What would you make a World Heritage Site in the UK?
Posted by SnooBooks1701@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 82 comments
The UK is really bad at tooting our own horn. There's a lot of places that feel they should be World Heritage sites, but aren't and have never been nominated. Examples for me are: Winchester Cathedral, Clifton suspension bridge, Chester's city walls, Arundel Castle, St Davids' Cathedral, Iona Abbey and The Mourne Mountains. So, which would you choose to add if you got the chance to nominate one?
thegreyman1986@reddit
Binley Mega Chippy, of course
gummibear853@reddit
Harlech Castle
fillyourguts@reddit
It is one already
Youngfolk21@reddit
Well street, Manchester. If ykyk
holytriplem@reddit
We might be bad at tooting our own horn but we're impeccable at blowing our own trumpet if we say so ourselves.
Apparently there's nothing from Oxford or Cambridge on the list?! That's just insane.
SnooBooks1701@reddit (OP)
Blenheim Palace is a World Heritage Site, that's in Oxfordshire. There's not just nothing in Cambridge, but there's nothing in East Anglia or the entire East of England region
holytriplem@reddit
I'm sorry but I personally don't see why a bog standard 18th century stately home is more deserving of being a world heritage site than two of the oldest universities in the world and some of the best preserved mediaeval architecture in Europe
not-much@reddit
What a weird take. You think being an old university is important but at the same time you don't care about the oldest one.
holytriplem@reddit
It was a joke, albeit a bad one
abfgern_@reddit
Blenheim is anything but bog standard, are you mad! Only Versailles tops it
holytriplem@reddit
I used to live near Versailles so I'm a bit jaded when it comes to stately homes...
abfgern_@reddit
Calling either a 'home' is like calling USS Nimitz a 'boat'
holytriplem@reddit
Meh, I've seen the QM2
kb-g@reddit
It’s the combination of a building that was the first of its kind in its architectural style and became very influential plus the reason it was built plus the landscaping being essentially unchanged from when it was laid out, and the estate as a whole looks broadly the same as it did when it was built. It’s unusual to have that combination in one place. The reason it looks like a “bog standard” stately home is that its style was copied, but it was the first place to look like that.
Agree Oxford and Cambridge both belong on the list, but suspect they don’t meet any of the selection criteria.
holytriplem@reddit
Ah, TIL. Basically the Seinfeld effect before Seinfeld was cool
SnooBooks1701@reddit (OP)
I'm not saying it's more deserving, I'm just pointing out that there is something in Oxfordshire while the entire East of England has nothing
aaarry@reddit
Looking at the same area of the country I’m really surprised there’s nothing from Corby, absolute madness from unesco.
holytriplem@reddit
And where is the Roundabout Landscape of Milton Keynes in that list?!
mattcannon2@reddit
Only once the stockport pyramid is there can we then consider MK
MrBoggles123@reddit
The Piece Hall in Halifax.
A grade 1 listed Georgian Cloth Hall and believed to be the only surviving one in the world. Recently renovated and now has a summer season of outdoor concerts on the courtyard.
Puzzled-Group-6347@reddit
Newport Transporter Bridge. One of only 8 remaining transporter bridges in the world (we have 3 in the UK) and also the biggest.
It's a properly interesting bridge that provides a brilliant window into the logistical challenges of the time, tall ship passage up rivers across the UK, the coal indistry and the history of industrial Britain more generally. Plus you get to cross a 200m span of river on a little platform dangling from cables.
It's also one of only 2 good things in Newport, and that's if you're generous enough to count Caerleon as part of Newport.
gigglesmcsdinosaur@reddit
Well my suggestion was going to be the Tees Transportet Bridge so everything you said only replace Newport with Middlesbrough and add both that it's the longest transporter bridge in the world and that Terry Scott once drove off the edge and into the safety netting because he expected ot was a normal bridge.
Eoin_McLove@reddit
lol came to make this suggestion semi-jokingly
I ran past the Transporter Bridge earlier. I love it.
MrsTheBo@reddit
I drove past this earlier! It is pretty nifty
Tim6181@reddit
I drive past this every Friday on my way home from working in wales when the sat nav diverts me this way to avoid the traffic on the m4
I had no idea what it was and kept meaning to google what it was. But would forget by the end of the drive home. Now I know and I’m suitably impressed
CaveJohnson82@reddit
Off to Google as I have no idea what a transporter bridge is.
carlovski99@reddit
Can we also add Barton swing aqueduct? Brilliant bit of late Victorian engineering - though in reality built just as the need for such things was ending.
