h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Welcome to Talking Point. This is a semi-regular feature with topics introduced In 'Ask h2g2' from time to time.





Suppose you have out-of-town guests coming to visit you for a short stay. What are the local sights worth seeing in your neck of the woods? Tell us about your local gems and hidden treasures as well as the famous places.

If you are feeling inspired to share your knowledge beyond this forum, head on over to Create, were the latest theme is Living la Vida Local: A87739780





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h2g2 Community Editors
Witty Moniker

It sort of depends on what types of things the visitors want to do. For those who enjoy hiking and camping, there are beautiful groves of redwood trees, ancient and mysterious.

I always take my guests to see a small boy urinating. The problem is that there is normally a horde of Japanese tourists in the way...



sprout

Living in Birmingham there's probably lots of places that I could take someone, but there's two that are particularly close to my heart, and so it's these that I would really want to share. They are Aston Hall and Avoncroft Mueseum.

Aston Hall was originally a country house near the town of Aston of which Birmingham was an outlying village. It was built by Sir Thomas Hole during the reign of Charles I. In the intervening centuries Birmingham has grown up around it and swallowed up most of the estate for housing, but a reasonable patch of park land and the house still remain. Now it's a preserved piece of history in a place it would appear to have no right to be. Utilitarian housing on one side, a football ground on another, and a flyover just outside the grounds. I just love the whole juxtaposition if the thing.

Avoncroft Mueseum is similar, but this time completely intentional. It's in Bromsgrove, but well worth the little extra distance. It's an open air museum of preserved buildings. About 20 or so buildings were moved there and painstakingly reconstructed. My personal favourite is the windmill. It's a truly beautiful thing to behold. There's a intriguing collection of telephone kiosks there too, including a 1950's police telephone box - that'll be the one which every Doctor Who fan wants to be photographed coming out of.

There's lots of another places nearby, of course, but these are the two I love.


Geggs

Spoilt for choice here - medieval castle, battlefields, Wallace Monument, a big wheel, lions & tigers roaming free(ish), stunning scenery, distilleries ....

Most people associate Surrey with palatial homes for rich London commuters, but it has some wonderful areas of heath and woodland, ideal for walking. You're often rewarded with fine views.

If you visit, bring boots and a map.

Well this is generally considered iconic:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4264683.stm

Shows our anarchic sense of humour. Apparently. Sometimes people have asked me how they managed to get it all the way up there. I think alcohol may have been involved in some capacity.

Apart from that? Nothing really. A few pubs, mibbe.

I've got some out of towners coming in a couple of weeks as it so happens, and seeing as I only moved to Manchester a few years ago, well five I think, I'm not all that certain what there is. But I'm sure to find out, and suggestions would be more than welcome.

Anyone who comes to visit me is already in the middle of a point of interest. I could put them up across the street at the Casa de Patron bed & breakfast, where Billy the Kid spent several months under house arrest, or at the Wortley Hotel at the other end of town, an establishment once run by Pat Garrett.

And of course there are historic buildings dotted through Lincoln (which has a population of c50). We're surrounded by state forest and national forest lands, with some superb views at the apex of scary forest roads, and there's an Apache reservation 50 miles south of me. Access to Indian land is restricted for whites, but they manage their forests so well that the permitted roads are gorgeous.

Watford Gap service station, probably Well, it's famous, isn't it?

Mol

Living in Yorkshire I could show people the face of God (or Malham Cove as its otherwise known) - the walk through Goredale Scar, across to the Tarn, down through the old valley and down the path at the side of Cove itself. Perhaps the most spectacular walk in the UK.

Walking across Ilkley Moor under the light of a full moon, reaching the cairn and stone circle at the high point of the Moor and looking down into Wharfedale, setting up camp, sleeping under the stars and finishing the walk into Ilkley at dawn.

That sounds good. How close is that to the meet?

Hats optional I presume?

