I went on a Sunday afternoon with my friend and his most adorable dog for a walk through Campbell…read morePark. It's a massive dog friendly park (any areas that aren't are very clearly marked) and has a lot of interesting aspects to explore. This isn't just your normal park as it also has a memorial and various art sculptures in the park plus we passed a small playground at one point all keeping for quite the interesting walk. My friend was telling me they used to have sheep grazing! I'm not sure if it was just the time of year I went or if they have been permanently removed, but no sheep were to be had in March. It's big on festivals in the summer apparently with a nice open air pavilion type theater outdoor area.

I have to say my family goes every year and we really enjoy ourselves. Yes the ground can get…read moreincredibly muddy and yes the vendor's are a bit expensive - we get over that by taking our own hot chocolate and chairs to sit down on. The atmosphere is fantastic, the kids love all the sounds, excitement and colours and that's even before the fire works start. It was a lovely display this year although it can get a bit smokey! And best of all - there's no entrance fee!

This is the most random but awesome thing in all of Milton Keynes! I didn't believe my friend when…read morehe said there was a pagoda in MK, but alas, he proved me wrong. Tranquil and chill Peace Pagoda is an absolutely beautiful structure among the grounds of Willen Lake. The Milton Keynes Peace Pagoda was completed in 1980 and the first in the western world. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a peace loving, tree hugging hippie at heart so to see a structure that just conveys the message of peace among all hit a heart string in me. Not far from the pagoda is a Nipponzan-Myōhōji monastery. While taking in the views we passed one of the groundskeepers who was friendly as could be. For up to date updates on the pagoda, keep up with their blog: http://mkbuddhism.wordpress.com/.

It is very lovely to look around and relax/meditate near the Peace Pagoda…read more Please look all the stories around this Pagoda. Really peaceful and beautiful place. You can come here by bicycle or on foot and it worths to visit.

Wenn Ihr in der Gegend seid: das Schloss ist sehenswert,…read morewenn Ihr die Jagd liebt, aber auch, wenn die Schätze der Herrschaften Euer Interesse wecken könnten. Aber der Garten und insbesondere, der angefügte Landschaftspark mit seinem riesigen, alten Baumbestand, wird Euer Staunen erwecken. Solche Bäume sind selten geworden in Europa. Aus dem Touristen-Flyer: Woburn Abbey has been home to the Dukes of Bedford for over 300 years and is still home to the 15th Duke and his family today. When the 6th Duke inherited Woburn, Humphry Repton, the famous landscape gardener, was commissioned to produce designs to improve the gardens and park. Follow the Garden Trail information boards to find out more about the Abbey Gardens and the redevelopment over the past five years to recreated and replant Reptons original features and themed garden areas.

Fans of the film "The Imitation Game" will recall Bletchley Park as the home of code-breaking,…read morewhere Alan Turing (alongside nearly 9,000 colleagues) worked to decipher the encrypted messages of the Germans and Japanese in World War II; this included breaking the infamous "Enigma" German coding system. This is one of the best museum experiences I've ever had. It does a brilliant job of making a highly technical subject accessible and of bringing it to life, with plenty of human interest. All based in the original buildings, it tells the story of how Bletchley Park was established, and then expanded, as its operations grew during World War II. Rooms are recreated as they would have been in the 1940s, and are beautifully curated to explain how every aspect of the code-breaking operation worked. This covers not just the code-breakers themselves, but everyone from the linguists, canteen staff and administrators, to the motorcycle messengers who rode to and from the radio stations with intercepted messages, and then on to the Intelligence HQs with the deciphered messages (in all weathers, with all the road signs removed, and with blackouts at night!). I particularly liked the wall of original memos from the administrative office, which shows the vagaries of the British class system (wanting more typists of the "Roedean school sort"), alongside very modern concerns about staff shortages, and complaining about the food, heating and just about everything else! Finally, the later exhibits show the development of computers and radio interception, and the implications of the development of AI. There's a huge amount of personal detail about the people who worked here, including oral histories, letters, and diary entries. A highlight has to be Alan Turing's office, set up as he had it in 1944. Then there are the exhibits explaining how code-breaking works in general, and how the Enigma Code itself was broken, with a replica of one of the famous "Bombe" machines that helped speed the code-breaking. (If you can work out how it works, you're better than me!) But equally important was the work of turning the messages into useful military intelligence, and in turn, using that knowledge to develop counter-intelligence, which played a vital role in an early example of disinformation. On our visit, there were lots of guides, some of whom had worked there (one lovely lady was 96), but all were delightfully helpful, very enthusiastic and incredibly knowledgeable. We spent 5 hours there, and still didn't see everything, but the good news is that tickets are valid for return visits for a year. As I said, this is one of the best curated museums I've ever visited. We had a wonderful day out. On a practical level, the museum is less than 10 minutes' walk from Bletchley railway station, but there is a decent-sized car park too. The huge site has been made fully accessible for wheelchair users, and there are plenty of toilets. There are two cafes (pricey but okay) and a tea hut; and a shop, selling souvenirs and generous selection of books about WWII and code-breaking more generally.

