TOP 21 best attractions in England

Eng­land is the largest admin­is­tra­tive part of Great Britain, locat­ed in a pic­turesque hilly area. There are many beau­ti­ful cities, medieval cas­tles, palaces and muse­ums on its ter­ri­to­ry.

Who and why to go here

Eng­land has a tur­bu­lent his­to­ry, reflect­ed in the archi­tec­tur­al struc­tures and cul­tur­al char­ac­ter­is­tics of the coun­try. Every day, thou­sands of tourists come here to stroll around Lon­don, see roy­al res­i­dences and ancient fortress­es, vis­it British muse­ums and exhi­bi­tions, relax in cozy parks and ride mod­ern attrac­tions.

Future stu­dents go to see Oxford and Cam­bridge. These are small towns in which the old­est Eng­lish edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions are locat­ed. For exam­ple, the library of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge has about 7 mil­lion books. Among them are man­u­scripts of famous sci­en­tists, ancient man­u­scripts, the Koran. In Oxford, tourists vis­it the Bodleian Library, where some of the Har­ry Pot­ter scenes were filmed.

In Eng­land, you can have fun with chil­dren of dif­fer­ent ages. Amuse­ment parks, zoos and muse­ums have been built for fam­i­lies. And young peo­ple flock to local pubs and night­clubs.

Lan­guage tourism is devel­oped in the Unit­ed King­dom. Peo­ple come here to mas­ter Eng­lish per­fect­ly and get to know the cul­ture of the coun­try bet­ter. For this, agen­cies cre­ate spe­cial groups and select pro­grams that meet the goals and means of clients.

Shops and shop­ping cen­ters in the UK offer a wide range of brand­ed items. Peo­ple come here for brand­ed bags, belts, shoes, cash­mere and knitwear. High prices do not stop shop­pers, as here you can buy real­ly high-qual­i­ty goods, and stores reg­u­lar­ly offer big dis­counts. Dur­ing the sales sea­son, prices can drop by up to 90%.

London Attractions

It will take at least a month to see all the sights of Eng­land. Start from the cap­i­tal. When in Lon­don, be sure to vis­it Pic­cadil­ly, Oxford Street, the City, Soho and Chi­na­town.

Westminster Palace

The com­plex is locat­ed on the banks of the Thames. Pre­vi­ous­ly, it served as the res­i­dence of kings, and now it hosts meet­ings of the British Par­lia­ment. The Palace of West­min­ster was built in the Neo-Goth­ic archi­tec­tur­al style. The build­ings have 1100 rooms, 100 stairs and many cor­ri­dors.

The archi­tec­tur­al com­po­si­tion itself con­sists of three tow­ers:

• Tow­ers of Queen Vic­to­ria;
• Big Ben;
• Cen­tral tow­er.

There is a mon­u­ment to Richard the Lion­heart in front of the Palace of West­min­ster.

Buckingham Palace

This is the cur­rent res­i­dence of the roy­al dynasty in Lon­don.

On its ter­ri­to­ry are:

• offi­cial office of the queen;
• ball­rooms;
• police Depart­ment;
• hos­pi­tal;
• post office;
• huge park;
• sta­bles.

From August to Sep­tem­ber, the roy­al fam­i­ly leaves the house and tourists are allowed in. Here vis­i­tors can explore the col­lec­tion of antique vas­es, fur­ni­ture, paint­ings and porce­lain. There is a gift shop in the palace.

Tower

The ancient fortress tow­er­ing on the banks of the Thames is the infa­mous Tow­er. In 1078 it was erect­ed for defen­sive pur­pos­es, but soon began to be used as a prison. High-rank­ing per­son­al­i­ties lan­guished in the sin­is­ter tow­er, and after that Cather­ine Howard and Anne Boleyn, the wives of Hen­ry VIII, were exe­cut­ed.

Now the Tow­er hous­es a muse­um, a roy­al trea­sury and an armory. The obser­va­tion deck offers a gor­geous view of the Tow­er Bridge, the Thames and the cen­tral part of the city.

Westminster Abbey

Peter’s Church, which was lat­er called West­min­ster Abbey, was erect­ed in the 7th cen­tu­ry. The build­ing, made in the Goth­ic style, is a cult place. Coro­na­tions, wed­dings of mon­archs, as well as the funer­als of kings and famous peo­ple of the empire were held here.

