BRITANNIA - A guide to historic sites and nature sites around Britain

A selection of castles from Roman times to modern day and their photos. Featured Castles and photos on Nathanville with Multiply include Colchester castle; Hedingham castle, Essex; Legoland; Mountfitchet castle; Warwick Castle; Berkeley Castle and Lulworth Castle.

Mountfitchet Castle prides itself on the freedom and happiness of all its animals, many of which have come from less happy backgrounds; some of the chickens are rescued from battery farms, the goats are either unwanted or outgrown pets and the deer are either road accident victims or orphans. They feel it is essential for all their animals to roam freely, and for visitors, both young and old, to have a "hands-on" experience with them.

Many of the breeds are exactly as the Normans would have kept for meat and milk; animals in Norman times were prized possessions, a herd of sheep, or better still, fallow deer, was a great status symbol - the deer only being hunted by the Baron or Lord. The punishment for deer-poaching was the removal of a hand or for a subsequent offence, the death penalty.

Where ever you look there are historical buildings and castles. Nathanville on Multiply gives information and photos on Flatford Mill, the famous setting for John Constable paintings; St Fagan Historical Village in Wales. The Organ and clock mechanism at the 500 year old Hutton Church in Weston-Super-Mare; Glastonbury Tor, the Roman Baths at Bath, near Bristol; Cricket St Thomas, the setting of the famous TV series "To The Manor Born"; Layer Marney Tower; Mountfitchet, a Living Norman Village of 1066 and the House On The Hill Toy Museum at Mountfitchet; Prior Hall Barn, Tinton Abbey, Wales, and Wind water pumps on the Norfolk Broads including Red Mill and Horsey Windmill.

St Fagan Historical Village (near Cardiff, Wales) is a Museum of Welsh Life that makes for a great day out. St Fagan Village is comprised of a large collection of historical buildings from across Wales that have been dismantled brick by brick and rebuilt on site to give a spectacular tour of Welsh buildings and life through the ages from Viking times to the present day.

Red Mill is a derelict Windmill on the Norfolk Broads which is now rented out as a holiday home. On first approaching the Windmill from across the fields it looks very much like a derelict windmill, but first impressions are very deceptive. Once there, it is a windmill of Inner Beauty, and a most wonderful place from which to holiday.

If you love nature, wildlife and the countryside, and the isolation of the place then you certainly will enjoy Red Mill on Haddiscoe island in the Norfolk Broads.

Red Mill, built during the Victorian era stands on a triangular inland island of about 2000 acres of marsh land. The Windmill on Haddiscoe island, in the Norfolk Broads, is about 4.8 miles off the road and takes about 20 minutes to drive across fields at about 15mph which is the fastest one can safely drive on the dirt tracks from road to mill. A most wonderful 20 minutes journey each time being confronted by a wide variety of wildlife e.g. swans, owls, herons, hairs, dears, sheep, cows, bulls and so on.

Museums, facts and photos, featured on Nathanville UK with Multiply includes: -

* The Tank Museum - Bovington, Dorset
* Charlestown Shipwreck & Heritage Centre, Cornwall
* FirePower and the Natural History Museum, London
* Lulworth Castle Museum, Dorset
* Horsey Windmill on Norfolk Broads
* Toad Hole Cottage Museum on the River Ant on the Broads, and
* Flixton Aircraft Museum, Suffolk

FIREPOWER the Royal Artillery Museum, located in the historic Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, South East London (a short riverside walk from the Woolwich Ferry), tells the story of artillery of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, and the history of the ordnance manufacturing that for 300 years dominated the Arsenal.

The museum is well laid out and contains many exhibits including a selection of VC Medals. One such medal being that of Thomas Arthur VC (as featured on Nathanville (Complete) Family Tree).

There are numerous Wild Life Animal Parks and Zoos around the country. `The Big Sheep' and `The Milky Way' are just a couple of the 15 Animal and Fun Parks in Devon. Cricket St Thomas near Chard, Somerset; Whipsnade Wildlife Animal Park; Colchester Zoo and Bristol Zoo just to name a few other places worthy a visit around the UK.

For the best experience of being with the animals, Mountfitchet castle is hard to beat. Mountfitchet is a living museum of a Norman village set in 1066 with animals roaming the village as they would have done in Norman times so there are no fences or barriers between you and the animals. Of course, for the more exotic and dangerious animals you really do need to see them in a Zoo or Wild Life Park where visitor and animal are often kept apart - unless you wish to be their dinner?

Some of the places featuring information and photos of wildlife on Nathanville UK (MSN) include: -

* Longleat, Bath
* Whipsnade Wild Animal Park. Bedfordshire (photos)
* Nature Trail of wild animals around the UK (photos)
* The Big Sheep and The Milky Way, Devon
* Cricket St Thomas, Chard, Somerset
* Mountfitchet, Essex
* Oceanic and Tropical Aquarium, Vannes, France
* Lulworth Castle Animal Farm, Dorset (photos), and
* Mistral the swan, Dovercourt, Essex.

Nathanville UK on Multiply includes detail and photos on a number of cities, towns and villages in the UK.

The picuture shown here is of the Matthew, a modern recreation of a square rigged sailing ship used by John Cabot who sailed from Bristol to North America in 1497.

Just some of the places found on Nathanville UK include: -

* Bath
* Bristol
* Cheddar Gorge, Somerset
* Clevedon, Somerset
* Cricket St Thomas, Chard, Somerset
* Dovercourt, Essex
* Flatford, Suffolk
* Harwich, Essex
* London
* Layer Marney, Essex and
* Weston-Super-Mare

Nathanville on Multiply includes a selection of air shows and aircraft museum photos for DUXFORD AIR SHOW in Cambridge, YEOVILTON AIR SHOW in Somerset and FLIXTON AIRCRAFT MUSEUM in Flixton, Bungay, Suffolk.

Yeovilton Air Show is one of the better shows with a distinct naval flavour and they have a set piece where the based Sea Kings converge on the airfield carrying underslung loads, quite impressive. For further information and updates of this and other air shows visit www.airshows.co.uk

Yeovilton is just one of many air show in the UK and although planes are the main feature there are often other attractions such as with the 1990's Yeovilton air show that not only included a full day's display of planes in the air (and on the ground) but also included Concorde, meet the Americans and their E-3 Sentry (AWACS), and several vintage cars.

Visit Nathanville on Multiply for a large seleciton of holiday and travel photos showing various places of historical and natural interest in the UK and a few places in the EU.

For example Charlestown Shipwreck & Heritage Centre Located in a historic china clay building on the waterfront of the seaport of Charlestown, St. Austell, Cornwall. U.K. or St.Fagan Historical Village, Wales - Buildings through the ages from viking to modern day etc.

Read about Mistral, on Nathanville. Mistral, named because she came to the Harwich area in the windy month of March 1999, has had a sad and chequered life. She had two mates between 1999 & 2001, both killed in another part of Dovercourt, Essex. So the Harwich Environmental Action Team (HEAT) moved her in the summer of 2001 to the ponds in Dovercourt for her own safety, since then she has had four further mates, and has been involved with Freedom (a Hooper swan) in two love triangles.

Visit The Mistral Story on Nathanville for the full story.