Living in Brentford, as many hootoozens know, I'm not far from the World Heritage site, Kew Gardens, somewher I often go, asshown here:

http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/brunel/A80841413

Also, there is Kew Bridge Steam Museum, a former water pumping station, and home of 5 major steam-powered water pumping engines. Well worth a visit, if only once...

And just been awarded a major award of lottery funding to maintain, and renovate, the museum.

http://www.kbsm.org/

And also the famous (allegedly) Brentford Music Museum, an automaton music machine museum. Entry to the above also allows free entry to the Music Museum, and vice versa.

http://www.musicalmuseum.co.uk/

Also, part of the Beatle's Film 'A Hard Days Night' was shot locally, looking towards Kew Bridge, and the Hollows, where I used to live on a boat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjd2M_UER8Y

The Pub is The City Barge (actually across the road!)

50 yards over the border, in Staveley Road, is where the first V2 rocket landed. The Government of the day, rather than state what had happened, claimed it was a gas explosion...

http://brentfordandchiswicklhs.org.uk/local-history/war/commemorating-the-chiswick-v2/

It is not far from the famous Battle of Turnham Green, in Chiswick. Another great h2g2 entry.

A22196351

Brentford is also famous for a number of Roman events:

It is believed Julius Caesar forded the Thames here, to reach London, in 55BC, and is certainly where Edmund Ironside chased Cnut and assorted vikings out of London in 1016.

The famous native Indian Pochontus and John Rolf resided in Brentford, for 6 months, on the site of what is now the Royal Mail sorting office.

It is also the home of, what was then, local writer,Robert Rankin, and his infamous Brentford Trilogy. Verymuch in the style og D.N.A., it isn't a trilogy being made up of The Antipope, The Brentford Triangle, East of Ealing, The Sprouts of Wrath, The Brentford Chainstore Massacr, Sex and SDrugs and Sausage Roll and Knees Up Mother Earth. Two odd sequels are actually set in Brighton, oddly, but feature some of the characters, being The Brightonomicon and Retromancer.

Brentford is also famous for having the only pub with a football pitch on every corner, being The Royal Oak, The New Inn, The Princess Royal and The Griffin.

I think that will do for now.

I'm exhausted!!!



MMF

I live in West Roxbury, on the fringe of Boston, Massachusetts. I don't feel qualified to talk about the points of interest in downtown Boston, which is 7 or 8 miles away. Most people can go on Google and find out about Boston's museums, its symphony hall which ranks with the world's best for acoustics, and numerous places of historical interest.

What I can do is talk about some points of interest in Dedham, which is across the river from my house. What really puts Dedham on the map for historical interest is the Fairbanks House.
http://www.fairbankshouse.org/
As their website mentions, The Fairbanks House in Dedham, MA is thought to be the oldest standing timber frame building in North America. Built circa 1637-1641 for Jonathan and Grace Fairebanke and their six children, it was home to eight generations of the Fairbanks family."

Just down the street from the Fairbanks House is the Endicott Estate, which was lived in by the Endicott Family from 1904 through the early 1970s, when it was deeded to the Town for public use. It's an elegant yellow mansion that sits in the middle of a sizeable piece of lawn, amply endowed with elegant old trees. A fewmovies and TV shows have been filmed in the Endicott House.

paulh, I would dearly love you to write about that house! That sounds exactly the sort of thing that only local people may know about, a proper hidden gem that deserves wider recognition.

in Thornton we have the tallest windmill of it's particular type in europe.... I think they were only built like this locally but don't let that put you off of visiting marsh mill...

Which house do you mean, Lanzababy? Fairbanks or Endicott? I've been in the Endicott estate many times (it's charming, but I'd have trouble keeping it clean if I lived there ), but have never set foot in the Fairbanks House. How could I write knowledgeably about something I haven't seen from the inside? (Okay, okay, the interior has been photographed, and there are pamphlets about it at the local library, not to mention the website....]

It was Fairbanks House, I just imagined that you must have visited it. Obviously, if you've not, then it would be hard to write about.