Sydney Evans

It’s not that we don’t love them, but England is more than its boozers, Greggs and Buckingham Palace. It’s also a country with a thriving live music scene, towering mountains and idyllic lakes, historic theatres and some of the most exciting chefs around. It’s got huge art institutions moments away from Michelin-starred restaurants. In other words – from its natural wonders to festivals which will make you feel like you’re on a different planet – you really don’t need to look far to keep yourself entertained when you visit here.  This country has also birthed greats like Shakespeare, The Beatles and grime music and has inspired some of the most romantic poetry out there. We have ancient, we have new, and although the weather sometimes leaves a lot to be desired, we can guarantee you a very memorable time when you take a trip to this small but mighty country. Start drawing up the bucket-list: these are the best things to do in England.  RECOMMENDED:  🌤️ The best things to do in the UK🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 The best places to go in Wales 📍 The best things to do in London🏝️ The most beautiful islands in England✨ The most magical places in the UK At Time Out, all of our travel guides are written by local writers who know their cities inside out. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

On the surface, the Black Cap was just like any other high street boozer: a one-armed bandit machine, a well-stocked bar, reliable regulars. But it wasn’t just any old pub: since the 1960s, several generations of drag queens called it their home.  ‘It was a drinking pub that had drag shows, that was it – real old-fashioned drag queen shows,’ says Omar F. Okai, an award-winning director and choreographer. ‘A lot of the drag queens became really big stars, like Paul O’Grady.’  The pub has been a landmark on Camden High Street since 1751. From witches, encounters with serial killer Dennis Nilsen and trailblazing drag queens like Mrs Shufflewick, Regina Fong and Paul O’Grady as Lily Savage, the Black Cap was a refuge for punters in the years leading up to the deadly AIDS epidemic and beyond. Photograph: Roberto Herrett / Alamy Stock PhotoThe Black Cap, 2013 ‘You had to pay 50p to get into the back of the bar, which was where the drag shows were,’ says John Nicolaou, who worked as a bartender in the 1980s. ‘It was great entertainment, and it was something you couldn’t get on the straight scene. We’d get up to 200 people a night, and when you have that many people comfortably in a place, it creates a certain atmosphere.’ That energy feels worlds away from the Black Cap that exists today. After an unsuccessful attempt from owners at the time, Faucett Inn, to sell the pub and turn it into luxury flats, the Black Cap called last orders in 2015. At times occupied by squatters, and af

Mince pies and mulled wine, reindeer and nativities – these are the obvious giveaways that Christmas is just around the corner. But everyone knows that the fun doesn’t truly begin until the iconic Coca-Cola truck tour takes to the streets of the UK, spreading Christmas cheer one can of the fizzy stuff at a time. And that time has now come and gone. Following a launch in London, the truck headed off around the UK, winding its way around the country and stopping likes of Belfast, Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Portsmouth. It finished up in Cardiff.  True to the season of giving the Coca-Cola Truck in 2024 was apparently an ‘even bigger and more magical experience’, complete with festive games, lucky dips and merchandise. Coca-Cola partnered with hunger and food waste charity FareShare to donate a meal on behalf of every person that visited the Christmas Truck Tour this year. This year’s Coca-Cola Christmas campaign also included the 2024 ad campaigns and a digital AI experience. Here’s everything you need to know about the Coke truck tour in 2024.  Coca-Cola truck locations and dates for 2024 After the London launch and stops in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the truck made its way through northern England and finished up in Wales.  Here were the Coca-Cola truck’s 2024 dates. London (November 21) Belfast, Custom House Square (December 1) Edinburgh, Fort Kinnard (November 30) Gateshead, Metro Centre (December 1) Wakefield, Stonegate (December 3) Ashton, Greene Kin

