Christopher Winn’s I Never Knew That

In this episode Christopher discovers the world’s first skyscraper in Shropshire, walks beside a lake dedicated to love in Staffordshire, follows in the footsteps of a legend in Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, discovers a village in Derbyshire that died so that others might live and strolls through the world’s first public park.Places to visit:Shrewsbury Flax Mill, ShropshireRudyard Lake, StaffordshireSherwood Forest, NottinghamshireEyam, DerbyshireBirkenhead Park, Wirral---------Sound Credits

Christopherexplores the West Midlands taking in a ride on the world’s first bicycle in Warwickshire, three Cotswold villages in Gloucestershire with literary connections, a trip to the moon from Herefordshire, a view of the whole of Middle England from the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire, and the house in Birmingham where the modern world was shaped.Places to visit:Coventry Transport MuseumSt Giles, CoberleyCowley ManorColesbourne ParkWhitbourne, HerefordshireThe Malvern HillsSoho House, Handsworth---------Sound Credits

Christopher visits a quiet corner of Bedfordshire where the Celestial Light shines most brightly, the oldest house in England, in Huntingdonshire, the room in Rutland where the Gunpowder Plot may have been hatched, the burial place in Leicestershire of the last Plantagenet king, and George Washington’s ancestral home in Northamptonshire.Link to some places to visit in this episode:Visit LeicesterSulgrave Manor TrustThe Manor, Hemingford Grey---------Sound Credits

Christopher visits the birthplace of English song in Berkshire, Heaven on Earth in Oxfordshire, a country churchyard in Buckinghamshire where we have all the time in the world, the launch site in Middlesex for the first balloon flight over England and the exact spot in Hertfordshire where a young man made a momentous decision that changed the world for good.Link to some places to visit in this episode:Abbey QuarterThe Society of AntiquariesStoke ParkHonourable Artillery CompanyWadesmill, Hertfordshire---------Sound Credits

Christopher visits a handsome village in Dorset resting place of a farmer whose enterprise, and whose wife, helped save millions of lives, the Devon landscape beloved of a Hollywood legend, the most perfect combination of sculpture and scenery you will ever find, in Cornwall, an enchanted Somerset combe that inspired great poetry and the Computer Age, and an ancient temple in Wiltshire restored with marmalade.Link to some places to visit in this episode:Visit DorsetVisit DartmoorTateVisit ExmoorEnglish Heritage---------Sound Credits

Christopher visits a mountain side house in Surrey where larks ascend, a desert in Kent where a famous film director lived out his final days, a beautiful ancient hilltop town in East Sussex, with an enviable literary heritage, the loveliest room in the world in a castle in West Sussex, the spot in Hampshire where a naval hero was felled in his moment of triumph, and a medieval space ship on the Isle of Wight.Link to some places to visit in this episode:National Trust (Leith Hill)National Trust (Lamb House)Arundel CastleThe Quarterdeck of HMS VictoryEnglish Heritage---------Sound Credits