Knole is one of the largest and most famous homes in England with a long and interesting history and is located 1.5 miles SE of Sevenoaks.  During the Middle Ages there was a house here but it actually dates from about 1456 when the Archbishop of Canterbury,  Thomas Bouchier, left it as a residence for archbishops of the future.It was also a residence favoured by Henry VIII who possessed it for some time.  Later, Elizabeth I owned it and passed it on to Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset.  Sackville-West was a name created by marrying into the De La Warr and thus became the Barony of Sackville in the year 1876. The family owned it for more than 400 years before leaving it to the National Trust in 1946.
It has been called by some as a ‘Calendar House’, due to the fact that there are 365 rooms, 52 stairways and 7 courtyards.  Hanging on the walls are fine tapestries, two portraits by Van Dyck and velvet, silk and other materials, some nearly 400 years old, covering furniture.  There is plenty of silverware and a magnificent bed in the King’s Bedroom, said to have been made for James I, although whether he stayed there is open to debate.  The Great Hall and Brown Gallery are just two other examples of  important areas in the house.There are around 1,000 acres of grounds, which features deer, rabbits and other wildlife and plantlife such as oak, beech and chestnut trees.  Much of Knole Park remains as it was, hundreds of years ago. 

This is private independent school with a very long history.  The school itself is more than 500 years old and because it is a boarding school, there are houses dotted around the school campus and town used by the boarders.  One such house is Johnsons.  It is the furthest boarding house away from the school but is full of character and is what most people would think an English boarding house should look like. 

Please see photos on the Britain location page.

Here are some links to classic British TV:

The Prisoner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCX8e3FvN2k

The Sweeney

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqr4COXKO90

Life on Mars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tyovazMjZ8

Spaced

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icLy-qsS0Q0

The Avengers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hillH7-1ixM

Thunderbirds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awkKvFU6ROM

Doctor Who

Titles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3gXTW0fXcc

Daleks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U96Abgy3MNU&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij1u-TLzwWQ

Tardis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRNCu0t-YwU&mode=related&search=

David Tennant as Doctor Who (trailer)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DQ7tod62fo&mode=related&search=

Catherine Tate sketch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9uugVWW_XE&mode=related&search=

"No room, no room!" The cry was heard over the roaring din of the thousands of people gathered at the railway stations for the opening of the world's first underground-the Metropolitan Line. The gloomy chant had a dark effect on those assembled, matching the dark, echoing tunnels that led the trains under the earth. In spite of the cries that the trains were full, the crowds of people who came out to experience riding under the city remained in line, hoping for a ticket. It was Saturday, January 10, 1863, and at 6:00 A.M. the rides began. The public had been anticipating this opening day for twenty-one months, and they refused to be daunted.

The idea for a metropolitan underground railway was first suggested in the 1830s by Charles Pearson, the City Corporation's Solicitor for London. As overseer of the city's corporations, he recognized the desperate need for a new type of public transportation. A railway with up to eight tracks running under the New Road was proposed. It seemed to have numerous economic and social advantages. The demand for this type of transportation was so great that there was no need to doubt its financial value. Traffic in the inner city would be relieved, all markets would experience an increase in business because they could be more easily reached by the public, and it fit in with the city's improvement scheme by clearing out the unsanitary slum areas with railway lines. However, the proposal failed. It could not get the necessary financial backing and was refused by Parliament.

In 1852, the City Terminus Company was formed, and the proposal was again placed in front of Parliament. Once again, it failed because of a lack of support. Parliament was extremely conservative about passing such expensive projects regardless of the great advantages which proponents argued would be gained. Finally, in 1853, the Bayswater, Paddington, and Holborn Bridge Railway Company put forth a new proposal for an underground railway which was to run in a different area than proposed by the City Terminus Company's line. It would cost less than half as much to construct ( 300,000 pounds), and would incur no costly purchases of land or great land demolition. These were the types of promises Parliament was looking for, and the line was approved in 1853 under a new title the North Metropolitan Railway. The total cost of one million pounds was raised by December of 1859; in February of 1860 the first shafts were sunk.

