countryside Archives - British Slang Dictionary

Fox Hunting

Fox hunting — riders in red coats following a pack of hounds across country after a fox — was banned…

The Yorkshire Dales became a national park in 1954. A dale is simply a valley — the word is Norse,…

The Peak District became Britain's first national park in 1951, and its location is the whole point: it sits between…

Around 60,000 buildings in the UK have thatched roofs, most of them in the south and west of England —…

The village fête is a summer afternoon fundraiser held in a field, on a green or in a school playing…

Almost nothing in the British landscape is natural. After the last ice age Britain would have been covered in wildwood;…

Britain has fifteen national parks — ten in England, three in Wales and two in Scotland — and they work…

Wellington boots — wellies to everyone — are knee-high waterproof rubber boots, and they are a genuine necessity in a…

The British countryside is not wilderness. Almost every acre of it has been cleared, drained, walled, grazed or ploughed at…

The Lake District is 900 square miles of mountain, lake and fell in the north-west corner of England, and it…