The British Isles

With a number of different names for ‘Old Blighty’ or ‘The Albion’ it can get confusing for some over what constitutes Great Britain. Blighty is a slang term dating back to the 1800’s and Albion is the ancient term used for the nation possibly coming from the White chalky Cliffs of Dover looking like Alabaster - Roman author and philosopher Pliny the Elder is known to have referred to Great Britain as ‘The Albion’ The British Isles refers to the large group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles (Orkney and Shetland), and over six thousand smaller islands. They have a total area of 121,684 square miles (315,159 km²) The Channel Islands off the north coast of France, are part of the British Isles even though geographically they do not form part of the archipelago. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, comprises just England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of the smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is 94,354 square miles (244,376 km²) England was originally made up from seven areas, Wessex, Sussex, Kent, Essex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria with Cumbria then part of Strathclyde. These all had their own rulers and Edward the Elder was King of the Anglo Saxons until his son Æthelstan then unified England in 927 and became King of the English. The Highlands of Scotland was know as Pictland in 802 and ruled by different Clans until being unified by the King of the Picts, Kenneth MacAlpin who became Kenneth I of Scotland in 848 In 1707, the Kingdom of England (which included Wales) and the Kingdom of Scotland united under the Treaty of Union to create the Kingdom of Great Britain under Anne, Queen of Great Britain. The Acts of Union 1800 incorporated the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. Most of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922 as the Irish Free State, and the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 created the present name, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Architecture of the countries differ due to the availability of natural resources that could be found locally. Most buildings would have been built with timber before techniques evolved. Scotland and the North of England is predominantly stone buildings with the Midlands and South of England having more clay so brick buildings are much more common with East Anglia having many flint buildings. The Welsh geology includes a large amount of excellent quality slate so many buildings are built from a mixture of brick and stone but mostly with slates on the roof. Much of Ireland is stone or painted render although Northern Ireland resembles more of an English Midlands look. The Fat Badgers guide mostly covers the UK as we don’t have a resident Badger in Southern Ireland however we look upon our cousins in Ireland fondly as family who we occasionally get to see at weddings and funerals.

The Countries

Each country of the British Isles has it’s own distinctive character with different languages, accents and customs but all five nations share a love of good pubs, good friends and a good drink!

