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In the new seafront restaurant overlooking the bay in the tiny resort of Luderitz on the coast of Namibia, tourists are invited to sit out on the balcony, where they can dine on the finest South Atlantic seafood accompanied by vintage South African wines as they take in the views over neighbouring Shark Island. But […]

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Could there be anything closer to paradise on earth? Long shafts of late afternoon sun were streaming through the west windows of Quarr Abbey as I awaited the start of Vespers, setting aglow the distinctive orange brickwork of Dom Paul Bellot’s great Grade One listed masterpiece in the Isle of Wight. Outside the orchards were […]

Surely it was always summer when we made our first railway journey,” wrote the historian Hamilton Ellis, “and everyone who has ever loved a train has a favourite railway – the first one we ever saw.” For many of us this nostalgic vision would almost certainly include a little seaside branch line train with a […]

Settle and Carlisle railway: Drama abounds on this magnificent ride over the “roof of England”. A masterpiece of Victorian engineering, it includes the famous Ribblehead viaduct. Cumbria Coast line: Britain’s best-kept railway secret. Sandwiched between the Lakeland fells and the Irish Sea, there are views to die for across Morecambe Bay and the Solway Firth. […]

There are few love affairs more passionate than that of the British with their trains. On a basic level it’s obvious. We invented the railways and pride in the great heroes of the railway age – the Stephensons, Trevithick, Brunel – runs through our DNA. But like all the best love affairs it’s a more […]

“Surely it was always summer when we made our first railway journey,” wrote the historian Hamilton Ellis, “and everyone who has ever loved a train has a favourite railway – the first one we ever saw.” For many of us this nostalgic vision would almost certainly include a little seaside branch line train with burnished […]

Henry Ford was feeling mighty pleased with himself as he strutted round the exhibition in New York showcasing his brand new “Model A” car, accompanied by his son Edsel and his old friend Thomas Edison. And why not?  It was 1928 and up to then half of all the cars ever produced in the world […]