Fantasy author JRR Tolkien’s mythological Middle Earth takes inspiration from a number of places in Gloucestershire and the West Midlands. Tolkien frequently visited the Forest of Dean and its tempera

Few visitors to the New Forest realise the impression that its villages and ancient woodlands made on Britain’s most celebrated writers. Jo Jukes takes a literary walk in the woods

Today I am sitting at a well-scrubbed kitchen table in a Cotswold kitchen, warmed by a Delft blue Rayburn. My hostess offers me a slice of fruitcake baked by her husband – baking is something Bill has

As a youngster with a limited amount of cash, I used to spend days out in the capital enjoying delights that were totally free. These included getting lost in the maze at Hampton Court Palace, window

The precocious poetry of Charlotte Brontë

Essex: A county bounded by water, flat, marshy and called by some the “graveyard of witches”. Between 1500 and 1800 over 1,000 men, women and children were executed for the crime of witchcraft in the