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Did you know ...

• the bells of St Giles Church in Wormshill, England were restored in 1995 after a collection started in 1944 with only ten shillings?
• the English composer Anthony Payne, who completed a version of Elgar's third symphony, has also composed a version of Elgar's incomplete Pomp and Circumstance March No. 6?
• the architect Hans Price was responsible for the distinctive look of buildings in Weston-super-Mare, England, during the Victorian era?
• the Saxon origin of the name of Walworth Gate in County Durham, England, refers to Welsh-speaking Britons who once lived there?
• the allegorical Armada Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I (pictured) commemorates England's defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588?
• the English footballer David Layne scored 58 goals in 81 games for Sheffield Wednesday F.C. before he was jailed for his involvement in the British betting scandal of 1964?
• the English herald Ralph Brooke tricked Sir William Segar into granting a coat of arms to a London hangman?
• the English historian Sir Raymond Carr was knighted for services to History in the New Year Honours List, 1987?
• the English ambassador to Paris, Edward Stafford, is suspected to have given confidential information to Spain before the Spanish Armada in 1588?
• the English nurse Lucy Osburn was chosen by Florence Nightingale to train Australia's first nurses?
• the English mediæval shrine statue Our Lady of Ipswich, ordered to be destroyed during the Reformation, might have survived in an Italian village?
• the airship Patrie (pictured) broke free from its moorings at Souhesmes, France, blew across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and was eventually lost in the Atlantic Ocean?
• the 1984 Summit tunnel fire in England may have been the biggest underground fire in transportation history?
• the "Victory Tests" were a series of cricket matches between a team of Australian servicemen and an English national side played just two weeks after World War II ended?
• ten married couples were candidates in the 2004 Wyre Forest Council election in Worcestershire, England?
• stained glass in Marston Bigot church in Somerset, England is from the abbey of Altenberg in Germany and depicts a scene from the early life of St Bernard?
• some of the disused railway stations between Plymouth in Devon and Penzance in Cornwall, England, were closed during the "Beeching Axe" in the 1960s?
• the 12th-century St Wulfran's Church, Ovingdean is one of only two extant churches in England with that dedication?
• the 13th-century settlements known as the Mise of Amiens and the Mise of Lewes are the only two such "mises" in English history?
• the 600-year-old Westgate in Canterbury, Kent, is the largest surviving city gate in England, with double-decker buses still squeezing through it (process pictured)?
• the 364-metre pier in Withernsea, England was struck by ships four times, finally leaving it only 15 metres long?
• the 14th-century life-size stone effigies of a knight and his wife in St Margaret's Church, Ifield (pictured), England, have been said to have an "inimitable sideways sway"?
• the 14th-century Tree House, the former manor house of Crawley, England, was named after an ancient elm whose trunk was hollowed out to form a room in which travellers stayed overnight?
• the English village of Gresham, Norfolk, once had a 14th-century castle with four round towers and a moat, now ruined and overgrown by trees?
• the English-born activist Maria Rosetti (pictured) was the model for Constantin Daniel Rosenthal's personification of Romania?
• the British pub rock music genre was started by American band Eggs over Easy, who were in England for less than a year?
• the Mississaugas of the Credit Mission sent Chief Peter Jones to England where he petitioned Queen Victoria directly for title deeds to their lands?
• the medieval village of Babington in Somerset, England was destroyed around 1705 to make way for a new Manor House?
• the long jumper Fred Salle originally represented England in international competitions, then changed allegiance to Cameroon before returning to England some years later?
• the soundtracks to FlatOut and FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage include five songs by English rock music group No Connection?
• the Þingalið was a standing army of 3,000 elite Viking warriors, whose main purpose was to defend England against other Vikings?
• the Battle of the Severn in 1655 in Annapolis, Maryland, was closely related to the conflicts of the English Civil War, which had concluded four years earlier in England?
• the Bangalore Palace in India, which was built to resemble Windsor Castle in England, has hosted music concerts of bands like Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones and Deep Purple?
• the 1948 Headingley Test, in which Don Bradman's cricket team the Invincibles (pictured) made a world record run-chase, remains the most attended Test on English soil?
• the 1868 Aboriginal cricket tour of England predated, by 12 years, the first tour of England by white Australians?
• the listed buildings of Marbury cum Quoisley in Cheshire, England, include an obelisk, a lychgate (pictured), a churchyard wall, and half a bridge?
• the Grade I-listed St. Bartholomew's Church, Brighton, England, was described as a "monster excrescence", "a cheese warehouse" and a "brick parallelogram" by some of its detractors at a heated Council meeting in 1893?
• the fossilised remains of lions have been found at Crook Peak in Somerset, England?
• the endowment by Edmund Meyrick, a Welsh cleric and philanthropist who died in 1713, is still awarding scholarships to students at Jesus College, Oxford in England after nearly three centuries?
• the extinct snakefly genus Proraphidia is known from fossils found in Spain, England, and Kazakhstan?
• the epiphytic orchid Miltoniopsis vexillaria was discovered in 1867 by plant collector David Bowman and introduced from Colombia to England in 1873 by a fellow Veitch employee, Henry Chesterton?
• the gate piers of Ferne Park, a country house built in 2001 in Wiltshire, England, are Grade II listed structures?
• the genre of Hispanic creative arts known as costumbrismo (example pictured) was influenced by Englishmen Joseph Addison and Richard Steele and Frenchmen Jouy and Louis-Sébastien Mercier?
• the Grade I listed Franks Hall, in Horton Kirby, Kent, England, was used as a barn in the 1850s?
• the insectivorous plant Heliamphora nutans (pictured) was re-discovered in British Guiana in 1881 and successfully introduced to England by David Burke?
• the hamlet of Archdeacon Newton in Durham, England, contains the site of a lost settlement?
• the Great Western Railway operated road motor (bus) services in England and Wales from 1903 until 1933 as it was cheaper than building new railways?
• ruins from Bradenstoke Abbey in Wiltshire, England, were bought by William Randolph Hearst and used in alterations to St Donat's Castle in Wales?
• residents of Castleford, England, were incensed when their council tried to eliminate Tickle Cock?