Puzzled-Group-6347@reddit
I'm not the decision maker here, but yes. Yes we can.
carlovski99@reddit
Good! I actually used to live quite near it, in a pub funnily enough called 'the swinging bridge' (Knocked down during building of trafford centre - there is another one now though apparently!)
SnooBooks1701@reddit (OP)
This is the kind of hyperspecific interesting thing I come to Reddit for
Spritingyoshi22@reddit
The Nuneaton Nipple
rovstuart@reddit
The callanish stones way up in the western isles. Est 5000 years old which makes them older than stonehenge and the Great pyramid of Giza.
penlanach@reddit
Holy island and other sites in Northumberland associated with the early Northumbrian church and St Cuthbert.
archivorus@reddit
BBC Broadcasting House. Architectural icon and home of the most influential public service cultural institution of the last century.
mattcannon2@reddit
The Barbican while we are at it
mattcannon2@reddit
Somewhere boring like Gainsthorpe Medieval Village just to send an overwhelming number of tourists to the middle of nowhere.
Blackmore_Vale@reddit
Chatham historic dockyard. Portsmouth been modernised a lot so isn’t as historical as it used to be. Sheerness, Woolwich and Deptford have all been either remodelled or lost a lot of the original feature. While Chatham has kept a lot of the original buildings and features that made us the naval powerhouse. It’s just a shame we can’t return HMS victory to her birthplace.
GarageIndependent114@reddit
I'm not sure which of the less famous ones aren't WH sites, which makes it harder to say.
I think a lot of poorer and unstable countries hot screwed on this count.
SingerFirm1090@reddit
World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance.
A country cannot choose it's own, though it can put forwards sites to UNESCO.
Yorkshire_Roast@reddit
Dean Clough Mills in Halifax. It was once the largest carpet factory in the world and has since been converted into an art gallery and business park.
Halifax Gibbet, an early example of a mechanised guillotine. It predates the French model by several centuries.
The Wool Exchange in Bradford - a stunning building that is now a Waterstones.
ShufflingToGlory@reddit
St Illtuds Church in Llantwit Major, site of the oldest seat of learning in Britain. Dating back to 500AD, predating Oxford by 600 years.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/waleshistory/2012/06/llantwit_major_seat_of_learning.html
Curious_Orange8592@reddit
The smoking crater where Buckingham Palace used to be
TelecomsApprentice@reddit
That Greggs at Manchester Arndale in the renaissance photograph
conrat4567@reddit
New Lanark mill. It was the birth place of modern working practices and was the brainchild of Robert Owen
Efficient_Put_9042@reddit
It already is
conrat4567@reddit
Oh shit, so it is. My bad lol
Automatic-Jello5995@reddit
Berwick upon tweed Elizabethian townwalls the most complete star fort in Britain
StatlerSalad@reddit
Not with UNESCO, we're not! We come in seventh globally for cultural heritage sites, 7th and 6th are the two most populous countries in the world with just as much (if not significantly more) history than us. The other countries above us are also European.
Ireland only has two cultural heritage sites on the list, Morocco has nine, Hungary only seven. We have 29!
We have an excellent UNESCO lobby, as our heritage is both an important revenue system (through direct tourism and selling luxury exports based on prestige heritage) and a significant source of our soft power.
We don't have ten times as many heritage sites as Kazakhstan because we have a more interesting history, it's because we have a more influential diplomatic corps.
douggieball1312@reddit
We're becoming not that good at looking after the ones we already have though. The closest one to me, Derwent Valley Mills, is on the heritage in danger list because some of the mills have been allowed to fall into decay and ruin.
holytriplem@reddit
Sorry, what?
We have ten times as many heritage sites as Kazakhstan as a) we have over 3 times its population and b) we've been a literate and sedentary society for far longer
abfgern_@reddit
Well, didn't Mao destroy a lot of theirs
holytriplem@reddit
Sure, but Hitler destroyed a lot of ours too
StatlerSalad@reddit
A) The USA has more population than us, history is not based on people now but people X time.
B) Farming arrived in Britain around 6,000 years ago, barely 400 years longer than Kazakhstan (in fact, it's within the margin for error.) They domesticated the horse!
