The culture of England is diverse, and defined by the cultural norms of England and the English people. Owing to England's influential position within the United Kingdom it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate English culture from the culture of the United Kingdom as a whole.[1] However, tracing its origins back to the early Anglo-Saxon era, England cultivated an increasingly distinct cultural heritage. This cultural development persisted throughout the subsequent Anglo-Norman era, and the reign of the Plantagenet Dynasty.
Humour, tradition, and good manners are characteristics commonly associated with being English.[2] England has made significant contributions in the world of literature, cinema, music, art and philosophy. The secretary of state for culture, media and sport is the government minister responsible for the cultural life of England.[3]
Many scientific and technological advancements originated in England, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. The country has played an important role in engineering, democracy, shipbuilding, aircraft, motor vehicles, mathematics, science and sport.
English architecture begins with the architecture of the Anglo-Saxons. At least fifty surviving English churches are of Anglo-Saxon origin, although in some cases the Anglo-Saxon part is small and much-altered. All except one timber church are built of stone or brick, and in some cases show evidence of reused Roman work. The architectural character of Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical buildings ranges from Coptic-influenced architecture in the early period, through Early Christian basilica influenced architecture, to (in the later Anglo-Saxon period) an architecture characterised by pilaster-strips, blank arcading, baluster shafts and triangular-headed openings.
Many cathedrals of England are ancient, dating from as far back as around 700. They are a major aspect of the country's artistic heritage. Medieval Christianity included the veneration of saints, with pilgrimages to places where particular saints' relics were interred. The possession of the relics of a popular saint was a source of funds for an individual church, as the faithful made donations and benefices in the hope that they might receive spiritual aid, a blessing or a healing from the presence of the physical remains of the holy person. Among those churches to benefit in particular were St Albans Abbey, which contained the relics of England's first Christian martyr; Ripon with the shrine of its founder St. Wilfrid; Durham, which was built to house the body of Saints Cuthbert of Lindisfarne and Aidan; Ely with the shrine of St. Ethelreda; Westminster Abbey with the magnificent shrine of its founder St. Edward the Confessor; at Chichester, the remains of St. Richard; and at Winchester, those of St. Swithun.
All these saints brought pilgrims to their churches, but among them the most renowned was Thomas Becket, the late Archbishop of Canterbury, assassinated by henchmen of King Henry II in 1170. As a place of pilgrimage Canterbury was, in the 13th century, second only to Santiago de Compostela. In the 1170s Gothic architecture was introduced at Canterbury and Westminster Abbey. Over the next 400 years it developed in England, sometimes in parallel with and influenced by Continental forms, but generally with great local diversity and originality.
Following the Norman Conquest Romanesque architecture (known here as Norman architecture) superseded Anglo-Saxon architecture; later there was a period of transition into English Gothic architecture (of which there are three periods, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular). Norman architecture was built on a vast scale from the 11th century onwards in the form of castles and churches to help impose Norman authority upon their dominion.[6] Many castles remain from the medieval period, such as Windsor Castle (longest-occupied castle in Europe),[7]Bodiam Castle (a moated castle), Tower of London, and Warwick Castle. Expanding on the Norman base there was also castles, palaces, great houses, universities and parish churches.
One of the most acclaimed English architects was Sir Christopher Wren. He was employed by King Charles II to design and rebuild London and many of its ruined ancient churches following the Great Fire of London in 1666.[11][12]Georgian and Neoclassical architecture advanced after the Age of Enlightenment, evoking achievements in elegant architecture and city planning; the Royal Crescent at Bath is one of the best examples of this. The Regency of George IV is noted for its elegance and achievements in architecture and urban planning.[13]Regency style is also applied to interior design and decorative arts of the period, typified by elegant furniture and vertically striped wallpaper, and to styles of clothing; for men, as typified by the dandy Beau Brummell and for women the Empire silhouette. In early modern times there was an influence from Renaissance architecture until by the 18th century. Gothic forms of architecture had been abandoned and various classical styles were adopted. During the Victorian era, Gothic Revival architecture developed in England and was preferred for many types of buildings and city planning. Victorian architecture was widespread and pioneering engineering achievements (bridges, canals, railways, train stations, modern sewer systems) were constructed.[14]
The Industrial Revolution paved the way for buildings such as The Crystal Palace. The introduction of the sheet glass method into England by Chance Brothers in 1832 made possible the production of large sheets of cheap but strong glass, and its use in the Crystal Palace created a structure with the greatest area of glass ever seen in a building. It astonished visitors with its clear walls and ceilings that did not require interior lights.[15]Edwardian architecture followed in the early 20th century. Other buildings such as cathedrals and parish churches are associated with a sense of traditional Englishness, as is often the palatial 'stately home'. Many people are interested in the English country house and the rural lifestyle, evidenced by the number of visitors to properties managed by English Heritage and the National Trust.