• despite strong support from England, all three Huguenot rebellions in southwestern France were suppressed by King Louis XIII?
• director Paul Weiland, whose credits include Mr. Bean, 66 and more than 500 television commercials, owns an 18th-century country estate in Wiltshire, England?
• despite nine hundred Roman Catholic churches being built in England in the fifty years after 1791, St John the Baptist's Church in Brighton was only the fourth to be consecrated since the Reformation?
• despite his complete lack of mountaineering experience, the English adventurer Maurice Wilson reached an elevation of 22,700 feet (7,450 m) on his doomed solo attempt to climb Mount Everest in 1934?
• despite being fired from his first job, English entrepreneur Ray Ingleby was a millionaire by the age of 21?
• during England's Peasants' Revolt in 1381, William d'Ufford, 2nd Earl of Suffolk (pictured) had to flee the rebels disguised as a groom?
• during World War II, the Tunnel Railway in Ramsgate, England, became part of an air-raid shelter capable of housing more than 60,000 people?
• former places of worship in Brighton and Hove, England, have been converted into a pub, a screen-printing factory, an art gallery and a sheltered housing complex, among other things?
• football player Michael Liddle made his international debut for Republic of Ireland under-19s although he was born in London, England?
• during the Western Schism Thomas de Rossy, Franciscan friar and Bishop of Galloway, challenged any bishop of England to fight in single combat?
• during the Elizabethan era in England, theatres were constructed of wood and were circular in form, open to the elements and with a large portion of the audience standing directly below the stage?
• despite being born in Harlow, England, Alex Stavrinou qualified to play for the Cyprus youth football team through his father's Cypriot heritage?
• by the time he returned to England in 1878 after collecting plants in Colombia, German plant collector Guillermo Kalbreyer had lost more than half of his collection?
• after his move to Philadelphia in 1879, English-born cricketer Arthur Wood (pictured) had to satisfy a five year residency requirement before he was allowed to play with the Philadelphian cricket team?
• after Dr. William Penny Brookes (pictured) began organising Olympian Games in Much Wenlock, England, in 1850, he was credited with inspiring the modern games?
• after English rugby international forward Denys Dobson was killed by a charging rhinoceros, he was reportedly said to always have had "a weak hand off"?
• actor Frederick Baltimore Calvert toured America lecturing on the English poets and then toured England talking about America?
• after paying £500 in 1623 for a pardon, John Nutt was arrested in England and convicted for piracy regardless?
• after the Chester Town Hall (pictured) was officially opened in 1869 in Chester, England to replace an earlier building burnt down in 1862, another fire destroyed the council chamber in 1897?
• because of its unique geology, a 230 hectare area of Rosthwaite Fell (pictured) in Cumbria, England was declared a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1985?
• as part of Smirnoff vodka's Sea advertising campaign, parent company Diageo toured England with an installation capable of making saline or polluted water potable?
• architect Stiff Leadbetter's house Elvills was the first completely new house of the Georgian Gothic revival in England?
• although London and South Western Railway passenger trains first arrived in Plymouth, England in 1876, its Plymouth Friary railway station terminus was not opened until 1891?
• free croquet equipment and music on a Sunday afternoon are provided at the Larmer Tree Gardens in Wiltshire, England?
• horses hauled both passenger and goods trains to Weston-super-Mare railway station, England, from 1841, when the railway opened, until 1851?
• in the six months after the Beerhouse Act was passed in England in 1830, nearly 25,000 new licenses to open pubs, taverns and alehouses were issued?
• in the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Hale, Cheshire, England, is the grave of John Middleton, who was reputed to have been over 9 feet (3 m) tall?
• in the Bancoult litigation, the English courts and government first decided that the Chagossians could return home, then that they couldn't, then that they could, and then that they couldn't?
• in the Capture of Ré island in 1625, English and Dutch warships were used controversially to quell a revolt of French Huguenot coreligionaries?
• it took a musicologist 12 years to reconstruct the missing portions of the only copy of English Renaissance composer Martin Peerson's Latin motets so they could be published and recorded?
• near the altar of the Church of St Mary Magdalene (pictured) in Chewton Mendip, Somerset, England, there is a stone seat for criminals taking sanctuary in the church?
• recently-departed Dame Joyanne Bracewell was the fifth woman to be appointed as an English High Court judge?
• one Prior of Ecclesfield (priory pictured), near Sheffield in England, was accused by Benedictine authorities of "embezzlement of the priory's goods" and of living an "evil life"?
• of the three breeding roosts in England for the rare Barbastelle bat, the only indoor roost is found in Norfolk's historic Paston Great Barn?
• news of the British victory in the Battle of Trafalgar was reported in the Gibraltar Chronicle a fortnight before it reached England?
• in medieval England the Honour of Wallingford existed for almost five centuries?
• in April 1999, Australian Justice Carolyn Simpson joined Margaret Beazley and Virginia Bell to form the first all-female bench to sit in Australia, England or New Zealand?
• in 1924, English light heavyweight boxer Jack Bloomfield fought American Tommy Gibbons in the first ever boxing match to be held at London's famed Wembley Stadium?
• in 1908, Maypole Colliery in Abram, Greater Manchester, England, was the site of an underground explosion that killed 75 miners?
• in 1876, British historian Edwin Pears, as correspondent of The Daily News, sent letters home describing Ottoman atrocities in Bulgaria during the April Uprising which aroused demonstrations in England led by William Gladstone?
• in 1825, the Court of Exchequer declared all contracts by hobbits illegal and void in England?
• in 1977 United States President Jimmy Carter delivered a speech containing the local Geordie phrase "Ha'way-tha-lads!" at Newcastle Civic Centre (pictured), a civic centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, England?
• in 2006, a prisoner escaped from HM Prison Ranby, England, by hiding in a rubbish lorry?
• in penny gaffs, theatrical entertainments enjoyed by the working classes in 19th century England, the plays were often brought to an end by a timekeeper, regardless of what point in the script the actors had reached?
• in England until the early 20th century, a man wishing to separate from his wife could lead her to market by a halter and sell her (process pictured) to the highest bidder?