Charles Dick­ens, Isaac New­ton, Rud­yard Kipling, Geof­frey Chaucer, Queens Vic­to­ria and Eliz­a­beth are buried in the abbey.

Church uten­sils, tapes­tries, old books and doc­u­ments are stored in the premis­es of West­min­ster. Tick­ets for vis­it­ing are easy to book on the web­site of the abbey.

Notable architectural structures

windsor palace

The sym­bol of the monar­chy, Wind­sor Cas­tle, was built in Wind­sor. For 900 years, British rulers lived in it. Inside you can admire the mag­nif­i­cent inte­ri­ors and house­hold items of the roy­al fam­i­ly. The walls here are dec­o­rat­ed with real paint­ings by Rem­brandt, Raphael, Van Gogh.

It takes 40 min­utes to get to the cas­tle from Lon­don by car.

Rochester Castle

Rochester Cas­tle is locat­ed in Kent, built almost 1000 years ago. The fortress pro­tect­ed the cap­i­tal of Eng­land from con­querors and more than once with­stood cru­el sieges. Now the cas­tle has been restored and is a muse­um. Here you can study the life of the ancient knights, see the fur­ni­ture and uten­sils of that time, as well as look into the under­ground cor­ri­dors.

canterbury cathedral

Can­ter­bury has a Goth­ic cathe­dral built in 603. Its inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion is famous for its ancient stained-glass win­dows on the theme of bib­li­cal sto­ries, wick­er columns and open­work draw­ings on the win­dows. Here, vis­i­tors can see the paint­ing “The Apos­tle Paul with a snake”, a mar­ble throne, the crown of Thomas Beck­et and a crypt with bur­ial places of promi­nent peo­ple.

stonehenge

In the coun­ty of Wilt­shire ris­es a unique archae­o­log­i­cal mon­u­ment of stones. It used to be believed that the boul­ders were placed by the Druids, but now sci­en­tists have found out that the struc­ture was built ear­li­er — in the Late Neolith­ic and Bronze Ages. Why Stone­henge was built is still unknown. It is assumed that the cir­cle of stones has a cult sig­nif­i­cance.

A trip to Stone­henge can be com­bined with a vis­it to the vil­lage of Ave­bury. Not far from it is anoth­er large cir­cle of huge stones placed ver­ti­cal­ly. This pagan mon­u­ment, like Stone­henge, is a world his­tor­i­cal her­itage.

York

The city in the north of Eng­land attracts tourists with its ancient his­tor­i­cal mon­u­ments. One of the most famous archi­tec­tur­al build­ings is York Min­ster, erect­ed in 1220. Its dec­o­ra­tion is stained-glass win­dows with images of domes­tic and reli­gious scenes.

Also in York you can see the ram­parts and Clif­ford’s tow­er, built by William the Con­queror. From its roof offers a gor­geous view of the city and sur­round­ings.

Bath in Somerset

Bath is locat­ed on the banks of the Riv­er Avon. It is famous for its clas­si­cist archi­tec­ture and heal­ing springs. Even the ancient Romans appre­ci­at­ed the purest water and built a bath com­plex around it.

In mod­ern Bath, in addi­tion to the baths, tourists can see the Goth­ic cathe­dral and the town hall, go to the Muse­um of Roman Antiq­ui­ties and take a walk in the Queen Vic­to­ria Park.

Museums and galleries in England

British museum

The largest muse­um in the world is locat­ed in Lon­don. Its expo­si­tions reflect the colo­nial his­to­ry of Great Britain.

Also in the build­ing there are 94 gal­leries, which con­tain objects of art from dif­fer­ent peo­ples and eras:

• Ancient Greece;
• Ancient Rome;
• South-East Asia;
• Far East.

The depart­ments of the British Muse­um present pre­his­toric mon­u­ments, engrav­ings, paint­ings, stat­ues, jew­el­ry and house­hold items of ancient peo­ple.

National Gallery

The Lon­don Art Gallery exhibits paint­ings by famous artists dat­ing from the 12th-20th cen­turies. The muse­um has col­lect­ed more than 2000 exhibits, so it is dif­fi­cult to see them all at once. Going here, it is best to make a route and out­line those pic­tures that you want to see first.

