About Britain

In 1951, the Festival of Britain commissioned a series of short guides they dubbed 'handbooks for the explorer'. Their aim was to encourage readers to venture out beyond the capital and on to 'the roads and the by-roads' to see Britain as a 'living country'. Yet these thirteen guides did more than celebrate the rural splendour of this 'island nation': they also made much of Britain's industrial power and mid-century ambition - her thirst for new technologies, pride in manufacturing and passion for exciting new ways to travel by road, air and sea. Armed with these About Britain guides, historian Tim Cole takes to the roads to find out what has changed and what has remained the same over the 70 years since they were first published. From Oban to Torquay, Caernarvon to Cambridge, he explores the visible changes to our landscape, and the more subtle social and cultural shifts that lie beneath. In a starkly different era where travel has been transformed by the pandemic and many are journeying closer to home, About Britain is a warm and timely meditation on our changing relationship with the landscape, industry and transport. As he looks out on vineyards and apple orchards, power stations and slate mines, vast greenhouses and fulfilment centres for online goods, Cole provides an enchanting glimpse of twentieth and early twenty-first century Britain as seen from the driver's seat.

Tim Cole is Professor of Social History at the University of Bristol and Director of the Brigstow Institute, which brings researchers together across the university to work with those outside it exploring what it means to be human in the twenty-first century. When not journeying through the landscape and along the highways and by-ways of Britain, Tim lectures on modern history with an interest in geography and place. @TimCole_Bristol

About Britain 1 West Country: Barnstaple-Exeter-Torquay (76 miles) 2 Wessex: Southampton-Whitchurch-Salisbury (104 miles) 3 Home Counties: Canterbury-Margate-Canterbury (104 miles) 4 East Anglia: Cambridge-Littleport-King's Lynn (124 miles) 5 Chilterns to Black Country: Stafford-Coventry-Oxford (104 miles) 6 South Wales and the Marches: Hereford-Merthyr Tydfil-Caerleon-Hereford (147 miles) 7 North Wales and the Marches: Caernarvon-Capel Curig-Caernarvon (88 miles) 8 East Midlands and the Peak: Stamford-Ashby-de-la-Zouch-Stamford (108 miles) 9 Lancashire and Yorkshire: Southport-Glusburn-York (108 miles) 10 The Lakes to Tyneside: Newcastle on Tyne-Otterburn-Durham (108 miles) 11 Lowlands of Scotland: Edinburgh-Perth-Glasgow(146 miles) 12 Highlands and Islands of Scotland: Perth-Crianlarich-Oban (128 miles) Back About Britain Notes Acknowledgements