• in 1930, the footballer Gerard Keizer played for both Arsenal and Ajax Amsterdam simultaneously, flying between England and the Netherlands to play in matches?
• in 1712 Jane Wenham is commonly but erroneously regarded as the last subject of a witch trial in England?
• the British Bulldog revolver (replica pictured) was first produced by Webley & Scott in England and later copied by gunmakers in Continental Europe and the United States?
• the British Seafarers' Union was formed in Southampton in England in October 1911?
• the late Dame Joyanne Bracewell was the fifth woman to be appointed as an English High Court judge?
• the lifting of the Siege of Hull in 1643 was marked by an annual public holiday in Hull, England, until the Restoration?
• the large weight (55 tons) of the main cannon at the Bijapur Fort discouraged the British from carrying it as a trophy to England?
• the large reredos above the altar in St. Martin's Church in Brighton, England, includes 20 pictures and 69 statues, all of which were carved in Oberammergau, Germany?
• the hostility of English alchemist Thomas Charnock's neighbours forced him to barricade himself in his cottage?
• the network of railways in Plymouth, England, once served 28 stations, but today just six stations remain in use?
• the oldest surviving translation of the Gospels into English was made at St Mary and St Cuthbert (pictured), Chester-le-Street, England?
• the position of Clerk of the Parliaments has existed in England since at least 1315?
• the porch of Macclesfield Castle in Macclesfield, dating from the reign of English King Henry II and the only standing part of the castle, was replaced by cottages and shops in 1932?
• the owners of a Californian memorial park tried to buy St Margaret's Church, Rottingdean, England, dismantle it and rebuild it there, but built a replica instead when permission was refused?
• the only working, full sized, Caisson lock ever built, was on the Somerset Coal Canal at Combe Hay, Somerset in England between 1795 and 1805?
• the historic Slipper Chapel in Norfolk, England was used as a cow-shed and barn for almost 400 years before being rededicated as a chapel in 1934?
• the half-brother of William the Conqueror, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, was successfully tried for defrauding the Archbishop of Canterbury of church property a decade after the Norman Conquest of England?
• the earliest scientifically dated cemetery in the United Kingdom was found at Aveline's Hole, one of the Caves of the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England?
• the document known as the Remonstrances was presented in 1297, as England was on the brink of civil war?
• the destruction of over 150 million reis-worth of Nyassa Company stamps was ordered in 1895 by the Portuguese government because the stamps had been printed in England and not Portugal?
• the current Northam Bridge in Southampton, England was the first major road bridge to be built using prestressed concrete in the United Kingdom?
• the events in the novel The Dig take place during the excavation of the Anglo-Saxon burial ship at Sutton Hoo, in Suffolk, England?
• the first Australian national sporting team to wear the now traditional green and gold team colours were the Australian cricket team that toured England in 1899?
• the first public toilets in England were invented by George Jennings for the Great Exhibition of 1851?
• the first professional football team, The Zulus, was established in Sheffield, England in 1879?
• the first person in England to become a Bahá'í was Mary Thornburgh-Cropper in 1898, the year now regarded as the founding of the British Bahá'í community?
• the first Navy Minister of Imperial Russia, Nikolay Mordvinov, started his career serving on English ships in America?
• the records of English herald Thomas Hawley (pictured) contain the first preserved account of a heraldic visitation?
• the residents of England's Butt Hole Road raised £300 to have the name of the street changed to keep tourists away and end jokes about the street's name?
• when St Hilary's Church in Wallasey, England burnt down in 1857, a new church was built separately, leaving the tower of the old medieval church as a free-standing edifice?
• when James Cudworth introduced the 0-4-4T to the South Eastern Railway, they were the first locomotives of this wheel arrangement in England?
• when English composer Sir Edward Elgar died in 1934, he left more than 130 pages of sketches for a third symphony?
• when Birmingham-based early-music choir Ex Cathedra founded its Baroque orchestra in its 1983–1984 season, this was the first period instrument orchestra to be established in an English city outside London?
• when first introduced to England there was confusion over whether the Rouen duck was named after the Rhône region, Cardinal de Rohan, the colour roan, or the town Rouen?
• when the English actress Lucia Elizabeth Vestris (pictured) took over the Olympic Theatre in 1830, she became the first ever female actor-manager in the history of London theatre?
• with the Secret Treaty of Dover signed between England and France, King Charles II attempted to convert England to Catholicism?
• where it passes Merrybent, Durham, England, the A1 road runs on the old track bed of the Merrybent railway?
• when the namesake of Yardley, Pennsylvania, William Yardley, moved from England to Pennsylvania in 1682, he took with him 40 pounds (18 kilograms) of shoes?
• when the English programmer Pete Shaw was still a teen, he had already written eleven technical computer books, published around the world in several languages?
• under the terms of the Bunbury Agreement, the English county of Cheshire would have remained neutral during the English Civil War?
• under the Policing and Crime Act 2009, it is now an offence in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland to persistently possess alcohol in a public place if you are under 18 years of age?
• the the climate in Tasmania was so similar to that of pre-industrial England that it was referred to by some English colonists as "a Southern England"?
• the television adaptation of Ellis Peters' novel The Rose Rent, set in 12th-century England, was actually filmed in Hungary?
• the spacious Hall of Lost Footsteps was added to the medieval Palace of Poitiers at the behest of Alienor of Aquitaine, Queen consort of France and England?
• the restoration of the Tithe Barn, Pilton in Somerset, England was supported by profits from the Glastonbury Festival?
• the village of Walworth, County Durham, England, contains a 400-year-old castle (pictured)?
• the winners of the Twenty20 Champions League, a tournament between Twenty20 cricket champions from Australia, England, India and South Africa, will collect a prize estimated at £2.5 million?
• there was once a gallows in Low Coniscliffe, Durham, England?
• there is an ancient Roman fort partly underneath the village green at Piercebridge (pictured) in County Durham, England?
• there are eleven disused railway stations between Exeter St Davids and Plymouth Millbay, Devon, England, at eight of which there are visible remains?
• there are 94 buildings with listed status in Crawley, England, including The Beehive, a circular Art Deco building that was the world's first integrated airport terminal?
