England Historical Facts

Belvoir Castle is pronounced as "Beaver" Castle.

Manningtree in the county of Essex, claims to be England's smallest town, with just 700 people in 20 hectares.

High Wycombe, the largest town in Buckinghamshire, is the only town in the world that weighs its Mayors. It does this to see if they've gained any weight at the taxpayers expense! The weighing of the mayor ceremony has been carried out since 1678, and the town has been using the same weighing apparatus since the 19th century. At the end of the weighing, the town crier shouts either 'And no more!' if the mayor has not gained, or 'And some more!!' if he has put on some, though the actual weight is never announced to the watching public.

The famous Lea & Perrins 'Worcestershire Sauce' was first made by two dispensing chemists, John Wheeley Lea (1791-1874) and William Henry Perrins(1793-1867), in Worcester where it has been produced since 1837.

The famous composer Sir Edward Elgar is buried at St Wulstan's church, in Little Malvern, Worcestershire. Indeed it was the beautiful Malvern Hills that inspired many of his well known compositions.

The late Queen Mother always carried a winkle with her. She was a member of the Hastings (East Sussex) winkle club and would be fined if she could not produce it when asked.

Sheerness, in Kent, has the biggest pile of decaying explosives in the world sitting in a wreck a few yards offshore.

St Botolph's Church in Boston, Lincolnshire, has the tallest parish church tower in England (often called the Boston Stump) at 272 ft high.

The first dinosaur bone was discovered in a limestone quarry at Cornwell village, near Chipping Norton in 1676. It was analysed by Robert Plot at the University of Oxford, who concluded it to be a thigh bone of one of the giant humans mentioned in the Bible. It has since been identified as belonging to a Megalosaurus. It was Richard Owen, however, who in 1842 truly identified dinosaur bones and invented the word 'Dinosaur'.

The Battle of Hastings wasn't fought at Hastings, but on Senlac Hill (sometimes known as Senlac Ridge) approximately six miles North-North West of Hastings near the town of Battle.