I suspect that the museum here is quite new, though I suspect interest in it arose after the film…read morebased around Alan Turing. Mind you, a lot of what went on here was top secret for years after the war finished, so in many cases we simply had no idea that this place existed. It's pretty big mind you, and you can pretty much explore the entire complex, as well as seeing Turing's office, as well as replicas of the Bombe.

Knebworth house, gardens and park is a brilliant family day out. The grounds are huge, the gardens…read moreare interesting, and the house is beautiful. You can park the car by the house and gardens, and also at the bottom of the park. For the kids, there is a huge adventure playground (best to do this on the way out as it's right at the bottom of the park, miles from the house and gardens), which has a good range of play equipment for pretty much any age range. In the summer they have a free bouncy castle too. The gardens are seperated into different areas, and it is all very well signposted so you won't get lost. The dinosaur garden is really good, and the kitchen garden smells heavenly in the right seasons. There is a fun maze too. The house itself is really beautiful, and you can pay extra to have tours. I could go on forever explaining everything here, but I won't. Rest assured it is well worth the entrance fee. The cafe is really expensive so take a picnic!

The ancestral home of the Washingtons in Britain offers 'a gentle stroll through three centuries of…read moreEnglish history' and houses the largest UK collection of George Washington memorabilia. A favourite place to visit for our Banbury team.

This is a wonderful historic site. The morning tours are longer, but we did an afternoon tour due…read moreto our schedule (wish we had done the longer tour!). There is a lot to see and the grounds and gardens are beautiful. The tea room is lovely and has very nice refreshments. I particularly enjoyed reading about how the home was acquired and turned into a historic site, the article is posted on the wall in the cafe. It's a bit of a drive from London but well worth it for those interested in the Washington family history or historic house museums of the period!

Kirby Hall is an amazing place. You can go inside and walk around looking at the sky as there is no…read moreroof in parts of it. A family ticket caost about £12.00 and is well worth it to get a little glimpse of the gradour. The hall has been used in some filming including Jane Austin's Mansfield Park. The gardens ane beutifully kept, there is access for disabled,a small shop,picnic area and toilets

Although barely more than an uninhabited and ruinous shell, this fine Elizabethan house still…read moredisplays many of the ornate external features that formed part of the original building, which dates from 1570. Kirby Hall was built for Sir Humphrey Stafford, a distant family descendant of the Earls of Stafford, but he died before the work was completed, and the property was sold to Sir Christopher Hatton. Financial difficulties eventually caught up with the family successors, resulting from the cost of continual improvements and maintenance, coupled with the vast sums of money lavished on entertaining. Inevitably, Kirby Hall's importance began to decline during the 18th century, and by the middle of the 19th century this imposing and beautiful family home had been deserted, neglected, and subjected to shameful destruction in order to pay off a substantial gambling debt. Thank fully the national trust have tried to preserve this magnificent home and it really is breathtaking.

Very beautiful setting for this interesting historic property. Quite a lot to see and a great place…read morefor a picnic too. The ancient adjoining church is wkrth including in your visit, but the various art galleries might not be worth spending time at. The formal garden (not visited) costs extra.