• the controversial Scout Moor Wind Farm, which opened in September 2008, is presently the largest onshore wind farm in England?
• the collapse of the Parrot Corporation, a manufacturer of floppy diskettes, caused a British political controversy?
• the Friends Meeting House at Ifield, England, built in 1676, is one of the oldest purpose-built Friends meeting houses in the world?
• the Ilkley Museum in Yorkshire, England, is a notable habitat for Brunus edwardii?
• the Holgate School in Nottinghamshire, England had a Khatchkar (pictured) installed in thanks by the Armenian Government for UK-funded Lord Byron School in Gyumri?
• the history of sherry has been greatly influenced by many of the world's major empires and civilizations including the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Moors, Spanish and English?
• the Grosvenor Bridge in Chester, England, was the world's largest single-span arch for 30 years?
• the Indian Institute in central Oxford, England was founded by Sir Monier-Williams in 1883 to provide training for the Indian Civil Service?
• the Kisdon Force (pictured) is not an elite military unit, but rather a waterfall in North Yorkshire, England?
• the Lyceum in Port Sunlight, Merseyside, England, (pictured) was built as a school and it is planned to develop part of it as a museum?
• the rivalry between Leeds United and Manchester United football clubs has its roots in the 15th century English civil war, the Wars of the Roses?
• the La Peregrina pearl (pictured), which had been worn by the queens and queens consort of England and Spain for a few hundred years, was once almost eaten by a puppy in a Las Vegas casino?
• the white kunzea was among the first Australian plants introduced to cultivation in England?
• the Viking Great Army pillaged and conquered much of England in the late ninth century?
• the geology of Gloucestershire (Garden Cliff pictured) is one of the most diverse in England, with rocks from the Precambrian through to the Jurassic represented?
• the Concessionary Bus Travel Act 2007 entitles all persons in England who are over the age of 60 or disabled to free bus travel throughout the country during off-peak hours?
• the City of Carlisle is the largest city in England in terms of area, but is one of the smallest by population?
• the Cherhill White Horse, an English hill figure (pictured), once had a glittering glass eye made of bottles?
• the Chattri (pictured) in Brighton, England, stands on the site of the ghat where Hindu and Sikh soldiers of the First World War were cremated after dying while being treated at the Royal Pavilion?
• the Devil's Jumps, on the South Downs of West Sussex in southern England, are considered to be the best preserved Bronze Age barrow group in Sussex?
• the Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership has won £1,000,000 of grants to improve and promote six rural railway lines (Looe Valley Line pictured) in south-west England?
• the geography of Tasmania results in a climate so similar to that of pre-industrial England that it was once referred to as a Southern England?
• the French Protestant Church in Brighton (pictured), one of only two in England, is expected to close this year?
• the Felixstowe Fury was a five-engined triplane flying boat that crashed in 1919, the day before a planned 8,000 mile (12,900 km) flight from England to South Africa?
• the Felbrigge Psalter (pictured) is the oldest embroidered bookbinding in England?
• the Montefiore Synagogue in Ramsgate, built in 1833 for Sir Moses Montefiore using a design by David Mocatta, was the first synagogue built in England by a Jewish architect?
• the National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port, in Cheshire, England, contains the largest collection of canal boats in the world?
• the Westminster Retable, a 13th-century panel painting at Westminster Abbey, is the oldest known altarpiece in England?
• the Van de Passe family engraved portraits of important people in Jacobean England including the Gunpowder Plotters (pictured) and Pocahontas?
• the turnpike trusts in Greater Manchester (milestone pictured) had a huge impact upon the way business was conducted around Manchester, England?
• the Transition Towns movement inspired Totnes, England to introduce their own town-wide currency redeemable only in local shops?
• the Duke of Wellington pub (pictured) at High Coniscliffe, Durham, England, used to display Napoleon on its sign instead of Wellington?
• the accuracy of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth was challenged in the English High Court of Justice case Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education and Skills?
• the city of Plymouth (pictured) is the largest settlement in Devon, England, with a population of 240,720 in the 2001 census?
• the body of the victim of the Red Barn Murder, in Suffolk, England, was discovered in 1828 after her stepmother reported dreaming about it?
• the ashes of hillwalker and author Alfred Wainwright lie in his favourite fell, Haystacks in the Western Fells of the English Lake District?
• the ancient opencast iron ore workings known as scowles (pictured) in the Forest of Dean, England, are believed to have been an inspiration for settings in J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings?
• the Thornbury Hoard was discovered in a back garden in South Gloucestershire, England, by a man digging a pond, and that it took two people to carry it to the local museum?
• the Liverpool Scottish, a unit of the British Territorial Army, was raised in 1900 from Scotsmen living in Liverpool, England?
• the Society for the Reformation of Manners, founded in England in 1691, included a network of "moral guardians" in London to gather information about moral infractions?
• the Saladin tithe was levied in England in 1188 to help finance the Third Crusade?
• the SS Suevic of the White Star Line ran into rocks off the coast of England while steaming at full speed in dense fog at night in 1907 but everyone on board survived?
• the Port of Runcorn in Cheshire, England, was an independent customs port for two separate periods before becoming part of the Port of Manchester in 1894?
• the Solway Firth Spaceman is a photograph taken in 1964 in Cumbria, England, which appears to show a background figure in a white space suit?
• the Star Carr house in North Yorkshire, England, was built by Stone Age hunters 10,500 years ago and is the oldest dwelling ever found in Britain?
• the Temple of Harmony, built in the grounds of Halsworth House in Goathurst, Somerset, England in 1767, is a replica of the Temple of Fortuna Virilis in Rome?
• the Tarporley Hunt Club, founded in 1762, is the oldest surviving hunt club in England?
• the Sunday Closing Act of 1881, which restricted the opening of public houses in Wales, was the first legislation for over three centuries to recognise that country as distinct from England?
• the Stourbridge fair, first held in 1211 in Cambridge, England, was once the largest fair in Europe?
• according to the official English account of the Battle of Skerries in 1316, the English army suffered only one casualty, yet lost the battle?
