THE word milestone has come to mean a significant event on life’s journey, such as an anniversary. It originally referred to actual stones positioned on roadsides, inscribed with the distances to near

Ringed by lofty beech trees and standing alongside the ancient Ridgeway National Trail above the Vale of White Horse near the village of Ashbury, this impressive stone-chambered long barrow is over 5,

“One might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” goes the old proverb. The meaning is simple: if you are going to be punished for a small crime, you may as well commit the bigger one. In the early

It’s been a long mile, trudging uphill in the rain, across uninspiring fields, past rickety ruins of long-abandoned farm buildings, mud slowly working its way up my waterproof trousers. Sometimes walk

Britain is one of the last constitutional monarchies in the world, and the king or queen still plays a ceremonial role in the governance of the state. When Queen Elizabeth II died in 2022, she was bur

I found it quite disconcerting, drinking a pint with Queen Boudicca and her Iceni warriors lurking behind me. I was in the Odd One Out, a quirky pub in Colchester and was getting used to finding histo