The List: Landmark sites in British history
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Britain is littered with historic buildings but they don’t just look lovely. A new BBC book, 100 Places that Made Britain, highlights the locations of pivotal moments in Britain’s history. The book’s author, David Musgrove, asked historians to choose the landmarks – and then visited them. Here he selects his top five and explains why they make the grade.
1. Whitby Abbey, Yorkshire
This ruin was the site of the Synod of Whitby in AD664, when the Anglo-Saxon king of Northumbria, Oswy, opted to swap from the Celtic Christian tradition to the Roman one. This had long-term consequences as England was brought into religious line with the European mainstream.
2. Tintagel Castle, Cornwall
Tintagel is surrounded by shops peddling Arthurian trinkets. Yet its 13th-century castle was built long after King Arthur was alive, if ever he was a real figure. The link was cemented in a history written in the 12th century and its popularity meant that Tintagel gained a castle to match the legend. This matters because all the peoples of Britain could own this king. Arthur and Tintagel helped establish the idea of a Britain united.
3. Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire
The second world war has a hold on our collective memory, in part because victory was achieved against the odds. Those odds, however, were shortened by the code-breakers working on encrypted enemy messages at Bletchley Park, a stately home and collection of prefab huts near Milton Keynes. Now, their stories of technological derring-do are revealed, including breaking the codes of the German Enigma machine.
4. Arbroath Abbey, Angus
A famous document was issued here in 1320: the Declaration of Arbroath. It was, in essence, a declaration of freedom by a group of Scottish nobles against the overbearing presence of England. In 1951, four Scottish students went to Westminster Abbey, took the Stone of Scone, the sacred stone on which Scottish kings were crowned, and left it near the high altar at Arbroath – the first time it had been north of the border since 1296.
5. Harlech Castle, Gwynedd
King Edward I’s fortresses built around Snowdonia in the late 13th century were designed to quash Welsh resistance to English rule. The idea wasn’t entirely successful. A century later, Owain Glyndwr led an uprising and captured Harlech castle. The rebellion failed, but Harlech was not only the last place to hold out for Welsh independence, it was the last Lancastrian outpost in the Wars of the Roses and the last castle to stand for the king in the English civil war.
David Musgrove is editor of BBC History Magazine. ‘100 Places that Made Britain’ (BBC Books, £14.99) is published on June 2
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