Madame Tussauds museum

While in Lon­don, vis­it Madame Tus­sauds. There are wax fig­ures of crowned per­sons, show busi­ness stars, rulers of dif­fer­ent coun­tries. The exhibits are made with a high degree of real­ism. Some fig­ures are able to move and react to the touch­es of vis­i­tors. In such a muse­um it will be inter­est­ing to spend time with the whole fam­i­ly.

Beatles Museum

Con­nois­seurs of The Bea­t­les’ cre­ativ­i­ty can­not ignore the muse­um of their favorite band in Liv­er­pool. The expo­si­tions col­lect­ed here show dif­fer­ent stages in the life of the musi­cians and the band. The muse­um stores stage cos­tumes, lyrics, pho­tographs, archival doc­u­ments, videos from the con­certs.

All vis­i­tors are giv­en an audio guide, where there are record­ings in Russ­ian. There is a sou­venir shop in the build­ing. There you can buy cheap key rings with images of musi­cians, as well as posters and badges.

Sherlock Holmes Museum

The Sher­lock Holmes Muse­um is open on Bak­er Street in Lon­don. Tourists rush there, ador­ing the works of A. Conan Doyle about the great detec­tive. The four-sto­ry house-muse­um repeats the detec­tive’s dwelling in detail. Here you can see Dr. Wat­son’s room, Holmes’ vio­lin, a chem­i­cal lab­o­ra­to­ry, wax fig­ures of the main char­ac­ters, and at the same time buy sou­venirs.

Harry Potter Museum

Leaves­den Stu­dios, locat­ed in the town of Wat­ford near Lon­don, has recent­ly opened the Har­ry Pot­ter Muse­um.

Among the exhibits are the objects involved in the film­ing of the film:

• lay­out of Hog­warts;
• Hagrid’s hut;
• Diagon Alley;
• pub “Three brooms”;
• Ford “Eng­land”;
• fab­u­lous ani­mals.

It is easy to spend the whole day in the muse­um and not notice how time has passed.

Amusement and nature parks

sherwood forest

Sher­wood For­est is locat­ed in Not­ting­hamshire, where the famous out­law Robin Hood lived. Now there is a huge park area, where wood­en sculp­tures are locat­ed and a mighty oak grows. Accord­ing to pre­lim­i­nary esti­mates, the tree is about 1000 years old.

Every year in August, the Robin Hood Fes­ti­val is held in the park: they arrange the­atri­cal per­for­mances, con­certs, joust­ing. Those who wish can ride hors­es, take part in fal­con­ry and com­pe­ti­tions.

Hyde Park

After see­ing the sights of Lon­don, it’s nice to relax in Hyde Park in the city cen­tre. There are foun­tains, bench­es, flow­ers and spread­ing trees. Many peo­ple relax right on the grass, walk bare­foot on the lawns, go in for sports.

There is a large lake with­in the park. Those who wish can go boat­ing here, just sit by the water or feed the swans.

Royal Botanic Garden

In Lon­don, on the south bank of the Thames, a beau­ti­ful gar­den grows.

On its ter­ri­to­ry are locat­ed:

• Kew Palace;
• Great Pago­da;
• glass green­house with palm trees;
• muse­um-exhi­bi­tion of plants;
• Alpine house;
• Water Lily House.

In the Roy­al Botan­ic Gar­dens of Eng­land you can admire the huge col­lec­tions of liv­ing and herbar­i­um plants from around the world.

Chester Zoo

In the sub­urbs of Chester built the largest zoo in the UK. 7000 ani­mals live there. Some of them are list­ed in the Red Book. Chil­dren and adults enjoy watch­ing the inhab­i­tants of the zoo, which are in con­di­tions close to the wild.

Thorpe Park

Arriv­ing in Eng­land with the whole fam­i­ly, be sure to vis­it Thor­pe Park, locat­ed 30 min­utes from Lon­don in Sur­rey.

Teenagers and adults are wait­ing for extreme descents from a height, a cor­ri­dor of hor­rors, a roller coast­er. And for kids there are play­grounds, water rides and themed per­for­mances. The park is closed in win­ter.