Christopher Winn’s I Never Knew That

In this episode Christopher explores the beginnings of Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow, travels south into Lanarkshire to experience the world’s longest echo, then north west across the Clyde to Scotland’s most ancient capital before finishing back in Glasgow to find out where English comics went to die.

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Sound Credits

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In this episode Christopher visits more of Southern Scotland taking in a pink palace that was once the only place in the world where you could see a Rembrandt, a Holbein and a da Vinci simultaneously, a loch where history was made, the romantic abbey where the world’s first sweetheart lies, the modest birthplace of Scotland’s national poet and the only place in Britain visited by the King - or was it?

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Sound ...

In this episode Christopher visits Southern Scotland, travelling first along the River Tweed in the Border country, taking in the baronial home of Scotland’s most famous novelist, two beautiful ruined abbeys with stories to tell and the world’s first vehicular suspension bridge, and then taking a ride to Glasgow on the world’s first pedal bike.

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Sound Credits

In this episode, Christopher explores London taking in the capital’s first - and best - man made viewpoint, the room where a shy 18 year old girl became a Queen, an ancient secret garden, a house shared by two of the world’s greatest musicians, and a green museum at the gates a palace.

Places to visit:

The Red Saloon, Kensington Palace

https://www.hrp.org.uk/kensington-palace/history-and-stories/the-story-of-kensington-palace/...

In this episode Christopher visits the Lincolnshire Wolds of Alfred Lord Tennyson, the most beautiful building in the world in Cambridgeshire, an Englishman’s castle in Norfolk, the England we dream of in Suffolk and a cathedral on the edge of the world in Essex.

Places to visit:

Lincolnshire Wolds https://www.lincswolds.org.uk

King’s College Chapel  https://www.visitcambridge.org

Holkham Hall, Norfolk  https://w...

In this special episode Christopher tells the story of how St George came to be the patron saint of England, and visits some of the places in England most associated with him.

Places to See:

Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) Palace of Westminster

St George’s Chapel, Windsor

Dragon Hill, Uffington White Horse, near Wantage, Oxfordshire.

St Botolph’s, Hardham, West Sussex

St George’s, Fordington...

In this episode Christopher visits the northern capital of the Roman empire, the scene of the naval battle that secured American independence, the village where man first flew, and the setting for the world’s first moving pictures.

Places to visit:

York 

https://www.visityork.org/explore/yorks-city-walls-p1188501

Flamborough Head

https://www.yorkshire.com/places/yorkshire-coast/flamborough

Leeds

https://www.visitleeds.co.uk

In this episode Christopher visits the only mainland community in Britain to be cut off by the daily tides, in Lancashire, a lakeland castle where all is yellow, the Georgian port in Cumberland that inspired New York, the home of one of England’s great heroines in Northumberland and the oldest railway bridge in the world in County Durham.

Places to visit:

Lowther Castle  https://lowthercastle.org

Whitehaven ...

In this episode Christopher discovers the world’s first skyscraper in Shropshire, walks beside a lake dedicated to love in Staffordshire, follows in the footsteps of a legend in Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, discovers a village in Derbyshire that died so that others might live and strolls through the world’s first public park in Cheshire.

Places to visit:

Shrewsbury Flax Mill, Shropshire

Rudyard Lake, Staffordshire

Sherwood F...

Christopher explores the West Midlands taking in a ride on the world’s first bicycle in Warwickshire, three Cotswold villages in Gloucestershire with literary connections, a trip to the moon from Herefordshire, a view of the whole of Middle England from the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire, and the house in Birmingham where the modern world was shaped.

Places to visit:

Coventry Transport Museum

St Giles, Coberley

Cowley Manor

Co...

Christopher visits a quiet corner of Bedfordshire where the Celestial Light shines most brightly, the oldest house in England, in Huntingdonshire, the room in Rutland where the Gunpowder Plot may have been hatched, the burial place in Leicestershire of the last Plantagenet king, and George Washington’s ancestral home in Northamptonshire.

Link to some places to visit in this episode:

Visit Leicester

Sulgrave Manor Trust

The Manor, H...

Christopher visits the birthplace of English song in Berkshire, Heaven on Earth in Oxfordshire, a country churchyard in Buckinghamshire where we have all the time in the world, the launch site in Middlesex for the first balloon flight over England and the exact spot in Hertfordshire where a young man made a momentous decision that changed the world for good.

Link to some places to visit in this episode:

Abbey Quarter

The Society o...

Christopher visits a handsome village in Dorset resting place of a farmer whose enterprise, and whose wife, helped save millions of lives, the Devon landscape beloved of a Hollywood legend, the most perfect combination of sculpture and scenery you will ever find, in Cornwall, an enchanted Somerset combe that inspired great poetry and the Computer Age, and an ancient temple in Wiltshire restored with marmalade.

Link to some place...

Christopher visits a mountain side house in Surrey where larks ascend, a desert in Kent where a famous film director lived out his final days, a beautiful ancient hilltop town in East Sussex, with an enviable literary heritage, the loveliest room in the world in a castle in West Sussex, the spot in Hampshire where a naval hero was felled in his moment of triumph, and a medieval space ship on the Isle of Wight.

Link to some place...

In this feature length Christmas special Christopher goes in search of the Great British Christmas, discovering magical Christmas stories and fascinating Christmas facts from around the nation that shine a light on the origins and traditions of Britain’s favourite celebration.

List of places and Gazetteer

Credits

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