Bourton-on-the-Water.
”In English Journey, John Angerson follows the route J.B. Priestley took on his 1930s trip from Southampton in the south to Newcastle in the north. Priestley's account highlighted the severe social and economic problems evident in the country and helped inspire George Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier. On his contemporary journey, Angerson imagines Priestley is by his side as he travels. With Angerson as his guide, we see an outsourced, shell of a nation.”
The Old New Inn Public House and Model Village, a one-ninth-scale replica of Bourton-on-the-Water. Built by local craftsmen the Model Village opened to the public on the Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937. In 2013 Bourton-on-the-Water Model Village gained Grade II listed status from English Heritage.
Leicester. A46 / A6 junction on Loughborough Road.
Matthew Grundy, seventeen-year-old team worker at Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, Xtra services. Colonel Sanders’ recipe of eleven herbs and spices that create the famous ‘finger lickin’ good’ chicken fast food, remains a trade secret. Portions of the secret mix are produced in different locations in the United States. The only complete, handwritten, copy of the recipe is locked in a vault at corporate headquarters. In May 2007 KFC (GB) requested that the Tan Hill Inn in the Yorkshire Dales refrain from using the term ‘Family Feast’ to describe its Christmas menu.
Birmingham. Park Street. Anna Baranovska from Riga, Latvia. Anna hopes to work in the glamour industry, her role model is the TV celebrity Katie Price. Anna won a place in the Miss England finals but was unable to take part because she did not have a UK passport. She has appeared in the pages of the men’s weekly magazine Nuts and on the Sky Sports XXX babes television programme.
Leicester. Bedford Street North.Rob Brown, Deputy Manager of the Hotel Campanile. The hotel is part of the French-based Group de Louvre subsidiary Louvre Hotels Group. They own over 800 hotels and offer almost 63,000 rooms in nine European countries. In 2015 Group de Louvre and Louvre Hotels were acquired by Shanghai Jin Jiang International Hotels Development Co Ltd for €1.3 billion.
Leicester. Ashwell, Oakham.
Lady Master Jane Knight at the morning run-out of the hounds, Eastfield Farm Kennels. Since the 2004 Hunting Act outlawed hunting with hounds, the Cottesmore Hunt has brought in birds of prey to pursue the foxes once the hounds have flushed them out. The 2004 act stipulates that the intention must be for the purpose of enabling a bird of prey to hunt the wild mammal. Experts, including the Hawk Board, deny that any bird of prey can reasonably be used in the British countryside to kill a fox that has been flushed out and is being chased by a pack of hounds.
Swindon. Prospect Place. Lish Fernandes works at the Carpeo call centre in Swindon. A finalist in the Miss Wiltshire Beauty Competition, the eighteen-year-old has also represented the county at the British Figure Skating Championships.
The Tyne. Intu MetroCentre, Gateshead.Dogs Trust Charity Donation Collector, Emma Wade. The Dogs Trust (formerly the National Canine Defence League) is the largest dog welfare charity in the UK. The trust’s mission is to bring about the day when all dogs can enjoy a happy life, free from the threat of unnecessary destruction
Norfolk, Severalls Road, Wissington.
Pioneer & Severalls Farm is part of the family-based GCH integrated grower-to-marketing organisation with production facilities in the UK, Spain, Eastern Europe, USA and South Africa. Pioneer & Severalls produces up to 2,800 tons of red radish for the UK and overseas markets annually. Red radish is often the first field-grown salad crop of the year, with a production season traditionally starting on St George’s Day.
Cotswolds. Burford.
In keeping with surrounding properties this new estate was built from Cotswold stone: a yellow oolitic limestone sourced from local quarries. Buildings made or faced with the stone weather into what is described as a ‘honey’ or ‘golden’ colour.
Swindon. Royal Wootton Bassett.
In March 2011 Wootton Bassett was granted Royal Patronage by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of the town’s role in the repatriation of fallen servicemen and women from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Family members, friends and the local community stand in silent tribute as the bodies of Sgt. Paul Fox, Rifleman Carlo Apolis, Senior Aircraftman Luke Southgate and nineteen-year old Rifleman Martin Kinggett pass through Wootton Bassett on their journey from RAF Lyneham to the Coroner in Oxford.
Nottingham. Sherwood Forest Holiday Village, Newark.