• a small cottage in the Chester, England suburb of Handbridge inspired the song "Nowhere Man" by The Beatles?
• South African Jean-Michel d'Avray played football in England and Holland before becoming the last ever National Soccer League Coach of the Year in Australia?
• American hammer thrower Walter Boal astonished passengers on a ship traveling to England in 1899 by skipping rope around the deck with another athlete on his back?
• Second World War bomber pilot "Micky" Martin broke the speed record flying from England to Cape Town?
• runemaster Ulf of Borresta was a successful Viking who returned from England thrice with a share of the Danegeld?
• Richard Reid, who in 2001 attempted to detonate a bomb hidden in his shoes aboard an aeroplane, used to attend the Brixton Mosque in London, England?
• American music critic and editor Smokey Fontaine is the son of English documentary filmmaker Dick Fontaine, the maker of the 1984 BBC documentary Beat This: A Hip-Hop History?
• William the Conqueror's transport of over 2000 horses across the English Channel during the Norman invasion of England is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry (pictured)?
• Anthony, Charles, Cecilia, Isabella, Sr., Isabella, Jr., Esther, Elizabeth, and Polly Young were part of an English family of musicians that included several professional singers and organists in the 17th and 18th centuries?
• Anna Maria Garthwaite, the daughter of a Lincolnshire clergyman, became the leading designer of flowered fabrics for the Spitalfields silk-weaving trade in 18th century England?
• All Saints' Church, Childwall is the only medieval church in the metropolitan borough of Liverpool, England?
• 9 Mill Street (pictured) in Nantwich, Cheshire, England, dates from 1736, and has been a house, a bank, a political club and a restaurant?
• Rastafarian Papa Noel Dyer, known as "the man who walked to Ethiopia" from England, actually hitchhiked?
• Phoebe Hessel, who masqueraded as a man for 17 years to fight in the British Army alongside her husband, is buried in the churchyard at St. Nicholas Church, Brighton, England?
• English-born architect William Nichols designed and built statehouses for North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi in the early 19th century?
• English writer and historian Mercia MacDermott, who has authored five books on the ethnography and history of Bulgaria, learned Mandarin Chinese while living in Weihai as a child?
• English singer and actor Walter H. Fisher created the role of the Defendant in Gilbert and Sullivan's 1875 opera Trial by Jury?
• English printer John Wolfe's business practices so incensed his contemporaries, they accused him of Machiavellianism?
• Englishman Peter Marner was the first batsman to hit a century in one-day cricket, in the first round of Gillette Cup matches in 1963?
• excavations of earthworks conducted in the 19th century revealed evidence of possible Belgic fortifications at the site of Sharsted Court, a manor house near Newnham, Kent, England?
• Paducah, Kentucky's Lloyd Tilghman Memorial honors a Marylander, and was built by an English immigrant from Boston?
• Norwegian chemist Alexis Pappas was born in London to Greek parents who fled from Belgium to England during World War I?
• Mayo hurler Adrian Freeman played in England, Scotland, North America and the Middle East before his recent death in an Australia car crash?
• German painter Ludwig Thiersch influenced the debate over Byzantine and Western influences in modern Greek art, and painted church frescoes in Greece, Austria, Germany, England, and Russia?
• Argleton appears on Google Maps as a settlement in West Lancashire, England, even though no such place exists?
• Aythorpe Roding Windmill (pictured) is the largest surviving post mill in Essex, England?
• Cesar Picton, who was enslaved aged six in Senegal, died in England as a wealthy coal-merchant?
• Cassiobury Park is the principal amenity area of Watford, Hertfordshire, in England?
• Caedwalla of Wessex conquered southeast England during his brief 7th century reign?
• Broadmoor Hospital is the most famous mental institution in England?
• chalcocite, a profitable and desirable kind of copper ore, was particularly plentiful in the now-depleted copper mines of Cornwall, England and Bristol, Connecticut?
• Chard Museum in Somerset, England, includes a collection of early articulated artificial limbs?
• Cine City in Manchester, England, the third cinema to open in England in 1912 as "The Scala", has recently been demolished?
• Chris Harris was the first basketballer from England to play in the NBA?
• Chetham's Library in Manchester, England is the oldest public library in the English-speaking world?
• Chester Racecourse is the oldest horse racing course in the England, built on the site of a blocked harbour in 1533?
• Broad Street in Reading, England – the site of a 1688 battle and crucial to the Earl of Essex's siege of the town – is now a pedestrianised shopping street?
• Bridgwater Bay is the location of the last mudhorse fisherman in England?
• Bernard de Neufmarché was the first of the Norman conquerors of Wales, who annexed the Kingdom of Brycheiniog to England?
• Belmont Castle, an 18th century neo-Gothic mansion near Grays in the English county of Essex, was demolished in 1943 to make way for a chalk quarry?
• Bartholomew Gilbert is responsible for the failure to establish a colony on Cape Cod in 1602 which would have been the first English colony in the Americas?
• Barnet Burns (pictured) toured England from 1835, exhibited his Māori tattoos and recounted his adventures in New Zealand?
• Beverston Castle is in ruin, not mainly from its role in warfare, but by a 1646 act of the English parliament to destroy its battlements, lest they be used by Royalists?
• Raw Head (pictured), in Cheshire, England, was a Marilyn, but was demoted in 2009 after a re-survey?
• Bold Lane car park, used by shoppers in Derby, England, is one of the ten most secure places in the world, alongside Air Force One, Area 51, and Fort Knox?
• Bishop Hannington Memorial Church in Hove, England, is dedicated to a missionary killed in Uganda on King Mwanga II's orders?
• Birger Dahlerus was a Swedish businessman and friend of Hermann Göring, who made numerous trips between Germany and England in 1939 in a attempt to avert the Second World War?
• bin bugs are being attached to wheelie bins in England to monitor the amount of domestic waste produced by each household?
• English novelist Charles Dickens wrote the bestseller The Life of Our Lord for his children in 1849, but it was not published until 1934, 64 years after his death?
• English musician and composer Charles Frederick Horn served as personal music tutor to Queen Charlotte?
