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United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country located off the north­western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north­eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland. Otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the southwest, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea separates Great Britain and Ireland. The total area of the United Kingdom is 94,000 square miles . The United Kingdom is a unitary parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 1952, making her the world's longest-serving current head of state. The United Kingdom's capital is London, a global city and financial centre with an urban area population of 10.3 million. The United Kingdom consists of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Their capitals are London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. Apart from England, the countries have their own devolved governments, each with varying powers. Other major cities include Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, and Manchester. The nearby Isle of Man, Bailiwick of Guernsey and Bailiwick of Jersey are not part of the UK, being Crown dependencies with the British Government responsible for defence and international representation. The union between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, followed by the union in 1801 of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The UK's name was adopted in 1927 to reflect the change. There are fourteen British Overseas Territories, the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's landmass and was the largest empire in history. British influence can be observed in the language, culture and political systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom has the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal gross domestic product , and the ninth-largest by purchasing power parity . It has a high-income economy and a very high human development index rating, ranking 15th in the world. It was the world's first industrialised country and the world's foremost power during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The UK remains a great power, with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a recognised nuclear weapons state and is sixth in military expenditure in the world. It has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946. The United Kingdom is a leading member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Council of Europe, the G7, the G20, NATO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development , Interpol and the World Trade Organization . It was a member of the European Union and its predecessor, the European Economic Community from 1 January 1973 until withdrawing on 31 January 2020.

Garden Museum

London

The Garden Museum in London is Britain's only museum of the art, history and design of gardens. The museum re-opened in 2017 after an 18-month redevelopment project.The building is largely the Victorian reconstruction of the Church of St Mary-at-Lambeth which was deconsecrated in 1972 and was scheduled to be demolished. It is adjacent to Lambeth Palace on the south bank of the River Thames in London, on Lambeth Road. In 1976, John and Rosemary Nicholson traced the tomb of the two 17th-century royal gardeners and plant hunters John Tradescant the Elder and the Younger to the churchyard, and were inspired to create the Museum of Garden History. It was the first museum in the world dedicated to the history of gardening.The Museum's main gallery is on the first floor, in the body of the church. The collection includes tools, art, and ephemera of gardening, including a gallery about garden design and the evolution of gardening, as well as a recreation of Tradescant's 17th-century Ark. The collections give an insight into the social history of gardening as well as the practical aspects of the subject. There are three temporary exhibition spaces which look at various aspects of plants and gardens and change every six months The redevelopment of the Museum, completed in 2017, included two new garden designs. The Sackler Garden, designed by Dan Pearson sits at the centre of the courtyard, replacing the knot garden, and the Museum's front garden is designed by Christopher Bradley-Hole. In 2006, Christopher Woodward, formerly director of the Holburne Museum in Bath, Somerset, was appointed as the director of the Garden Museum.

Museum of the Home

London

The Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum, is a museum in the Geffrye Almshouses on Kingsland Road in Shoreditch, London. It explores home and home life from 1600 to the present day with a series of period room displays.The museum is housed in 18th-century Grade I-listed almshouses, formerly belonging to the Ironmongers' Company. These were built in 1714 thanks to a bequest by Sir Robert Geffrye, a merchant and slave trader who had served as Lord Mayor of London and Master of the Ironmongers' Company.In 1911 the Ironmongers' Company sold the buildings to London County Council in 1911, who opened the museum in 1914. The museum became a charitable trust in 1991.Several structures connected with the Museum are listed on the National Heritage List for England. The main museum building is Grade I listed and the niche in the northwest corner of the forecourt of the Museum is listed Grade II*. The forecourt wall, gates and railings to the Museum are Grade II* listed, and the two K6 telephone boxes on the Kingsland Road outside the Museum are listed Grade II.In January 2018, the museum closed for a two-year £18m development project, and is due to reopen in 2020. Until this closure, the main permanent displays were a series of room settings furnished and decorated to show the main living spaces and elements of domestic life through the centuries, reflecting changes in society, behaviour, style and taste. The museum's change of name was announced in 2019.The building that houses the museum has above its entrance a statue of merchant and slave trader Robert Geffrye, a replica of the original which was removed in 1912 when the building was sold to London County council. In July 2020 the museum held a consultation on the potential removal of the statue, with public opinion being in favour of removing it. The museum's board elected to instead "reinterpret and contextualise" the statue in its current location, partly on the advice of Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden.