The first trial run of the completed line was on May 24, 1862, but it was not until January 10, 1863, that it opened to the public. 38,000 people rode the Underground its first day in operation and thousands more waited in line. The crowd was described as "the crush at the doors of a theatre on the first night of a pantomime." The trains were overstuffed to accommodate those who absolutely had to experience the Underground on the first day. At 12:00 noon, there were enough people waiting to fill four trains in succession and for an hour, no further tickets were sold in order to decrease the crowds. The London Times described the experience of the Underground as, on the whole, pleasant. A different source, however, described the atmosphere in the tunnels as extremely bad and said breathing the sulphurous fumes was "much like the inhalation of gas preparatory to having a tooth drawn ... By the time we reached the Gower Street, I was coughing and spluttering like a boy with his first cigar!"

At the end of our trip to London last week, we stumbled across the Festival of Britain 1951 Exhibition held at the South Bank Centre near Waterloo Station.
An excellent exhibition showing what it must have been like to go to this exhibition back in '51.  Here are some photos. 

The Science museum in London is a must for any visitor to the capital.  There is something for everyone, with huge exhibition halls dedicated to the history and development of science.  Each part of the museum is clearly laid out with halls dedicated to aviation, computing, agriculture, space and much more.  There are plenty of interactive exhibitions for the kids to enjoy themselves too.  We loved looking at the huge main frame computers of the 1960s and seeing the Sinclair pocket calculator from the 1970s.  An absolute classic!

Visit http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/ for futher information and look at our slideshow below.

Not long ago we  came across an Austin Healey 3000 Mark III parked in the corner of a dusty, old car park.  The car itself, covered in a layer of dust and leaves, looked rather lonely and forgotten.  Time for its rebirth - here are some photos taken of this classic British sports car from the 1960s.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin-Healey for more information about Austin Healey.

LAAX (Swiss Alps)

Our roving reporter spent a few cool days surrounded by the majestic Swiss Alps.  Whether you like skiing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing or trekking, there really is something for everyone here.  A fantastic blend of cutting-edge architecture mixed with traditional Swiss charm.

However, our mission was to find out if Switzerland is an English-friendly country.  There are many languages and dialects spoken in Switzerland including French, German, Romansh, Italian and Portuguese but English is rarely mentioned in this list.

We needed to test the English of the locals by going into shops, bars, cafes, ski-hire places and talking to cable car attendants, waiters, ski-instructors and such like.  Armed with a German phrasebook just in case the plan failed, we set to work.

After a few days of idle chatting to the locals and tourists alike, it soon became clear that virtually everyone speaks English.  Couple this with a polite and friendly manner and you have a place bursting with atmosphere.

BOND REFERENCE: For the James Bond fans, the scenery rivals that of ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’, which was shot in the Swiss Alps, just a few kilometers away from Laax.

Some local words: piz (peak), crap (mountain).  We loved how they say ‘cheers’ and ‘hello’.

Mission:  SUCCESSFUL!

British Native Speaker rating: HIGH LEVEL OF ENGLISH

Summary: An easy place to speak English.

WARSAW (Poland)


Warsaw is a working city, full of offices, banks and financial institutions, a place that can be deserted on national holidays as people go back to their home towns for long weekends.

Modern glass-fronted skyscrapers sit uneasily next to 1960s brutalist blocks.  In the centre of it all is the gift from Stalin – The Palace of Culture – a giant Empire State like building with museums, offices, a cinema and concert hall inside. 

Although not really a tourist destination, it is possible to speak English in shopping centres, hotels and some restaurants and bars in the city.  Quite often menus are in English especially in the Old Town.

However, small shops, railway stations and places with an old-fashioned attitude are unlikely to cater for English speakers.

Mission: ENGLISH SPEAKING APPROVED!