A souvenir guide in Japanese to London and its outskirts. It is packed with colour photographs and information that capture the best sights on offer in this fabulous capital city. Look out for more Pitkin Guides on the very best of British history, heritage and travel.

• Henry VII’s father died in prison before he was born.
• Henry VIII was too fat to walk down the stairs.
• Mary Queen of Scots was almost killed by an earthquake at Sheffield Castle.
• Elizabeth I wore poisonous makeup.

This fun little book, containing 400 fantastic facts about the Tudor era and more than 100 illustrations, will delight Tudor fans everywhere!

• After the Battle of Hastings, King Harold’s tattoos were used to identify his body.
• Elizabeth of York was the model for the Queen in the first deck of cards.
• Queen Victoria appears on the 1851 Census. She lists her occupation as ‘the Queen’.
• Henry VIII used a wheelchair and wore glasses.

This fun little book, with 400 fantastic facts about British royal history and more than 100 illustrations, will delight fans of British history everywhere!

For more than 1,000 years the English have been making gardens – ten centuries successfully combating the forces of nature, amidst an erratic, unpredictable climate, and in the wake of four successive ice-ages which destroyed all but the hardiest native plants. The unfolding story of our gardens closely follows the development of the nation, most particularly its magnificent architecture, providing dazzling contribution to England’s cultural heritage and fascinating insight into profound social changes over the centuries. Some English gardens remain in an historic time warp, whilst a number of the larger ones demonstrate a complete history of gardens within their own boundaries. This book selects just some of the country’s numerous outstanding gardens, and key areas within them, to portray the colourful progress of the English garden from its origins to the present day.

A fascinating guide to the English Reformation and its consequences.

In April 1536, in the 27th year of the reign of King Henry VIII, there were scattered throughout England and Wales more than 800 monasteries, nunneries and friaries, and within them 10,000 monks, canons, nuns and friars. 

By April 1540 there were none. The major social and religious upheaval of these four years is what we call the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

An absorbing look at a pivotal point of British history, this new edition of a classic text expertly pairs the seminal text of G.W. O. Woodward with a fresh modern cover that encapsulates the drama of the period.

Look out for more Pitkin Guides on the very best of British history, heritage and travel.

The Pitkin Guide to Britain’s Kings & Queens presents a concise, informative history, in words and pictures, of Britain’s 56 sovereigns from Alfred the Great in the 9th century to our reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.
Beautifully illustrated, this book includes family trees and details of where and when each monarch was born, where they were crowned, the dates they reigned and where they are buried.Now fully updated with the discovery of Richard III’s bones, the birth of HRH Prince George and the 2013 Succession to the Crown Act, this Pitkin Guide contains all you need to know on Britain’s Kings & Queens.

This beautifully illustrated book is part of the Pitkin Royal Collection series, celebrating the lives of the British royal family. Other notable titles in this insightful series include Royal Babies, The Queen and Her Family and Queen Elizabeth II.

Beatrix Potter is known throughout the world for the genius of her illustrations and words. These stories of country life have remained childhood favourites for more than 100 years.

Born into a wealthy London family, Beatrix Potter became a passionate country woman and skilled farmer in the northern countryside, where her characters were brought vividly to life by the genius of her words and pictures. This is a story of her passions – her animals, the Lake District, the National Trust, countryside, her Herdwick sheep – and a story of how she  earned her much-deserved success with Peter Rabbit and friends.

Abbeyleix, an official Heritage Town of Ireland, was founded in the 18th century by Viscount de Vesci and is situated near a 12th century Cistercian monastery beside the River Nore. Today, there is a large range of historical structures still standing in and around the small village – ancient ring forts, burial grounds, early monastic buildings, Norman and mediaeval castles, churches and colonial estate houses. The town once had a famous carpet factory – notably producing some of the carpets used on the RMS Titanic.
There is a heritage house located in the old Patrician monastery schoolhouse which provides information on the town’s history. Tom Cox, manager of the Heritage House is a contributor to this unique book.

Through the novels of England’s foremost woman writer, we explore the Regency world at the time of the Napoleonic wars, its manners, fashion and style, pastimes and entertainments.

Jane Austen – loved now by a huge audience, thanks partly to modern-day TV and film – led a quiet, uneventful life – yet lived amid great events, in a society viewed with remarkable wit and perception. Here are the places Austen knew, visited and featured in her books: the settings for balls, country strolls, holiday tours, carriage drives, walks, picnics, rendezvous and revelations.

The guide includes evocative quotations, surprising facts and places to visit.

Stepney is an area with many well-known associations and images from the poverty-stricken slums of the late nineteenth century to the iconic borough it became for architecture during the Festival of Britain. Stepney also had to soak up heavy bomb damage during the Blitz and sent her children away to safety in the Second World War. For those left behind they faced their own war. Among Stepney’s rich history there was the classical confrontation between Mosley’s fascists and the socialist left at the ‘Battle of Cable Street’, and the earlier dramatic ‘Siege of Sidney Street’ when Liberal Home Secretary Winston Churchill rooted out an anarchist cell. There was the rise and fall of the great local docks, the immigration of large numbers of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe and elsewhere. The growth of the Labour Party and the surprising ascendancy of the Communist Party were also witnessed and much more besides. Here is Stepney as it was then compared to how we see it today