A cheap pint is increasingly hard to come by these days – especially here in London. Earlier this year, we reported on the arrival of the £8 pint, which has started to become less of a rarity and more of an accepted part of living in the capital. But not all is lost. There are still a handful of boozers out there, fighting the good fight, serving up cheap pints for the city. The problem is knowing where to find them.  That’s why we’ve rounded up all of the places you can get a slightly more affordable pint in Zone 1. At the time of writing, all of these draught pints cost £6 or less (please don’t come at us if prices have changed since then).  Holborn/Farringdon/Soho Horse & Wig, Holborn: £5 Pravha, £6 Madri, £6 Aspalls, £6 Guinness The Albion, Farringdon: £5.40 Young’s London Original The Marian Anderson, Farringdon: £4 Guinness & Pravha, £5 (all) Jubel Peach, Session Purity IPA, Blue Moon, Staropramen, Camden Hells, Madri, Harbour IPA Freedom Bar, Soho: £5.90 Heineken Pelt Trader, Cannon Street: £5.50 Puns of Anarchy, £5.50 Brew York Calmer Chameleon, £5.80 Kelham Island Pale Rider, £5 Lord Marples, £6 König Pilsner, £5.70 Crafty Apple Cider Paddington/Euston/Camden Paddington Railway Club, Paddington: £4.40 Madri, £4 Coors, £4 Carling, £3.80 Caffrey’s, £4.40 Guinness, £4 Cider [Plus, happy hour Tues-Thurs, 2-5pm: everything £3.50] Golden Lion, Camden: £4.90 Carling, £5.45 Real Ale [Plus, all craft ales £5.50 on ‘Craft Thursdays’] Euston Tap, Euston: Cask ales from £4, £

For some, winter begins as soon as the mercury starts to dip below a certain chilly level. For others, it’s once the days have gotten to a certain length, with the darkness closing in before you’ve even left the office. But there are actual a few proper, official dates that mark the start of winter – and they depend on your calendar. Two of those dates have already passed, and another is coming up pretty soon.  When is the shortest day of the year in the UK in 2024? Also known as the winter solstice, according to the astronomical calendar, the UK's winter begins on the shortest day of the year. So mark your calendars, because autumn is officially over on December 21 this year. For those that go by the meteorological calendar (which is what the BBC Weather uses) winter begins on December 1. Meteorologists use three-month periods to define each season, so naturally, winter is the three coldest months - December, January and February.  There’s also a Celtic calendar still used in some parts of the UK, which recognises the start of winter as November 1.  What is the astronomical calendar?  While the meteorological calendar tracks the year based on seasons, the astronomical calendar follows what's happening up there with the planets.  Winter begins on the shortest day of the year according to the astronomical calendar because this is when the northern hemisphere is tilted the furthest away from the sun. It officially marks the day with the fewest hours of daylight. How long does

Picking a secondary school for your offspring can feel like a pretty big deal. It’s the place they’re going to spend the next seven years of their lives in, so it’s only natural you want to make the right choice. And there’s no shortage of great schools to choose from in the UK – our private schools, in particular, rank among the best on the planet. But not everyone wants to fork out tens of thousands of pounds every year to send their kids to school, and you don’t have to either. The UK is also home to a bunch of fantastic state schools, and the Sunday Times has just released its Parent Power guide for 2025, one of the most prestigious rankings out there. Helping parents out by providing a ‘reliable guide to academic achievement in schools’, the Times guide ranks schools based on A-level and GCSE performance. RECOMMENDED: 📖 The 10 best comprehensive schools in London.✏️ The best private school in the UK is in London. And this year, a number of state schools beat some of the priciest private schools in the UK with their results. The highest-placing fully comprehensive school was Tauheedul Islam Girls’ High School in Blackburn, which came 196th. The highest-placing partially selective school, meaning some students get in through test and some don’t, was Dame Alice Owen’s School in Hertfordshire. Dame Alice is 37.5 percent selective.  Here are the top 10 fully comprehensive state secondary schools in the Times’ 2025 Parent Power guide. The UK’s best comprehensive state seconda

Ever found yourself throwing your clothes around, declaring you have nothing to wear and wishing you had a wardrobe like Kate Moss? Well, you could have just that, because Crisis’ annual Christmas pop-up is back in London this week, with pieces donated by the supermodel herself as well as Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher, Jessie Ware and David Gandy.  The week-long pop-up will return to Mayfair from today (December 9) to Saturday (December 14), with pieces donated by celebs helping raise funds for Crisis, a charity supporting people experiencing homelessness across the UK. Organised by Anda Rowland, director of Savile Row tailors Anderson & Sheppard, and menswear stylist Tom Stubbs, the pair have managed to raise over £500,000 for the charity since launching the pop-up in 2018.  As well as pieces from Moss, Gallagher, Ware and Gandy, Crisis will also be flogging items from luxury brands including Marc Jacobs, Jimmy Choo and Vivienne Westwood. There’ll also be 100 watches donated by the Watches of Switzerland Group up for grabs, with a raffle of selected goodies at the end of the week-long event.  The pop-up will take place at 28 Old Burlington Street in Mayfair from Monday December 8 to Saturday December 14, and is open everyday from 11am to 7pm.  You can find out more info on the official Crisis Instagram account here. Did you see that? 12 more second-hand clothing supermarkets are coming to the UK. Plus: These are the best high streets for independent shopping for Christmas in