Why would that be shocking? It's a massively larger country that has been practicing agriculture for twice as long as us. One thousand years ago there were around 70 million people in China, there were 1.3 million people in Britain.
holytriplem@reddit
That's what I mean! A country with over a billion people and, what, 3000 years of written history? Should be way above the UK.
Yes, but nomadic horsemen (horsepeople? centaurs?) don't build large cities and beautiful grand buildings. If you'd said Uzbekistan instead you might have had a point.
Vauccis@reddit
User is clearly not good at tooting our own horn when it comes to how interesting and deep much of our history is.
That_Organization901@reddit
I’m glad you did the leg work because I felt like we had quite a lot of sites already for such a small island.
tjjwaddo@reddit
Lincoln Cathedral. It's stunning.
Sweaty_Sheepherder27@reddit
Home of the world's oldest surviving tennis ball
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lincolnshire/4175397.stm
BarryIslandIdiot@reddit
Its a shame how little love Lincoln Cathedral gets. In fact, that whole area is magnificent. The castle, Bailgate, steep hill. All are beautiful.
The castle was also where long drop hanging was invented. That has to be culturally significant.
dkb1391@reddit
Bournville in Birmingham. It's just a much nicer version of Saltaire
notaballitsjustblue@reddit
I’d be fucking gutted if a privately-owned castle like Arundel got WHS. They didn’t even pay inheritance tax on it.
HughLauriePausini@reddit
No one can underestimate the cultural significance of the Natwest Hole in Ilkeston
abfgern_@reddit
St Paul's and York Minster 100%
cloche_du_fromage@reddit
Ratcliffe on Soar power station.
As a monument to the industrial revolution and mining heritage in the Midlands.
chi-93@reddit
Are the Derwent Valley Mills not sufficient??
Alarmed-Syllabub8054@reddit
Tonge Hall just outside Bolton. At the end of the day, the history of mankind splits into 3 phases - we were hunter gathers, then we settle down, plant crops and husband animals, then the industrial revolution happens and we make machines work for us. And the pivot point of the industrial revolution was when Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule in that very building. If it was in London, the government would make a big deal about it.
Taking heritage status off Liverpool's Docklands was silly given their innovative nature, importance to the Empire, the Slave Trade and also the industrial revolution. But the site was defined to wide, covering 7 miles of docks, they were always going to be developed on. But they should refine it as just the Southern Docks, Canning, Salt house, Albert, Queens and Kings Docks. The oldest section.
thirtysevengorillas@reddit
Ronnie Pickering’s house
OptionalQuality789@reddit
Who?
NefariousnessLast838@reddit
Ronnie pickering!
OptionalQuality789@reddit
Who the fucks that?
NefariousnessLast838@reddit
Ronnie fuckin pickering!!
OptionalQuality789@reddit
Wow, wow, brilliant!
holytriplem@reddit
I see your Ronnie Pickering's house and raise you Binley Mega Chippy
ashyjay@reddit
Before it was ruined Brooklands as it was one of if not the first purpose build race circuit. Now it'd be Silverstone, as it's iconic and one of the oldest race circuits, and due to how important motorsport is to the UK.
BiscuitCrumbsInBed@reddit
I might be thinking too small for this post but I visited Beamish a couple of years ago and the whole thing was excellent. Really gave you a sense of life at the times it covered.
This would never make the list but Colchester is Britain's oldest recorded town and was the capital of England in Roman times. They found a chariot track, a monastery, it has apparently the most intact Norman castle in the whole of Europe and the castle was also used by Matthew Hopkins during the witch trials. I think Colchester could be much bigger from a historical aspect if only it was celebrated properly
sjr0754@reddit
They made half of Liverpool one, and it was more trouble than it was worth.
coffeewalnut08@reddit
Wells Cathedral in Somerset
SnooBooks1701@reddit (OP)
I'm starting to think we should just put in an application for all the historic cathedrals, like how there's one for the entire Roman frontier
Personal-Listen-4941@reddit
Standedge tunnel. A canal tunnel through the Pennines that runs for about 5k built by hand in the 1700s that opened up trade from the north western cities of Manchester & Liverpool to the rest of country.
SilyLavage@reddit
St Giles Church, Cheadle. More than any other it represents the spirit of the Gothic Revival, of which Britain was a leading force.
thirtysevengorillas@reddit
Winchester cathedral from your list I think
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