• Dutch baroque painter Jan Wyck spent most of his career in England, where he influenced the development of British military art?
• England brokered the 1617 Treaty of Stolbova between Sweden and Russia?
• Diana Mitford had an appendectomy on the spare-bedroom table of the Mitford sisters' childhood home, Asthall Manor near Burford in Oxfordshire, England?
• cricketer George Nichols was a key member of the Somerset team that was unbeaten against other counties of England and Wales in 1890?
• cricket was introduced to Slovenia in 1974 by a 13-year-old boy who had visited his pen pal in England and brought back a single bat and a copy of the Laws?
• England's cricket selectors picked "coloured" Basil D'Oliveira to replaced the injured Tom Cartwright for the tour to South Africa in 1968-69, triggering the cancellation of the tour and leading to the exclusion of the South African cricket team from international cricket until apartheid was abolished in 1991?
• England's Auditor of the Imprests, an office responsible for auditing the accounts of public officials such as the Paymaster of the Forces, became a lucrative sinecure before being abolished in 1782?
• English footballer Tom Holford played professionally until he was 46, making him the sixth oldest player to have appeared in a Football League match?
• English footballer Glen Thomas came close to losing an eye in 1996 when he stumbled into a tree during a training session and was hit in the face by a branch?
• English Anglican clergyman Dr William Dodd was nicknamed the "macaroni parson" as a result of his extravagant lifestyle, and in 1777 became the last person to be hanged at Tyburn for forgery?
• England-born American composer Wallace Arthur Sabin was the first dean of the San Francisco chapter of the American Guild of Organists?
• Flemish artist Peter Tillemans was one of the founders of the sporting school of painting (pictured) in England?
• Charles Darwin frequently visited Osmaston Hall in Derby, England?
• Ain-Ervin Mere, commander of the Estonian Sicherheitspolizei, was sentenced to death in 1961 for organizing the holocaust in Estonia, but died as a free man in England?
• Rear-Admiral Sir Hugh Cloberry Christian (pictured) was given command of the largest troop convoy to leave England, but twice had it forced back to port by severe gales?
• 2,273 passengers booked travel from Templecombe railway station, England in 1982, despite it being closed from 1966 to 1983?
• 19th-century smugglers in Worthing, West Sussex, England, were known to store their contraband in table-tombs at West Tarring's St Andrew's Church (pictured)?
• Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Burnett was born in the United States to a Scottish father, educated in England and eventually became the Australian Chief of the Air Staff?
• General Augusto Pinochet was once kept under house arrest at a house on the Wentworth Estate, an exclusive residential area surrounding the Wentworth Golf Club in Surrey, England?
• Prince Charles, who in 2004 opened the village shop at Hewelsfield in Gloucestershire, England, described it as "a triumph of community spirit"?
• German rugby club SC 1880 Frankfurt adopted a red and black strip after a set of friendlies in 1894 against the English club Blackheath F.C., who also played in those colours?
• Caryl Churchill's play Mad Forest, developed partly in Bucharest in collaboration with Romanian and English drama students, was in production less than six months after the Romanian Revolution of 1989?
• Australian-born lumber executive John A. Campbell was said to have introduced surfing on the Cornwall coast of England?
• English botanist John Parkinson included a pun on his name in the title of his monumental 1629 work Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris? (It translates as Park-in-Sun's Terrestrial Paradise.)
• English botanist John Ralfs amassed a collection 3,137 microscopic slides, which he left in his will to the British Museum?
• English Test cricketer Graham Roope was batting at the non-striker's end when Geoff Boycott reached his 100th first-class century, but not when John Edrich achieved the same record one month earlier, despite many claims to the contrary?
• English suffragette Olive Wharry was imprisoned in 1913 for an arson attack at Kew Gardens?
• English sculptor Henry Weekes' monument to Percy Bysshe Shelley, modelled on Michelangelo's Pietà, includes realistic touches such as seaweed wrapped around the drowned poet's arm?
• English primary school Watercliffe Meadow's decision to call itself "a place of learning" rather than a "school" was attacked as being too politically correct?
• English vinegar manufacturer and Liberal member of parliament Mark Hanbury Beaufoy wrote well-known verses on gun safety?
• English actor, singer and playwright Arthur Williams (pictured), best remembered for his comic operas, Edwardian musical comedies and musical burlesques, played over 1,000 roles in his career?
• English lower-league football team Bristol Rovers once beat the Netherlands national football team 3-2?
• English former footballer David Hamilton was Wigan Athletic's first ever full-time scout?
• English footballer Reg Attwell was selected to represent the Football League in 1949?
• English explorer James Knight died on an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage in 1719?
• English opera singer and actress Florence Perry (pictured) was best known for her performances with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in the late 19th century?
• English mathematician and geographer Robert Hues served his master Thomas Grey, the last Baron Grey de Wilton, while Grey was imprisoned in the Tower of London?
• English cricketer and footballer Arthur Milton was the last surviving person to have played Test cricket for the England cricket team and international football for the England football team?
• English cricketer Roger Davis was once struck so hard on the head by a ball that his heart and breathing stopped, and he had to be revived by a doctor from the crowd?
• English clergyman Ralph Tollemache gave his many children increasingly eccentric names, such as that of British Army officer Captain Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache?
• English civil engineer James Trubshaw's straightening method used on Wybunbury's St Chad's tower in 1832 was later used to stabilise the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
• English football full back Alfred Bower was the last amateur player to captain the English national team in 1927?
• English director and actor Steven Berkoff featured in a two-minute film inviting the viewer to Watch Your Own Heart Attack?
• English landscape architect Edward Milner designed three public parks in Preston, Lancashire, as a scheme for relieving unemployment caused by the cotton famine in the 1860s?
• English jockey Mornington Cannon was named after the mount his father rode to victory on the day he was born?
• English jazz musician Eddie Freeman's custom four-string guitar was adopted for manufacture by Selmer?
• English football referee Matt Messias once urged a Portsmouth defender not to kick an opposing player during a match against Newcastle United because "the devil was trying to get him sent off"?
• cock throwing was a popular blood sport in England for centuries?
