Heritage Highlights: Did You Know?

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• Jewish Culture in the National Heritage List for England

  A collaborative project to update National Heritage List Entries relating to Jewish culture and heritage.

  Type of Designation: Listed Buildings

• Are the Statues of Soldiers on War Memorials Based on Real People?

  Made by a local masonry firm and unveiled in 1921, the Louth War Memorial is a moving reminder of the impact that successive wars had on this community.

  Type of Designation: Listed Buildings

  Region: East Midlands

  Period: 20th Century

• What was Proclaimed the 'Eighth Wonder of the World' on Completion in 1843, but 'An Entire Failure' Just a Decade Later?

  The Thames Tunnel, which dives under London’s central waterway, is a scheduled monument and international landmark, being the oldest tunnel in the oldest underground system in the world.

  Type of Designation: Scheduled Monuments

  Region: London

  Period: Victorian

• Where Does the Term 'Hobson's Choice' Come From?

  The famous phrase 'Hobson's choice' can be traced back to a Cambridge carrier who operated a livery stable delivering mail and providing transport to and from London in the early 17th century.

  Type of Designation: Listed Buildings, Scheduled Monuments

  Region: East of England

  Period: Tudors and Stuarts

• Where Was the World's First Programmable Computer Created?

  The Colossus commonly regarded as the first programmable, digital computer evolved from Allied intelligence-gathering process during Second World War.

  Type of Designation: Listed Buildings

  Region: South East

  Period: 20th Century

• When Did England's First Filling Station Open?

  Surviving with its petrol pumps intact, the West End Garage in Turnastone, Herefordshire is one of the earliest of these and is now Grade II-listed.

  Type of Designation: Listed Buildings

  Region: West Midlands

  Period: 20th Century

• How Did Our Medieval Ancestors Cope with Flooding?

  Surviving examples of medieval defences are relatively rare, but one of the best is a stretch of embankment at Botolph's Bridge, West Hythe in Kent.

  Type of Designation: Scheduled Monuments

  Region: South East

  Period: Medieval

• Why Would a Cemetery Need a Railway Line?

  In the Victorian period the problem of where to bury the capital's dead became a serious issue. One solution was to establish a large multi-faith cemetery on spacious heathland 25 miles from central London.

  Type of Designation: Registered Parks and Gardens

  Region: South East

  Period: Victorian

• Why Can We Still See Marks of Sites Lost Thousands of Years Ago?

  'Cropmarks' form when plants over buried archaeology grow at different rates and heights compared to those in the rest of the field, particularly apparent during periods of dry weather. The best way to see these crop patterns is from the air.

  Type of Designation: Scheduled Monuments

  Region: East of England

  Period: Medieval

• Did Conkers Help to Win the First World War?

  In 1917, hundreds of tons of horse chestnuts and acorns, 'without the green husks' were collected for a vital ingredient to manufacture of cordite.

  Type of Designation: Listed Buildings, Scheduled Monuments

  Region: South West

  Period: 20th Century

• Was the Whitehall Cenotaph Made of Wood?

  Its design and stone fabric suggests solid durability. Yet this permanence was not originally intended: the Cenotaph started life as a temporary wooden memorial.

  Type of Designation: Listed Buildings

  Region: London

  Period: 20th Century

• What Was the Arts and Crafts Movement?

  It was one of the few international trends to have originated in the British Isles, and the private house lay at its heart.

  Type of Designation: Listed Buildings

  Region: East of England

  Period: 20th Century

• Can Pigs Really Fly?

  The site of the former RAF Eastchurch, on a flat, windswept area of Kent's Isle of Sheppey, can rightly claim to be the birthplace of British aviation.

  Type of Designation: Listed Buildings

  Region: South East

  Period: 20th Century

• How Does Wood Survive Underground For Thousands of Years?

  Normally, when wood is buried it decays rapidly, but if the burial environment is very wet it can be preserved for centuries.

  Type of Designation: Scheduled Monuments

  Region: East of England

  Period: Prehistory

• How Did Candles Light Up Post-War Cambridge?

  Cambridge is the last city in the UK to retain its own custom-designed lighting stock from the post-war period.

  Type of Designation: Listed Buildings

  Region: East of England

  Period: 20th Century

• Where is the Oldest Motor-Racing Circuit in the World?

  Contrary to what you might expect, the answer to this question does not lie in France or Italy, but leafy suburban Surrey.

  Type of Designation: Scheduled Monuments

  Region: South East

  Period: 20th Century

• How Did Stone Posts Once Keep You 'on Tenterhooks'?

  A field - known as a 'tenterfield' - completely covered with long rows of carved stone posts used in the textile industry.

  Type of Designation: Listed Buildings

  Region: Yorkshire

  Period: Victorian

• What's Beautiful About Brutalism?

  The term 'Brutalism' was coined by radical young architects in the 1950s.

  Type of Designation: Listed Buildings

  Region: London

  Period: 20th Century

• What Was Bath-Time Like for Roman Soldiers?

  Chesters Roman Fort has one of the best preserved Roman bathhouses in Britain which shows the various ways in which Roman soldiers kept clean centuries ago.

  Type of Designation: Scheduled Monuments

  Region: North East

  Period: Roman

• Can You Purchase Paradise?

  A central belief in medieval times was in the power of 'intercession': the ability of priests, through prayer, to help the dead by 'purging' sins. This led to the founding of chantries.

  Type of Designation: Listed Buildings

  Region: South West

  Period: Medieval

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