England Historical Facts

Great Yarmouth is home to Englands largest parish church, St Nicholas church.

The coastal town of Lowestoft, in the county of Suffolk, is the most easterly point in Britain.

The house of Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (inventor of the incandescent light bulb) in Gateshead was the first in the world to be lit by a lightbulb.

There are 3 small rooms inside the Marble Arch which were used as a police station until 1950.

London was the first city in the world to have an underground railway system, known as the tube.

The tallest building in London is 'One Canada Square' which is a skyscraper in Canary Wharf. It stands at 770 feet (235m) above ground level and contains 50 stories. It was built between 1988 and 1991 and consists mainly of offices.

Southend-on-Sea, Essex, has the longest pleasure pier in the world. It is an astonishing 1.33 miles long and was first built in 1830.

Lincoln Cathedral was once officially the tallest building in the world for over 200 years, from 1311 (when the central tower was raised, surpassing the Great Pyramid of Giza which had held the record for almost 4000 years), until 1549 when the spire was blown down in a storm.

On Christmas Eve in 1801 Richard Trevithick demonstrated his "Puffing Devil" , a high pressure steam engine which was for the first time mounted on wheels and self propelled. This was the first ever successful passenger carrying road vehicle ie the first car. Sadly a few days later on another trial it toppled over on the then uneven roads,after being righted and moved to the stable of the nearest tavern it blew up and destroyed itself and the stable-- no one had extinguished the boiler!!!

The 'Inklings' were a group of 19 men who frequented the Eagle and Child Public House in St Giles, Oxford to discuss each others literary works, which included C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.