• Cranbury Park (pictured) near Winchester, England, was the home of Sir Isaac Newton?
• St Mary's Church in Cheadle, Greater Manchester, England, a Grade I listed building, was built in the 16th century and houses a stone cross dating to the 11th century?
• Terry Pitt died after choking on nicotine-replacement chewing gum in the back of a taxi in Birmingham, England?
• St Lawrence's Church, a listed building in Stoak, Cheshire, England, has a Tudor hammerbeam roof, a Jacobean altar, a Georgian pulpit, an Elizabethan chalice and chairs from the time of Charles II?
• St Laurence Church, Ludlow, England has an extensive collection of medieval misericords and other wood carvings, but may be best known as poet A.E. Housman's gravesite?
• St Barnabas' Church (pictured), completed in Bromborough, England in 1864, has been called a "well-designed example of the work" of its architect, Sir George Gilbert Scott?
• Theo Osterkamp was the first German reconnaissance pilot to fly a land-based aircraft to England during World War I?
• Tower Hill Water Tower (pictured) in Ormskirk, Lancashire, is reputed to be the oldest remaining water tower in England?
• Virginia House in Richmond, Virginia, was once a priory in Warwickshire, England, and was used to entertain Queen Elizabeth I?
• Updown Court, a private residence in England, is valued at over US$120 million?
• Union Bridge across the River Tweed between England and Scotland was once the longest suspension bridge in the world and is now the oldest surviving?
• troco (pictured), also called "trucks" or "lawn billiards", is a traditional English lawn game played with wooden balls and long-handled cues at the ends of which are spoon-like ovals of iron?
• St Andrews Church (pictured) in Chew Stoke, Somerset, England, includes 156 statues of angels?
• St Andrew's Church, Brunswick Town, Hove, designed by Sir Charles Barry, was the first Italianate-style church in England?
• Roderigue Hortalez and Company was a fictitious front organization set up by France to help American revolutionaries fight England?
• Robert Elliott-Cooper lived for 12 more years after the journal Nature described him as "among the oldest of English engineers"?
• Reigate Heath Windmill is the only windmill in England that has been consecrated as a church?
• Przemysław I Noszak, Duke of Cieszyn unsuccessfully tried to negotiate peace between England and France fighting the Hundred Years' War?
• SS Rajputana, a P&O liner traveling between Plymouth, England and Lahore, British India, was converted into a cruiser and eventually sunk by a German U-boat west of Iceland?
• Samuel Hieronymus Grimm, a Swiss painter, toured England for twenty years leaving 2,662 sketches in the British Library -- including the only known image of the coronation of Edward VI?
• St. Thomas' Church, Mellor (pictured) contains the oldest wooden pulpit in England, and possibly in the world?
• Shire Brook in Sheffield, England, was part of the boundary between Yorkshire and Derbyshire for 900 years?
• Scots' Dike was constructed by the English and the Scots in 1552 to mark the division of the Debatable Lands and thereby settle the exact boundary between the kingdoms of Scotland and England?
• Sankey Valley Park, Warrington (pictured) follows the course of the historical Sankey Canal, England's first canal?
• Woolmer Forest, a former royal hunting forest in Hampshire, is the only site where all twelve species of amphibians and reptiles native to England are found?
• City of Truro was the first railway locomotive to exceed 100 mph (160 km/h) while hauling a train near Wellington station on the Reading to Plymouth Line in England?
• a Grand Illumination is an outdoor ceremony involving the simultaneous activation of electric Christmas lights and is derived from an English tradition of placing lighted candles in the windows of homes and public buildings to celebrate a special event?
• a timber in Nutley Windmill, an open trestle post mill in Sussex, England, has been dated by dendrochronology to 1738–70, and the main post is even older, dating to 1533–70?
• a planning application for a 42-storey building in the recent New England Quarter development in Brighton, England, was rejected on twenty separate counts, including the negative effect it would have on the local microclimate?
• a photograph of Wem Town Hall in Shropshire, England, taken during a fire, appears to show the ghost of a young girl standing amidst the flames?
• a team of Canadians assembled to play for the new Nottingham Panthers ice hockey team in England were sent home without playing a game due to the outbreak of World War II?
• a Hocktide initiation ceremony in Hungerford, England involves a blacksmith driving a nail into the initiate's shoe?
• a schoolboy's work gives an insight into life at Thomas Rossell Potter's country school "The Hermitage" (pictured) in 19th century England?
• a road in Charlcombe, Somerset, England is closed for two months every spring to allow frogs and toads to cross safely?
• a part of the Parthenon Frieze currently at the British Museum used to be kept at Marbury Hall in Cheshire, England?
• a former minister at Hove Methodist Church, England, spoke so forcefully during sermons that Communion cruets would sometimes be sent crashing to the floor?
• a cow once got stuck in Boot's Folly at Strines Reservoir, South Yorkshire, England, after climbing its staircase?
• a coal mining spoil heap at Writhlington, England was the site for the discovery of fossilised remains of the world's earliest known Damselfly?
• Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers is the first dated book printed in England?
• Colin Clouts Come Home Againe by the English poet Edmund Spenser has received little critical attention, yet has been called the "greatest pastoral eclogue" in the English language?
• Begonia boliviensis, one of the species used the production of the first hybrid tuberous begonia raised in England, was introduced from Bolivia by the Victorian plant collector Richard Pearce?
• The Guardian newspaper was founded 189 years ago in Manchester, England as a direct response to the Peterloo Massacre?
• Flow my tears by English lutenist John Dowland (1563–1626) is not only his most popular song today, but was also the most widely known English song of the period?
• Keying was a three-masted Chinese junk, which sailed from China to the United States and England between 1846 and 1848?
• John Thomson served for 55 years as the schoolmaster of Nantwich Blue Cap School in Cheshire, England, and the school closed some six months after his retirement aged 86 or 87?
• Indian freedom fighter T. S. S. Rajan practised as a doctor in Burma and England before being appointed as the Minister for Health and Religious Endowments of the Madras Presidency?
• Crookham, a village in England, dates as far back as the Domesday Book, but that it split into Crookham Village and Church Crookham upon the founding of the nearby Christ Church in 1840?
