and the Aclands, with a knot garden, a kayles lawn and rooms that run from the 1500s to the 1950s.
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A 5,000-year-old Neolithic tomb on the Cotswold escarpment above Winchcombe, with a grand front entrance that was never a way in.
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A hillside manor once used by the Abbots of Gloucester, granted away by Henry VIII and given to Benedictine monks nearly four centuries later. Here is its story, and how to visit today.
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A Cistercian abbey founded after a storm at sea and made famous by a relic that drew pilgrims from far and wide, until Henry VIII’s reformers declared it a fake.
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A Cotswold country house with a copper dome, built in the Mughal style of Rajasthan for a man who had worked for the East India Company. Here is how Sezincote came to be, and what a visit costs today.