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HistoryApproximate

Henry VIII and His Six Wives: Greenwich to Syon

Henry VIII's six marriages played out in a handful of English palaces: Greenwich, Hampton Court, Whitehall, the Tower of London and Hever Castle, plus Peterborough Cathedral and Syon Abbey. Follow where he was born, where his wives lived, and where two of them ended. This route takes seven stops from Henry's birth in 1491 to Catherine Howard's last months in 1542, and says what you can still visit today. Several Tudor buildings have gone, so those pins mark the site.

7 locations6/7 visitable

BooksApproximate

Wolf Hall: From Putney to the Tower

Thomas Cromwell rises from a Putney childhood to become Henry VIII's most trusted minister, then falls in the same Tudor politics he mastered. Hilary Mantel's trilogy follows him from Cardinal Wolsey's household through the Reformation, Anne Boleyn's rise and execution, and his own last years. This route traces the places that anchor the story: Cromwell's birthplace and London house, Wolsey's palaces at York Place and Esher, the abbey where Wolsey died, Westminster Abbey for Anne's coronation, the Seymour seat that gives the novels their title, Hampton Court, and the Tower. The 2015 television adaptation used Dover Castle for the Tower of London and Penshurst Place for Whitehall.

9 locations7/9 visitable

MythologySpeculative

King Arthur: From Merlin's Dragons to Avalon

King Arthur's legend has no single home: he is conceived at Tintagel and holds court at Caerleon, Cadbury Castle is claimed as Camelot and Glastonbury is linked to Avalon. The route follows Geoffrey of Monmouth, Malory and others from Merlin's dragons to the sword returned to the water. Every pin marks a real place that tradition has attached to an episode, not a site proven by history, and each stop says where the link is doubted.

9 locations5/9 visitable

BooksApproximate

Three Men in a Boat: Kingston to Oxford

Jerome K. Jerome's 1889 comic novel sends three friends, J., George and Harris, and the dog Montmorency up the Thames in a rowing skiff, from Kingston to Oxford, camping out for a fortnight. What follows is one of the funniest books ever written about getting nowhere fast: a hedge maze with a guide who cannot find the exit, a punt run down at sunset, a dog who treats every cat as a personal enemy, and a provision-buying procession that staggers the whole town. The route follows the boat in the book's own order: Kingston's back streets, Hampton Court's maze, the lock opposite Weybridge where George joins them, the island where King John is said to have signed the Charter, tea below Cookham, a night in Marlow, Henley before the regatta, the old walls of Wallingford, and the difficult last mile into Oxford.

9 locations8/9 visitable