• Reaper, a 105-year-old historic Fifie herring drifter, nearly sank off the north east coast of England after being restored and put back into service as a museum ship?
• Porlock Bay in England contains a submerged forest?
• Platt Fields Park in Manchester, England, was used as a country park for over 400 years before being converted for public use in 1908–1910?
• Francis Birtles was an Australian adventurer who set many long distance cycling and driving records including becoming the first man to drive a car from England to Australia in 1927?
• Fountains Fell, a mountain in the Yorkshire Dales, England, is named after Fountains Abbey whose monks grazed sheep there in the 13th century?
• Ernst Kitzinger, a historian of Byzantine art, was forced to leave Germany in 1934 and England in 1940 because he was Jewish and German respectively?
• Eric Coates was an English composer who wrote some songs for lyrics by Arthur Conan Doyle?
• Francis Ley is credited with introducing baseball to England with the Derby County Baseball Club?
• Frank Parr, an English chess player, won the Hastings Premier during his first and only appearance at the tournament in 1939/1940?
• buildings with Grade II* listed status in Brighton and Hove, England, include the Royal Albion Hotel, wrecked in 1998 by a fire that started in a pan of sausages?
• goose pulling (pictured) was a popular blood sport practiced in Belgium, England, the Netherlands and the United States that involved a man on horseback galloping past a live goose and pulling its head off?
• Gnanendramohan Tagore was the first Asian to be called to the bar in England in 1862?
• George Ormerod, an English antiquary and historian, was responsible for organising the restoration of the Saxon crosses in Sandbach in Cheshire in 1816?
• Emery Molyneux's 16th-century terrestrial and celestial globes (pictured) were the first to be made in England and by an Englishman?
• Eliza Flower was a 19th-century English musician and composer with whom a young Robert Browning fell in love?
• Danebury (pictured), an Iron Age hillfort in Hampshire, England, was occupied from about 550 BC until 100 BC when the gates were burnt down, probably in an attack?
• Culbone Church (pictured) is the smallest English parish church still holding services?
• Crypt Chambers, a department store in Chester, Cheshire, England, was built in 1858 above one of the best medieval crypts in the city?
• cross stitches are part of the embroidery traditions of the Balkans, Middle East, Afghanistan, Colonial America and Victorian England?
• Delamere Forest (pictured) is the remnant of the Norman hunting forests of Mara and Mondrem, which once covered over 60 square miles (160 km²) of Cheshire, England?
• Dining in refers to a formal military dinner, a practice thought to have begun in 16th Century England in monasteries and universities, adopted by the British Army during the 18th Century and revived in the U.S. Military during World War II?
• Eldon Hill (quarry pictured) in the Peak District, England lost much of its area through limestone quarrying between 1950 and 1999?
• Dudley Ryder, a managing director of Coutts private bank for 40 years, was also a director of English Big Four bank NatWest for 19 years until he succeeded his father as 7th Earl of Harrowby?
• Drinkstone Post Mill is the oldest surviving windmill in Suffolk, England, having been built in 1689?
• Dovedale (pictured), a National Nature Reserve in the Peak District, England, attracts a million visitors a year?
• Havergate Island is the only island in the county of Suffolk, England, and has the largest breeding population of pied avocets in the UK?
• Hemerdon Mine in Devon, England is one of the world's largest sources of tungsten and tin, but has not been mined since World War II?
• Low Walworth, County Durham, England, once contained a gin gang?
• La Princesse (pictured), a giant mechanical spider, roamed the streets of Liverpool, England as part of the 2008 European City of Culture celebrations?
• Kielder Viaduct (pictured) in Northumberland, England, was built in 1862 in a baronial style and decorated with a battlemented parapet and faux arrow slits in order to gain approval of the local landowner?
• Kenneth Gandar-Dower introduced cheetah racing to England?
• Sir Michael Sachs was the first English solicitor to become a High Court judge, appointed in 1993?
• Nemattanew, a renegade Powhatan captain dubbed "Jack-of-the-Feather" in 1611 for his extravagant regalia, believed he was invincible to English bullets?
• Sir Peter Lely, the most popular portrait artist in England in the mid 1600s, was born Pieter van der Faes, and is reputed to have adopted the surname "Lely" from a heraldic lily on the gable of the house of his father's birth?
• Peel Park in England was the first of three public parks to be opened for the people of Manchester and Salford in 1846?
• Palwankar Shivram, brother of the Dalit cricketers Baloo and Vithal, was a spin bowling all-rounder who represented the All-India cricket team that toured England in 1911?
• Obaysch became the first living hippopotamus in England since prehistoric times when he joined the London Zoo in 1850?
• Julia's House is the first and only hospice in Dorset, England, for children with life-limiting conditions?
• Jonathan Stokes was an English physician and botanist, a member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, and an early adopter of the heart drug digitalis (pictured)?
• Humshaugh in Northumberland, England, is acknowledged as the site of the first official Scout camp?
• Hugh Johns commentated for England's only FIFA World Cup victory during his first year as a commentator?
• Horseshoe Bend, Shirehampton, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Bristol, contains the largest population of True Service-trees in England?
• Hereford Road Skew Bridge (pictured) has been described as one of the most "skew" railway bridges in England?
• Hungry Bentley, an abandoned village in Derbyshire, England, was named for the poor quality of its land?
• Ivory Williams competed against Usain Bolt in a 150-metre street race as part of the Great City Games in Manchester, England?
• Sir John Luttrell, an English soldier and diplomat under Henry VIII and Edward VI, was the subject of an allegorical portrait (pictured) by Hans Eworth celebrating peace with France and Scotland?
• John Dorewood was Speaker of the House of Commons for the first parliaments of both Henry IV and Henry V of England?
• Jimmy Matthews is the only Test cricketer to have bowled two hat tricks in one match, a feat achieved during the 1912 Triangular Tournament in England?
• Jemmy Button was an American Indian from Tierra del Fuego who was bought for a mother of pearl button in 1830 and taken on HMS Beagle to meet the King and Queen of England?
• 11-year old Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein is regarded by Jacobites as third in line for the throne of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland?