Through Villages and Farmyards

You can’t help noticing that British Heritage has a bit of a different look. The Weider publishing team has brought new creative energy to the History Group, and given art director Mike Caplanis and me opportunity to graft a more contemporary bloom onto what has been America’s favorite magazine of British culture, history and travel for 25 years. Do stay tuned as a fresh BH look continues to blossom over the next several issues.

As soon as this edition is put to bed, I’m off to England and South Wales. I have been promising to cover the story of Bartholomew Gosnold, America’s forgotten Founding Father. It is amazing that a man who played such a large part in the formation of English colonization here should have been forgotten all these years. So, I am heading up to visit Otley Hall, the Gosnold family seat in Suffolk. I’ll tell the fascinating, forlorn tale of Gosnold and the Virginia Company in our next issue.

We have had many nice comments on Siân Ellis’ story of the Welsh Male Voice Choirs. While I am in the neighborhood, I will stop by to sing rehearsal with the Caerphilly Male Voice Choir and deliver the lads copies of Siân’s article in our July issue. Between London, East Anglia and South Wales, my itinerary includes visiting with several of your favorite British Heritage writers, as I expect to hoist a pint or a cuppa with Jennifer Dorn, Jim Hagan and Siân Ellis. Each of them has great new stories in coming issues.

Of course, after more than a quarter century of traveling around Britain, I know that any stay in London and road trip from Bury St. Edmunds to Caerphilly is bound to bring its own adventures. I’ll stay off the motorways and route through villages, farmyards and market towns — and share the noteworthy tales "Around Our Sceptered Isle." After all, none of us can travel to Britain as often as we would like, or explore the historic landscape and cultural history that intrigue us. So with every issue, we travel across the miles and the centuries with British Heritage.

What a rich mosaic of British culture and history is in our stories this issue — like the colorful patterns pouring from the cotton mills of Lancashire. The tale of textiles is next in our "Industry & Empire" series. The history of Parliament, Gilbert & Sullivan’s musical comedies, the spectacle of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo and a Bedfordshire tinker who wrote the world’s second most famous book: It is a journey that tells us who we are and who we want to be. I am delighted indeed that you are along.

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