William Ewart Gladstone

Biggar, South Lanarkshire

William Ewart Gladstone was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four terms beginning in 1868 and ending in 1894. He also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer four times. Gladstone was born in Liverpool to Scottish parents. He first entered the House of Commons in 1832, beginning his political career as a High Tory, a grouping which became the Conservative Party under Robert Peel in 1834. Gladstone served as a minister in both of Peel's governments, and in 1846 joined the breakaway Peelite faction, which eventually merged into the new Liberal Party in 1859. He was Chancellor under Lord Aberdeen , Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell . Gladstone's own political doctrine—which emphasised equality of opportunity and opposition to trade protectionism—came to be known as Gladstonian liberalism. His popularity amongst the working-class earned him the sobriquet "The People's William". In 1868, Gladstone became Prime Minister for the first time. Many reforms were passed during his first ministry, including the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland and the introduction of secret voting. After electoral defeat in 1874, Gladstone resigned as leader of the Liberal Party. From 1876 he began a comeback based on opposition to Turkey's reaction to the Bulgarian April Uprising. His Midlothian Campaign of 1879–80 was an early example of many modern political campaigning techniques. After the 1880 general election, Gladstone formed his second ministry , which saw the passage of the Third Reform Act as well as crises in Egypt and Ireland, where his government passed repressive measures but also improved the legal rights of Irish tenant farmers. Back in office in early 1886, Gladstone proposed home rule for Ireland but was defeated in the House of Commons. The resulting split in the Liberal Party helped keep them out of office – with one short break – for 20 years. Gladstone formed his last government in 1892, at the age of 82. The Government of Ireland Bill 1893 passed through the Commons but was defeated in the House of Lords in 1893. Gladstone left office in March 1894, aged 84, as both the oldest person to serve as Prime Minister and the only Prime Minister to have served four terms. He left Parliament in 1895 and died three years later. Gladstone was known affectionately by his supporters as "The People's William" or the "G.O.M." . Historians often call him one of Britain's greatest leaders.

Glenesk Folk Museum

Tarfside

Glenesk Folk Museum is a museum located in the Glen Esk valley, in Tarfside, Angus, Scotland, which is run by members of the local community. It is about 9 miles north of the village of Edzell. It is housed in a former shooting lodge, known as 'The Retreat', which used to belong to the earls of Dalhousie. The museum contains artefacts and documents related to the history of the surrounding area. It also has a shop selling locally produced gifts and a tearoom. The museum organises demonstrations of local skills and crafts.