Roman

Prehistoric

Anglo Saxon

Middle Ages

Tudors

Stuarts

Georgian

Victorian

Modern

In no particular order (apart from alphabetical) we have: England England became inhabited more than 800,000 years ago when the land was still connected to continental Europe and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers occupied Doggerland. Dogger Bank still exists today as a shallow area under the North Sea recognised by many as it gets a regular mention in the British Shipping Forecast. Around 10,000 years ago Stone Age humans didn’t put out their re- cycling causing the glaciers to melt and flood Doggerland creating the Dogger Islands and further climate change finally covered them cutting mainland Britain off from the continent before Maggie Thatcher dug a sett across to France in 1994. Ale and beer have been consumed in the UK for centuries, with the first recorded instance of ale production dating back to the 8th century along with records also dating the earliest inns to the 8th Century. It is believed that monks were the first to produce ale using malted barley, water, and yeast. Ale was a staple drink in the medieval era, as it was safer than water, which was often contaminated. As trade routes expanded in the 16th and 17th centuries, hops were introduced to the brewing process, giving the beer its characteristic bitter flavour. This new beer style quickly became popular, and it was soon that commercial breweries began to emerge across the country. English beer styles include bitter, mild, brown ale, old ale, Stout, porter and India pale ale. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the brewing industry in the UK continued to grow, with beer becoming an essential part of the country's economy. The Industrial Revolution brought about new technologies that made brewing more efficient, and mass production of beer became the norm. It wasn’t uncommon for small industrial villages that specialised in industries such as nail making or coal mining to be home to huge numbers of pubs such as Gornal in the Black Country In the 20th century, the brewing industry in the UK underwent significant changes. Consolidation and mergers resulted in a small number of large breweries dominating the market, and many traditional breweries were forced to close resulting in the last four remaining Home Brew pubs in the 1970’s. Englishness used to be seen as wearing bowler hats, a strong sense of fair play and politeness, however England has long had a history of immigration and there is now a mixture of cultures and classes and could perhaps now lack a ‘Typical Englishman’. Generally though, despite the view that the legacy media put out, there are still strong feelings of pride amongst the English, the history of discovery, invention, sport and engineering is still strong and traditions such as Morris Dancing can still be found in the summer months, particularly around country pubs. Edmund I introduced 'Hundreds' to England, this was a division of the shire - an administrative unit or in other words a way of organising taking taxes from the people. In the Midlands (Mercia) it was generally the equivalent of 100 'hides' - a hide being an English unit of land measurement originally intended to represent the amount of land sufficient to support a household. It was traditionally taken to be 120 acres. Hundreds are now not used but another term 'Ward' is still used when voting in the political system. The Saxons had already established the districts that became the historic counties of England, calling them shires. Over the years successive governments have amended the county boundaries to suit their needs and some counties have dropped the 'shire' from their name such as Devonshire and Somersetshire. The Local Government Act 1972 added a number of ‘Metropolitan’ Counties creating such places as ‘The West Midlands’ and ‘Greater Manchester’ - YUK! No politician is splitting old uncle Trufflehunter from his distant cousin Bill Badger by sticking a West Midlands sign through their sett. One thing is certain Fat Badger Kilo was born in Streetly, STAFFORDSHIRE and NOT the West Midlands as Mr Prime Minister would have us believe - Fat Badger Kilo has NEVER listed his address as the West Midlands and NEVER will. There is no truth in the rumour that this is a tax avoidance scheme Ireland Ireland is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe and the twentieth largest in the world. Geopolitically, the island of Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially named Ireland), an independent state covering five- sixths of the island consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. The Irish Free State was created in 1922 following the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In 1937 a new constitution was adopted in which the state was named "Ireland" and effectively became a republic, with an elected non- executive president. It was officially declared a republic in 1949, following the Republic of Ireland Act 1948. From the Act of Union on 1 January 1801, until 6 December 1922, the island of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. During the Great Famine from 1845 to 1849, the island's population of over 8 million fell by 30%. One million Irish died of starvation and disease and another 1.5 million emigrated, mostly to the United States. The Irish are strongly proud of their history and heritage, particularly those that have left the country to find fame and fortune elsewhere. The West coast offers some of the most stunning scenery found anywhere in the British Isles whether it be the ‘Ring of Kerry’ in the South or ‘Bloody Foreland’ in the North. Irish pubs tend to be either quaint country inns where it feels like you’re drinking in somebody’s front room or busy town bars where the atmosphere can be legendary. What’s common to both is that most people will be drinking stout and not just the stout that’s known worldwide. Along with Guinness, you’ll also find Murphy’s, Beamish and O’Hara’s. Historically, Irish Guinness was in a different league. That from Dublin was unpasteurised and sold in casks which resulted in many saying the Guinness is much better than the stuff you find in England. Now however, the different brewing process no longer exists but we’ve still found it better in Ireland - whether that’s the way its poured, how its stored or just because we’re on holiday, we’ll probably never know. There were traditionally twenty six counties in Ireland until the Local Government Act 2001 amended that to thirty one with the addition of Cork, Galway and Dublin city councils. Southern Ireland remained in the European Union when the UK left the block in 2020 but despite what some would have you believe, the English, Welsh and Scots are still allowed to visit and drink Guinness. Scotland Scotland contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island and has nearly 800 of Britain’s islands. Scotland’s only land border is the 96 mile border with England, the rest of the country is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea and the Irish Sea. In similar timescales to England, the Kingdom of Scotland was created in the 9th century following the Viking invasions when the Picts and the Gaels united. The first Scottish King, Kenneth I MacAlpin was the son of Alpin, king of Dál Riata who had Scottish and Irish ancestry. There were many battles between the English and the Scots over the rule of the country and for ten years, Scotland had no king. The Scots, however, refused to tolerate English rule. First William Wallace and Andrew Moray, then John Comyn, and finally Robert the Bruce fought against the English. The Bruce Clan ruled Scotland between 1306 and 1371 before the Clan Stewart ruled for the next 300 years. In 1567 Mary, Queen of Scots was forced to abdicate the throne following many years of turmoil and the murder of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, 1567 - her second husband. Their son James Charles Stuart, a great-great-grandson of Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland, and thus a potential successor to all three thrones, became King of Scotland in 1567 and King of England and Ireland in 1603 in the Union of the Crowns. Although Scotland is around half of the size of England and Wales, it has roughly the same length of coastline due to the many lochs, inlets and islands. Only a fifth of Scotland is less than 60 metres above sea level. The defining factor in the geography of Scotland is the distinction between the Highlands and Islands in the north and west and the Lowlands in the south and east. The Highlands run predominantly down the West side of the County creating some of the most spectacular scenery and wonderful coastal sandy beaches found anywhere. Because of the geology of Scotland, most of the earlier buildings were built from stone and the East has a large number of Granite buildings with almost all of the Victorian buildings in Aberdeen made from the stone giving it the nickname of “The Granite City”. Scotland has made a huge contribution to the culture, history, sport and music of the United Kingdom and has it’s own proud musical history which includes the famous ‘bagpipes’ - it did however unleash ‘The Bay City Rollers’ on to the British public in the 1970’s which is around the time CAMRA said “Something needs to change - and NOW!” We don’t know if these two things are related but common sense says they probably are. Wales Wales sits on the west side of England but back in 500 AD the Welsh were the majority people who lived from Strathclyde down to Cornwall and indeed just the East of England were Germanic tribes. The Welsh were the original Britons who inhabited Great Britain from at least the Iron Age until the High Middle Ages. It is largely mountainous with its higher peaks in the north and central areas, including Snowdon, its highest summit. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, development of the mining and metallurgical industries transformed the country from an agricultural society into an industrial one. The South Wales Coalfield's exploitation caused a rapid expansion of Wales's population. Two-thirds of the population live in South Wales. Wales has its own distinctive character and is renowned for its love of song, particularly choir singing which includes an eisteddfod, an institution and festival with several ranked competitions, including in poetry and music. Wales is a predominantly mountainous region with the Wales Valleys and spectacular Brecon Beacons in the South, the Powys hills and valleys in Mid Wales and the magnificent Snowdonia in the North. Wales also has some fantastic coastline with the wonderful Pembrokeshire Coast National Park in the South West and the delightful Llyn peninsular and Anglesey Island in the North. Wales became part of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 and then the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. Yet, the Welsh retained their language and culture despite heavy English dominance. England and Wales are still closely linked despite an ancient history of battles between the two with the Welsh / English border lined with medieval castles. Some Welsh football clubs play in the English leagues even though there is a Welsh football association Parts of Wales use the Welsh language as their first language and there is a strong passion to increase its use however English is understood and spoken by pretty much everyone. Welsh pubs are often rural but with a smaller population this has made it difficult to keep going financially which wasn’t helped when the Liberal party, which included the future Prime Minister David Lloyd George, the Sunday Closing (Wales) Act 1881 banned the sale of alcohol in Welsh pubs on the Sabbath. This wasn't repealed until 1961, when each county was charged with holding a referendum on Sunday opening, to gauge support in their particular area. Dwyfor - now part of Gwynedd - was the last district to drop the ban in 1996.

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