The Center Parc holiday concept was devised by the Dutch entrepreneur, Piet Derksen in 1953. The company has since grown substantially, and there are now over twenty resorts across the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany and England. One of four sites in England, Sherwood Forest has 862 lodges with accommodation for 4,278 guests. In 2014 Center Parcs UK was bought for an estimated £2.4 billion by the Bermuda-based global property investment firm Brookfield Property Partners a spin-off of the Canadian global asset management corporation Brookfield Asset Management.
Sunderland. Washington.
The trim and chassis production line of the latest ‘compact crossover’ Juke model at the Japanese subsidiary Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK car plant in Sunderland. The 323-hectare site, once RAF Usworth, is the UK’s largest passenger car employer. A workforce of 4,900 men and women produce 10,000 vehicles a week. One in three of all cars exported from the UK originate from the Sunderland plant.
Liverpool. Anfield Road.
Anfield Football Stadium was built in 1884. The stadium has been home to Liverpool FC since the club’s formation in 1892 as a result of the original tenants - Everton Football Club - leaving the ground. The turf is renewed every season with grass seed obtained from horticultural suppliers Rigby Taylor of Bolton. In 1906 local journalist, Ernest Edwards christened a new stand ‘Spion Kop’ after a Boer War battle. The engagement cost British forces 243 lives, many of them from Liverpool, as they failed to capture a strategic hilltop.
County Durham. Peterlee.
Easington Colliery opened in 1899. When the pit closed in 1993 at a cost of 1,400 jobs the local economy fell into decline. In 2006 the credit reference company Experian pinpointed Easington as England’s worst obesity blackspot, with an obesity risk 22% higher than average. Small business industrial units now occupy the land where pit shaft headgear once stood.
Stoke-on-Trent. Scotia Road.
United Parcel Service (UPS) depot in the heart of the former pottery industry commonly referred to as ‘The Potteries’. Many ceramics manufactured under the Wedgwood brand name are produced in China and Indonesia where items are stamped ‘Wedgwood, England 1759’. As local manufacturing declines, global logistics companies responsible for the import and distribution of such items have thrived.
Cotswolds. Kemble.
Cotswold Airport is home to the aircraft recycling company Air Salvage International (ASI). The salvage company has a 15,794 square meter custom-built facility where almost 600 commercial aircraft have been dismantled in eighteen years.
Birmingham, Linden Road.
The Quaker Meeting House in Bournville was built in 1900 by the Victorian philanthropist, George Cadbury. In 2010 Cadbury UK was bought by the multinational confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate, Kraft Foods Inc. for £11.5 billion, an acquisition which faced widespread disapproval from the British public.
Southampton, Braishfield.
Janet Cook, who ran the Newport Inn, died suddenly in 2013. She had run the pub with her late husband Bernard since 1971, after her father, Alec Cottle, had retired. Much of the appeal of the Newport Inn was that it had remained largely untouched since Alec took over the pub in 1941.
Norfolk, Dell Corner Lane. Sugar Beet clamp.
The UK produces eight million metric tons of sugar beet per year from a worldwide total of 242 metric tons. Recently British Petroleum (BP) joined forces with food groups to build what is claimed to be Britain’s largest ‘green’ petrol plant using sugar beet from East Anglia.
West Yorkshire, Kirkgate, Bradford.
Arndale Shopping Centre opened to the public in 1976. It later became known as the Kirkgate Centre. Recently the the centre has undergone a multi-million pound refurbishment including upgrades to building’s Brutalist concrete facade. Competition is expected from The Broadway, a long-awaited £260 million shopping and leisure complex which was completed by the British-American shopping-centre company Westfield in 2015.
The Tyne
The MetroCentre still holds the title of the largest shopping centre in Europe. Located on a former industrial site close to the River Tyne, it opened in1986 and has around 342 shops occupying 168,900m2 of retail floor space.
Norfolk
Norfolk Pioneer & Severalls Farm is part of the family-owned Guy Shropshire group in Wissington Norfolk; it produces up to 2800 tons of red radish for the UK and overseas markets.
Their production moves to their farms in Spain from November to March to ensure a year-round supply to the supermarket chains.
Southampton
Etap is a European chain of budget hotels owned by the Accor Group. The rooms are simply furnished and in most cases the walls are whitewashed; amenities generally include a small desk, television, a double bed or a bunk bed, a shower, a basin and a toilet. In some locations, the rooms and entrance have coded locks.
Manchester
The soap opera Coronation Street was first broadcast on ITV on December 9th 1960. During its early years, all ‘exterior’ street scenes were filmed on a sound stage, which used three-quarter-sized wooden houses. In 1982 a full street was built from reclaimed Salford brick at Granada Studios in Manchester.