A Notorious Guide to Britain – Welcome to our strange nation

Ghost village
Imber, Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire

Four years into the Second World War, the residents of this distant Wiltshire village got simply days to evacuate their houses so it could possibly be utilized by American troops practising for the D-Day invasion of Normandy in June 1944.

In the late nineteenth Century, the Government started shopping for land on Salisbury Plain for navy use.

By the outbreak of warfare, nearly all of the land in and round Imber village belonged to the Ministry of War.

On November 1, 1943, villagers had been known as to a gathering and given 47 days’ discover to go away their houses.

READ MORE: Once-booming UK seaside resort now a ghost town with homes on sale for just £5,000

Compensation for the upheaval was restricted, and the occupants of 1 farm had been forcibly evicted by the Army.

Albert Nash, who had been the village’s blacksmith for greater than 40 years, was so distraught he was discovered sobbing over
his anvil.

The promise that they might be allowed to return to their houses after the warfare proved to be an empty one.

In January 1961, their endurance examined, round 2,000 villagers held a rally, demanding Imber be returned to its rightful house owners.

Eventually, an settlement was reached that the village can be opened three days a 12 months for folks to go to their deserted houses, whereas the church can be maintained and opened for worship on at some point a 12 months.

To today the village is open to guests on sure financial institution Holidays and across the Christmas interval.

Elvis Presley’s solely UK look
Prestwick Airport, Ayrshire

Now renamed Glasgow Prestwick International Airport, that is the one spot in your complete UK the place The King set foot.

Having been demobbed from the US Army in West Germany on March 2, 1960, Sergeant Presley stopped off in Prestwick for 2 hours so his aircraft might refuel.

While ready, he chatted to stunned followers by way of the wire fence.

The first Pizza Express
29 Wardour Street, London

It was right here, in London’s West End, that the very first Pizza Express restaurant opened on March 27, 1965.

Founder Peter Boizot had returned from Italy determined for someplace to purchase a correct Italian-style pizza.

Failing to discover a restaurant, he determined to create his personal. His first transfer was to order a big pizza oven, however when it arrived he found it wouldn’t match by way of the door.

So he and his workers needed to smash a gap by way of the entrance wall.

The first day of enterprise was hardly profitable – simply £3 (£62 at at this time’s values) went into the until.

The unique pizzas had been sq., as had been the slices. They offered for 2 shillings every and had been served on greaseproof paper with plastic cutlery and low in paper cups.

When the warmth of the cheese melted the plastic, stainless-steel cutlery was supplied as a substitute. Boizot sourced mozzarella cheese from the one producer in London and was the primary man to import Peroni beer to the UK. The second Pizza Express opened on London’s Coptic Street, subsequent to the British Museum, in 1967. Peter Boizot died in 2018.

First site visitors lights
Parliament Square, London

The UK’s first site visitors lights in Britain started working in Parliament Square on December 10, 1868 – a operated by hand revolving lantern with pink and inexperienced lights however no amber.

They had been invented by railway engineer JP Knight, though of pretty crude building, as evidenced when the contraption exploded just a few weeks later, injuring the policeman working it.

The one-armed drummer Ladybower Reservoir
Bridge, Sheffield

On the A57 outdoors Sheffield on New Year’s Eve 1984, Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen crashed his Corvette Stingray.

His left arm was torn off on the shoulder and needed to be amputated.

Refusing to surrender his profession regardless of his harm, he carried on offering rhythm for the band.

First KFC 92 Fishergate,
Preston, Lancashire

The first Kentucky Fried Chicken opened in Britain in Preston in May 1965, with a cardboard cut-out of Colonel Sanders welcoming clients.

The restaurant – which predated McDonald’s and Burger King – was arrange by enterprise companions Harry Latham and Raymond Allen. They quickly expanded nationwide.

Borley Rectory
Hall Road, Borley, Essex

Often labelled “the most haunted house in England”, this rectory was in-built 1863, on the location of an outdated Benedictine monastery close to the River Stour.

Over the years, all kinds of shenanigans, together with phantom footsteps, ghostly nuns, doorbells ringing of their very own accord and unexplained stone-throwing have been reported.

In 1930, the Foyster household moved in and later claimed to
have witnessed greater than 2,000 poltergeist phenomena, starting from smashed glasses and stone-throwing to mysterious writing on the partitions.

In 1939 the rectory was fully gutted by hearth, and it was lastly demolished in 1944.

Experts have subsequently claimed all of the happenings had been the results of misinterpreted pure occurrences, hoaxing, rumour and damp and shoddy workmanship when the home was initially constructed.

Britain’s first cashpoint
20 The Town, Enfield, London

The UK’s first cashpoint, or ATM, opened at a department of Barclays Bank in Enfield on Tuesday June 27, 1967.

The late Reg Varney, well-known for enjoying Stan Butler within the sitcom On The Buses, was the primary buyer.

It was all very completely different to the cashpoints we use at this time.

Customers had to purchase a punched card upfront for £10, which was then inserted into the machine. The inventor of the machine was John Shepherd-Barron.

Other early cashpoints had been put in in Hove, Ipswich, Luton, Peterborough and Southend-on-Sea.

Beware Doodlebug!
Grove Road, Mile End, London

The first V1, or Doodlebug because the Nazi weapons had been identified, fell on London subsequent to a railway bridge on Grove Road, east London, 4.25am on Tuesday June 13, 1944.

It was a part of a wave of ten V1s, however 5 crash-landed after take-off in France. One went lacking en route and 4 reached England – three falling wanting their targets.This one killed six Londoners and badly injured one other 30, in addition to leaving round 200 folks homeless.

The first ASBO
Taunton Deane Shopping Centre

It was in 2004 that the primary Asbo was issued within the UK. Taunton Deane Magistrates’ Court ordered a 38-year-old to not loiter inside 50 yards of any college in England and Wales after he was arrested for exposing himself within the city centre

Kidnapped property agent
37 Shorrolds Road, Fulham

It was outdoors this Fulham home on July 28, 1986, that 25-year-old property agent Suzy Lamplugh organized to satisfy the mysterious Mr Kipper ostensibly to point out him across the property.

Lamplugh drove from her close by workplace and was by no means seen once more.

Her automobile was found at 10pm outdoors a home a mile-and-a-half away. In 1994, Suzy Lamplugh was declared legally lifeless.

The chief suspect is a convicted killer known as John Cannan, though he has constantly denied having something to do with the kidnapping.

The Cornish Dracula
King Arthur’s Castle Hotel, Tintagel, Cornwall

The 1979 movie model of the well-known vampire story starred US actor Frank Langella, within the title position, Laurence Olivier as Van Helsing and Donald Pleasence as Dr Jack Steward.

Directed by John Badham, the movie was set in 1913 as Count Dracula arrives in Whitby, Yorkshire, from Transylvania aboard the ship Demeter on a stormy evening. Langella solely agreed to the position so long as he wouldn’t must do any promotional work as Dracula.

King Arthur’s Castle Hotel stood in for the asylum from the unique story. Still there at this time, it’s now the Camelot Castle Hotel.

• The Notorious Guide To Britain by Paul Donnelley (Mardle Books, £12.99) is out now. Visit expressbookshop.com or name 0203 1763832. Free UK P&P on orders over £25