Claydon House is a National Trust property. Though not as spectacular as some country houses it is…read morestill worth a visit. I believe the current Earl of Verney still resides on the property which has been in their family for close to four hundred years. It is quite nice for a nose around as they have not only the period furnished house, but an organic garden selling seasonal fruit and vegetables, but a second hand bookshop and various craft store items. Also look out for the annual formula 1 hovercraft racing event staged on the flat ground and lake just down the hill from the house. This is always a fun event inn the summer. There is also some Florence Nightingale memorabilia as she was related to the family and visited from time to time.

This is one of those buildings that have become one on Northampton's landmarks. You can see it from…read moremiles around! I would love to have the chance to go up it and see the panoramic views which I bet are spectacular! This tower I guess was just made even more famous by Mr Terry Wogans bungling comments that it was a lighthouse! He even suggested that the east coast was eroding so quickly that the Government had commissioned the lighthouse ready for Northampton's new coastal location-classic, I love it! The future of the Tower does seem to be hanging in the balance though after urgent structural tests had to be carried out after reports that the tower, designed to have a 20 to 45 year life span, was riddled with concrete cancer. But conflicting reports also suggest: There is also the prospect of the tower being brought back into service as a test tower if a consortium is granted permission to proceed. I do hope that the latter is the case as it would be such a great shame to lose such an iconic building.

The National Lift Tower (once the Express Lift Tower) is one of the tallest buildings in the…read moreMidlands outside of Birmingham. It is known as the Northampton Light House because it looks like a really tall lighthouse and, more importantly, Terry Wogan named it that on his radio show for old people. It's an ugly looking thing anyone who has been to, or past Northampton, would have seen dominate the skyline. It changes color like Ayres Rock at different times of the day, although from battleship grey to River Nene brown. To the locals it's a head scratcher and a rather ignored and forgotten statement of the town. It was built by the Express Lifts Company to test lifts in, of course, which it did for 15 years, opened by the Queen in the early 1980s. But then the Express Lift Company was bought by Otis Engineering and it was quickly closed down and 500 jobs lost and never properly used again. It's still the youngest ever listed building in the UK when awarded that status in 1997 when it closed. It's believed to have received that immediate protected status by English Heritage only because it would be too tricky and expensive to knock it over for Otis, today surrounded by houses and the Saints Rugby Club a mere 200m away. The confusing thing for locals at the time was where else would you test lifts in the UK if it wasn't in this bespoke tower so surely big demand, only one other working tower in the whole of Europe, and so why was it closed? It's even taller than the Americans version. It was like shutting Gatwick Airport at the time. But there are never fatal lift accidents in the news so we clearly don't need it. Presumably its all computer modeled now. It was basically one huge and ambitious waste of money that broke the Express Lifts companies back. Its 418ft (127.5 meters) high and in 2009 was reconditioned so to be used again by lift engineers, mostly for training and minor testing on welds and construction etc. It has six shafts and, of course, no waits for a lift to the top for the amazing view although not open to the public. I have been up on a press day but it was pi**ing down and we were in the actual low cloud base, which was kind of cool in its own way. I would pay two quid to go up there on a sunny day but the council won't go for it, turning down recent planning permission for a 100 seater café and viewing platform atop. One of the lifts moves at 10m per second so money could be made here. Its main earn right now seems to be charity, nearly 150 energetic people a year abseiling down it, which has upset the locals. It has two staircases, one to the top, and another to some conference and office space. The best April Fool story was an airship company had bought it and would be docking their regularly. 120 people complained. Over 800 fell for the April Fool that the tower would be knocked down in 2008 to reuse the concrete for the Olympic Stadium to save money, that, my brilliant suggestion for an April Fool in the paper I wrote for in the summer. You can walk to the bottom of it as it is in a public housing estate and looking up it is an impressive sight, solid concrete structure and gentle curves, described as the 'Brutalist' style of archeology. It's the sort of size of size monolith the Greek and Roman emperors would build for themselves to represent their authority and presence in the great cities of the old Empires. Northampton is not one of the great cities of the Earth. It suitably represents us grey, unwanted and has its head in the clouds. It's also a monolith to the loss of hard industry to China, why there is no longer work for five million Brits.