Culture UK
Who are the British? Do they really drink tea, eat roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and never leave home without an umbrella? Find out more about true Brits; past and present, myth and legend, fact and fiction.
The Lambton Worm – The Lord and The Legend
Legend tells of young John Lambton, fishing in the River Wear on a Sunday. Catching no fish, he cursed the river – and immediately hooked an ugly, little black worm…
Green Police Boxes of Sheffield
One dark November evening in 1963, an unlikely form of time travel was revealed to the British public. The time-travelling Doctor Who had arrived on Planet Earth’s TV screens, and his intergalactic machine of choice was, of all things, a common-or-garden police telephone box…
Dioramas: the IMAX of the Georgian era
“…we consider this view to be decidedly the best that has yet been exhibited, and so good, that for excellence of painting, for force of illusion, we cannot believe it will be possible to surpass it.” So reported The Times, describing Louis Daguerre’s Diorama in London…
Richard Arkwright
The archetypal “self-made man” of the Industrial Revolution, Richard Arkwright is known as the father of the factory…
Barnum and Bailey: Revolt of the Freaks
In January 1899 Barnum and Bailey’s ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ was a few weeks into its second winter season at London’s Olympia when something extraordinary happened. The performers in the so-called ‘freak show’ rebelled: they protested at being known as ‘freaks’ and demanded a new name. The move hit the headlines and caused a public sensation…
The Macaroni Craze
Punks, glam rockers, New Romantics: fashion crazes but nowhere near as outlandish, and frankly as ridiculous as the Macaronis of mid to late 18th century Britain…
Howard Carter and the Discovery of Tutankhamun’s Tomb
“Can you see anything?” “Yes, wonderful things!”
Howard Carter’s famous words as he peered into the treasure-filled tomb of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun…