The Guardian

London

The Guardian is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian, and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers The Observer and The Guardian Weekly, The Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of The Guardian free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for The Guardian the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders.The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main newsprint sections have been published in tabloid format. As of February 2020, its print edition had a daily circulation of 126,879. The newspaper has an online edition, TheGuardian.com, as well as two international websites, Guardian Australia and Guardian US . The paper's readership is generally on the mainstream left of British political opinion, and its reputation as a platform for social liberal and left-wing editorial has led to the use of the "Guardian reader" and "Guardianista" as often-pejorative epithets for those of left-leaning or "politically correct" tendencies. Frequent typographical errors during the age of manual typesetting led Private Eye magazine to dub the paper the "Grauniad" in the 1960s, a nickname still used occasionally by the editors for self-mockery.In an Ipsos MORI research poll in September 2018 designed to interrogate the public's trust of specific titles online, The Guardian scored highest for digital-content news, with 84% of readers agreeing that they "trust what [they] see in it". A December 2018 report of a poll by the Publishers Audience Measurement Company stated that the paper's print edition was found to be the most trusted in the UK in the period from October 2017 to September 2018. It was also reported to be the most-read of the UK's "quality newsbrands", including digital editions; other "quality" brands included The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, and the i. While The Guardian's print circulation is in decline, the report indicated that news from The Guardian, including that reported online, reaches more than 23 million UK adults each month.Chief among the notable "scoops" obtained by the paper was the 2011 News International phone-hacking scandal—and in particular the hacking of the murdered English teenager Milly Dowler's phone. The investigation led to the closure of the News of the World, the UK's best-selling Sunday newspaper and one of the highest-circulation newspapers in history. In June 2013, The Guardian broke news of the secret collection by the Obama administration of Verizon telephone records, and subsequently revealed the existence of the surveillance program PRISM after knowledge of it was leaked to the paper by the whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. In 2016, The Guardian led an investigation into the Panama Papers, exposing then–Prime Minister David Cameron's links to offshore bank accounts. It has been named "newspaper of the year" four times at the annual British Press Awards: most recently in 2014, for its reporting on government surveillance.

Gwynedd Council

Caernarfon

Gwynedd Council is the governing body for the principal area of Gwynedd, one of the subdivisions of Wales within the United Kingdom. The Council administrates internally through the medium of Welsh.

Museum of Cornish Life

Helston

Museum of Cornish Life is a museum situated in the former market town of Helston, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The museum is housed in Helston's former Market House and Drill Hall. The museum was founded in 1949, the building was originally designed as the town's Market House in 1837.4th Battalion, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry used it as their drill hall during World War 1.The Museum expanded into the meat market in the early 1980s and into the adjoining Drill Hall in 1999. A suspended gallery was also added at this time that in turn allowed the creation of the mezzanine art gallery. In front of the building is a cannon salvaged from the wreck of the frigate HMS Anson which foundered off Loe Bar on 29 December 1807.The Museum's collection reflects both the social and industrial history of The Lizard Peninsula, from mining, fishing and farming through to home life in the 18th - 20th centuries. Previously run by Cornwall Council, management of the museum was taken over by the South Kerrier Heritage Trust in August 2013. The Trust is a local registered charity working with the community, and day-to-day work at the museum is largely undertaken by volunteers.

Shire Hall, Hertford

East Hertfordshire

The Shire Hall is a municipal building in Hertford, the county town of Hertfordshire, England. It is a Grade I listed building.

Hinchingbrooke House

Huntingdon

Hinchingbrooke House in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, was built around an 11th-century Benedictine nunnery. After the Reformation it passed into the hands of the Cromwell family, and subsequently, became the home of the Earls of Sandwich, including John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, reputedly the "inventor" of the modern sandwich. On 8 March 1538, Richard Williams had the grant of the nunnery of Hinchinbrooke, in Huntingdonshire, for the undervalued price of £19. 9s. 2d. while he was an official Visitor overseeing the dissolution of the monasteries. His son, Henry Williams —a grandfather of Oliver Cromwell—built the house adjoining to the nunnery, and upon the bow windows he put the arms of his family, with those of several others to whom he was allied.There was a serious fire in 1830 and the house was restored/rebuilt by Edward Blore; it was further restored in 1894 and again in the 1960s. During the most recent restoration the entrance to the chapter house was discovered, but otherwise little of the medieval fabric is visible.In 1970, it became part of Hinchingbrooke School, housing the 6th form. Hinchingbrooke School was formerly Huntingdon Grammar School which, on the site of what is now the Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon, was attended by Oliver Cromwell and Samuel Pepys. The school now has around 1900 pupils.More recently, while still being used as a school, Hinchingbrooke House is turned into a critically acclaimed scare attraction in the Halloween season called 'The Horror at Hinchingbrooke House'. It is also used as a conference centre, and is also for, dinner dances and as a wedding venue. It is a Grade I listed building and is open for tours on Sunday afternoons in the summer season.

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