Our names say a lot about us. Perhaps yours has been carried down through generations, perhaps you’re named after your parents’ fave musician, maybe they just liked the way a name sounded. Whatever your name, some are undoubtedly more popular than others – but which names are Londoners’ favourites right now?  New data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) reveals just that, showing which baby names were the most favoured in each London borough in 2023.  For male names, David was a clear fave in Hackney, while Leo trumped the top of the list in Richmond, Camden and Southwark (although it was joint with Noah there). Noah was also a top pick in Islington and Greenwich, while Theodore managed to sneak onto the list in Lambeth.  When it came to girls, Olivia was the most popular in Islington and Greenwich, while Leah and Miriam were joint faves in Hackney. Maya bagged top spot for Southwark, while Richmond had a clear preference for the name Grace. Sofia was the favourite in Camden.  And not that this is a competition, but there were two names that came out as more popular than the rest in London in 2023, with Muhammed and Amelia appearing to be most popular baby names in the capital. But it wasn’t just in London that they were in demand. Muhammed also proved the leading choice for boy’s names across England and Wales, while Amelia was the second-most picked out name for girls in the country after Olivia. The ONS also observed some newbies on the list, with Hazel, Lilah, A

Christmas is the season of giving, a time to show your loved ones how much they mean to you with thoughtful gifts you’ve been waiting all year to pick out. Or, more likely, it means scrambling down the high street last-minute looking for a present that’ll make do.  Whatever your style for getting Christmas shopping done, American Express has just released a handy list of the UK’s best high streets for independent shops. Partnering with retail experts GlobalData, the credit card company compared high streets across the country to find the ones with the most indie shops, the widest variety, the most ‘vibrancy’ and the highest number of millennial and gen-z business owners.  Stoke Newington’s Church Street in Hackney emerged a clear London winner, making it to fifth place on the list, and the only one in the capital.  And Church Street boasts plenty of delightful indie shops. Colourful books from Church Street Bookshop, vintage gems from Hilda and homeware bits and bobs from Revere the Residence are just some of the bits you can pick up from Church Street.  Nabbing first place in the list for the best high street in Britain was St Mary’s Street in Stamford, Lincolnshire, which scored highly for delivering ‘a unique experience for shoppers’. You can see American Express’s full list of the best UK high streets to get your Christmas shopping done here. Did you see that we’ve launched an interactive map of London’s best festive experiences? Plus: two London shopping centres are offi

Egyptian cotton sheets, fluffy robes, rainfall showers, a well-stocked mini bar... all in a place with buckets of character and identity? There’s nothing quite like a top-notch boutique hotel. The UK has no shortage of exquisite boutique estabs – but which ones are the absolute, irrefutable best?  To help answer that question is Top 50 Boutique Hotels, an awards body which, as you can probably tell from the name, knows a thing or two about boutique hotels. Top 50 Boutique Hotels has just revealed its UK list for 2024, crowning the nation’s finest hotels by looking at stuff like service, experiences and the destination itself. Key members of the hospitality industry club together to name the crème de la crème of boutique stays. Managing to defend its spot in first place is The Newt in Somerset. Set beside an ‘enchanting woodland’, the remodelled Georgian home comes complete with an indulgent spa and cosy fires.  Second on the list is Lime Wood Hotel in the New Forest National Park, favoured for its views of the rugged landscapes that you can take in from a bathtub. Hampshire grand country estate Heckfield Place in Hook ranked third.  The UK’s top 10 boutique hotels in 2024 The Newt in Bruton, Somerset Lime Wood Hotel in Lyndhurst, Hampshire Heckfield Place in Hook, Hampshire Padstow Townhouse in Padstow, Cornwall Grantley Hall in Ripon, Yorkshire The Fife Arms in Braemar, Scotland Hampton Manor in Solihull, Warwickshire Moor Hall in Ormskirk, West Lancashire  Dormy House in B

