Lake District

The National Park Lake District covers the North West of England and was created in 1951 to protect the landscape against unwanted change that industry and trade could cause.

Almost all the land in the park is privately owned, with small areas belonging to the National Trust. Generally in England there is no restriction on the entry or movement within the park.

The highest mountains in England are within the park boundaries. It is considered an area of outstanding natural beauty with breathtaking scenery unique to this corner of England.

The farmland, hills and towns add aesthetic value to the landscape with an ecology modified by human influence for millennia, and hosting important wildlife habitats.

The Lake District is intimately associated with English literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Thomas Gray was the first to bring attention to the region, when he wrote a journal of his Grand Tour in 1769, but it was William Wordsworth who wrote poems most famous and influential. Wordsworth's poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", inspired by the sight of daffodils on the shores of Ullswater, remains one of the most famous of the English language. The area was known as the Lake Poets.

During the twentieth century, the children's book author Beatrix Potter wrote many of her famous Peter Rabbit books in the Lake District from his home in Hill Top Farm.

This is a documentary of William Wordsworth and the Lake District:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7TG4AsuqvM

Literature, poetry and philosophy in England

The period of Old English literature was always backed by the epic poem Beowulf, the secular prose of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is, along with Christian writings Judith, Caedmon's Hymn and hagiographies holy. After the Norman conquest Latin continued amongst the educated classes, as well as an Anglo-Norman literature. English literature emerged with Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales, along with Gower, the Pearl Poet and Langland. The Franciscans, William of Ockham and Roger Bacon were major philosophers of the Middle Ages and the other ages. Julian of Norwich it was with her Revelations of Divine. Love was a prominent Christian mystic. During the Renaissance, William Shakespeare was the great exponent, with works such as Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and The Dream of a Summer Night, it remains one of the most championed authors in English literature. Marlowe, Spenser, Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Jonson are other established authors of the Elizabethan age. Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes wrote on empiricism and materialism, including scientific method and social contract. Robert Filmer wrote about the divine right of kings. Andrew Marvell was the best known poet of the Community, while John Milton authored Paradise Lost during the Restoration it was.

Some of the most prominent philosophers of the Enlightenment were Locke, Paine, Johnson and Bentham. More radical elements were later countered by Edmund Burke who is regarded as the founder of conservatism. The poet Alexander Pope with his satirical verses, became well regarded. The English performance is a significant role in romanticism, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Shelley, Blake and Wordsworth were major figures. In response to the Industrial Revolution, the writers seemed to find a way between liberty and tradition; Cobbett, Chesterton and Belloc were main exponents Penty and cooperative movement advocate Cole. Empiricism continued through Mill and Russell, while Williams was involved in the analysis. The authors of the era of the Victorian era include Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, Eliot, Kipling, Hardy, H. G. Wells, Lewis Carroll and Evelyn Underhill. Since then England continued to produce novelists such as C. S. Lewis, Orwell, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, Enid Blyton, Huxley, Christie, Pratchett, J. R. R. Tolkien, and J. K. Rowling.

Thirteen bodies are discovered at the time of the Black Death

Excavations of a rail project have enabled the discovery in London of thirteen bodies and remains of pottery dating from the mid-fourteenth century and which seem to belong to the time of the Black Death. It was already known that in that area there was a cemetery but its exact location was a mystery.

The skeletons were found in Charterhouse Square Square, along with ceramic mid-fourteenth century, during excavations as part of the Crossrail project, the new line of high-speed subway linking the districts of East and West London.

DNA tests to be conducted on human remains could provide valuable information about the development of the bacteria that caused the Black Death call or Black Death, the most devastating plague in human history that affected Europe in the nineteenth XIV and peaked between 1347 and 1353.

During the excavation works teams have discovered skeletons near London's Liverpool Street (north of town), remains of the Bronze Age and the largest piece of amber found in the UK.

"We have found archaeological remains practically all periods, from prehistory to the twentieth century, but this location is probably the most important medieval site of those found," said Jay Carver, the rail project archaeologist.

The bodies were distributed in two rows, before the black plague became epidemic causing mass graves. Archaeologists working on the Crossrail project and others from the Museum of London will continue digging to discover more remains or other findings.

The Crossrail project is presented as the most ambitious in Europe and also includes the construction of two large tunnels 30 meters below the surface. If all goes as planned, the project of uniting over 118 km the towns of Maidenhead, west of London, in the county of Berkshire, with Shenfield (Essex), to the east, will be completed in 2017 . The Crossrail will operate up to 24 trains at peak times, each traveling at speeds up to 160 km / h.

A Van Dyck is discovered stored in an English museum

A passionate British art has identified a valuable online see Van Dyck was stored for years in an English museum because they thought it was a copy.

The art historian Bendor Grosvenor authorship certified female portrait, 72 by 61 inches, after seeing it on the website "Your paintings" enabled by public broadcaster BBC to catalog all the oils in the hands of public institutions in the UK.

A Grosvenor not had no doubt that the portrait of Olivia Boteler Porter, bridesmaid Henrietta Maria, wife of King Charles I, was the Flemish painter Anthony Van Dyck, who worked at the court of the monarch.

The work, in the 1630s, remained for years forgotten and dusty Bowes Museum in County Durham English because it was believed to be a copy.

Grosvenor has valued the portrait, which will continue in public hands, around one million pounds (1.1 million euros or 1.5 million), compared to the four or five thousand pounds (four thousand to five thousand 588 euros or 735 995 five thousand to seven thousand 493 U.S. dollars) worth is estimated as the alleged copy.

The picture identification process detailed in the BBC program "Culture Show", which will air today and the Bowes Museum director, Adrian Jenkins, thanks Grosvenor to have increased the pedigree of his collection.

A Incredible Treasure

Terry Herbert, an amateur search for objects with metal detector, never imagined that his hobby would take to the pages of the newspapers. However, last July Herbert discovered on the farm of some friends in Burntwood (Staffordshire, UK) which is considered as the largest Anglo-Saxon treasure discovered so far. According to experts, the pieces discovered (more than 1,500 gold and silver) are older than about 1,300 years, and are delicately worked. The beautiful jewelry totaling five gold and 1.3 kilograms of silver.
"The quantity of gold is amazing but, more importantly, the quality of craftsmanship is really high," said Kevin Leahym, Portable Antiquities Scheme member, a group that records archaeological finds made ​​by 'treasure hunters' amateurs in UK. It was not the only expert in making statements about the importance of this discovery. In the words of Leslie Webster, a researcher at the British Museum, "[the discovery] is going to alter our perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England in the seventh century and early VIII as radically, if not more, as the Sutton Hoo discoveries in 1939; force archaeologists and art historians to rethink the chronology of the manuscripts and metalwork.

Leadenhall Market

This market is located in the epicenter of London's financial district just steps from the subway station Bank. The environment is certainly attractive, the floor is made of cobblestones, the area is covered by a glass roof and wrought iron along with the decor of the shops and pubs of the street give an air of another time. In fact the outdoor market have been used in various films like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
The market dates back to the 14th century although the current design, really spectacular, dating from 1881. It sold, chiefly, fresh foods, such as meats and cheeses, but there are florists, cafes and pubs.