Close your eyes and imagine Lapland: a toy factory complete with Christmas elves, reindeers resting on a snowy hill and a chance to say hello to Father Christmas before he’s off sneaking in and out of chimneys.  And what if we told you that instead of boarding a Ryanair flight to chilly Finland, you could experience all this by simply entering a ‘magical doorway’ right here in Britain? Well that’s pretty much the deal over at LaplandUK, and the festive-themed immersive production has just announced plans to launch a second UK location.  Following the success of its original site in Ascot, Berkshire, which more than 300,000 Christmas-lovers tried to get tickets for this year, LaplandUK has unveiled plans to open its second site in Manchester’s Capesthorne Hall, in the village of Siddington.  So if you missed out on the chance to grab tickets to this year’s festivities (they did sell out in less than three hours after all) you’ll have another chance at channelling your inner elf next year.  The less-good news is that the second LaplandUK won’t open in time for this festive season. It’s expected to open in Christmas 2025. A trip to the elven village will run for 4 hours and 30 minutes, with tickets expected to go on sale next March. While the opening dates are yet to be revealed, the experience will run for its usual six weeks.  Each LaplandUK site takes 50 days to build and tells the theatrical story of Santa and his elves preparing for the biggest night of their year. The Manc

How much do you know about Aberdeenshire? Perhaps you’ve heard of Aberdeen being called the ‘Grey City’ (thanks to its abundance of granite architecture) but the region has also got a bunch of stunning natural beauty, from sandy beaches that look out to the North Sea to the Cairngorms National Park.  And soon there will be a brand new museum to show off exactly what makes Aberdeenshire so great. Plans for a new multi-million Museum of Aberdeenshire and Peterhead Library have been formally submitted.  The project is part of the ‘Cultural Tides: North Sea Connections in Aberdeenshire’ bid to renovate and extend the Macduff Marine Aquarium. Part of the £20million of funding received from the UK Government will be used to refurbish the B-listed Arbuthnot House, which will host the new museum and town library.  Ewan Imrie, director of Collective Architecture (who prepared the plans), said: ‘Our extension design aims to create a landmark that will draw both locals and visitors to Peterhead, celebrating the unique identity and heritage of Aberdeenshire.’  Transforming the building into a multi-use cultural space, the plans include adding an extension to the building for the library, with the gallery starting on the ground floor and a room dedicated to all things Peterhead, Aberdeenshire’s historic fishing port. A cafe will be open to the public downstairs, opening onto a walled garden, with a vision to turn the top floor of the space into a ‘dining destination’.  Live Life Aberdeen

For many of us, second-hand shopping is a cherished and near-sacred art form. There’s nothing quite like that feeling of throwing a row of hangers back before swishing through the rail, hunting for that one item that you’ve been searching high and low for. It might not be so good for our wallets, especially when that one item suddenly becomes seven, but it’s good for the planet.  So start saving those pennies, because Charity Super.Mkt is preparing to open a dozen more shops next year, according to the Guardian. The pop-up – which began in a former Topshop in London’s Brent Cross shopping centre in January 2023 – has been so successful it’s now preparing to open a bunch of new sites to cater for the growing demand of preloved items.  Charity Super.Mkt brings together 55 local and national charities in the UK, including Crisis, Oxfam and FARA, and so far the stores have prevented 105,109kg of textile waste from reaching landfill and managed to sell £3 million in pre-loved clothing.  Having opened a bunch of temporary sites across the south of England, from Oxford to Brighton, including two week stint in London’s Fenwick’s department store earlier this year, and a short spell in Manchester, the pre-loved market will open another 12 sites in 2025.  Taking over former fast fashion stores for a few months at a time, locations selected for the upcoming pop-ups include Edinburgh, Leeds, Sheffield and London’s Canary Wharf. The latest pop-up opened in London’s Spitalfields this weeke

Christmas in London just wouldn’t be the same without people moaning about Trafalgar Square’s Christmas tree. And this year’s arrival of the giant tree is no different, with many mocking its slightly flat appearance. The iconic Christmas decoration made it to London on Monday (December 2) and reactions were mixed. But the Lord Mayor of Westminster, Robert Rigby, took to X to let the public know that while it ‘may look slightly flat at first’ but promised it will soon ‘unfurl’ into all its majestical festive glory. Not everyone’s convinced. LBC described how Londoners were mocking the Christmas tree as ‘half dead’, while the Express said the public were raging that ‘half the fir is missing!’. The Daily Mail also added that the annual gift had turned up with dead ‘branches’. Tough crowd.  One user on X said: ‘Going to take a lot of fluffing to hide all those dead branches. Just saying,’ while another poked fun at the fir’s arrival with: ‘It’s here. Well half of it anyway’.  But the tree clapped back this year, with its official X account telling users: ‘Now, before the haters start commenting on my branches, I have had 10 days of beauty sleep - who wouldn’t look a bit flat after that kind of travel, but don’t fret; it’ll fluff up and shine just in time for my big moment.’  Chopped down in November and transported hundreds of miles to London, spending days at sea, you probably wouldn’t be looking so fresh after that journey either. Here’s everything you need to know about this