The English landscape garden at Stourhead, described as a 'living work of art' when first opened in the 1750s
Landscape gardening as developed by Capability Brown set an international trend for the English garden. Gardening, and visiting gardens, are regarded as typically English pursuits. By the end of the 18th century the English garden was being imitated by the French landscape garden, and as far away as St. Petersburg, Russia, in Pavlovsk, the gardens of the future Emperor Paul. It also had a major influence on the form of the public parks and gardens which appeared around the world in the 19th century.[16]
Inspired by the great landscape artists of the seventeenth century, the English garden presented an idealized view of nature. At large country houses, the English garden usually included lakes, sweeps of gently rolling lawns set against groves of trees, and recreations of classical temples, Gothic ruins, bridges, and other picturesque architecture, designed to recreate an idyllic pastoral landscape.[17] The English garden was centred on the English country house, stately homes and parks.[17]English Heritage and the National Trust preserve large gardens and landscape parks throughout the country. The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is held every year by the Royal Horticultural Society and is said to be the largest gardening show in the world.[18]
Following the building of the world's first seaside pier at Ryde, the pier became fashionable at seaside resorts in England during the Victorian era, peaking in the 1860s with 22 being built in that decade.[19] A symbol of the typical English seaside holiday, by 1914 more than 100 pleasure piers were located around the UK coast. Regarded as being among the finest Victorian architecture, there are still a significant number of seaside piers of architectural merit still standing, although some have been lost, including two at Brighton in East Sussex and one at New Brighton in the Wirral.[20] Two piers, Brighton's now derelict West Pier and Clevedon Pier, were Grade 1 listed. The Birnbeck Pier in Weston-super-Mare is the only pier in the world linked to an island. The National Piers Society gives a figure of 55 surviving seaside piers in England.[21]
England has Europe's earliest and northernmost ice-age cave art.[22] Early medieval Anglo-Saxon art saw the development of a distinctly English style,[23] and English art continued thereafter to have a distinct character. English art made after the formation in 1707 of the Kingdom of Great Britain may be regarded in most respects simultaneously as art of the United Kingdom. The two periods of outstanding achievement were the 7th and 8th centuries, with the metalwork and jewellery from Sutton Hoo and a series of magnificent illuminated manuscripts, and the final period after about 950, when there was a revival of English culture after the end of the Viking invasions.[24]
As in most of Europe at the time, metalwork was the most highly regarded form of art by the Anglo-Saxons. Anglo-Saxon taste favoured brightness and colour. Opus Anglicanum ("English work") was recognised as the finest embroidery in Europe. Perhaps the best known piece of Anglo-Saxon art is the Bayeux Tapestry which was commissioned by a Norman patron from English artists working in the traditional Anglo-Saxon style. Anglo-Saxon artists also worked in fresco, stone, ivory and whalebone (notably the Franks Casket), metalwork (for example the Fuller brooch), glass and enamel.[24] Medieval English painting, mainly religious, had a strong national tradition and was influential in Europe.[25]
In the 18th century, watercolour painting, mostly of landscapes, became an English specialty, with both a buoyant market for professional works, and a large number of amateur painters, many following the popular systems found in the books of Alexander Cozens and others. By the beginning of the 19th century the English artists with the highest modern reputations were mostly dedicated landscape painters, showing the wide range of Romantic interpretations of the English landscape.
Pictorial satirist William Hogarth pioneered Western sequential art, and political illustrations in this style are often referred to as "Hogarthian".[28] Following Hogarth, political cartoons developed in England in the late 18th century under the direction of James Gillray. Regarded as one of the two most influential cartoonists (the other is Hogarth), Gillray has been referred to as the father of the political cartoon, with his satirical work calling the King (George III), prime ministers and generals to account.[29] The early 19th century saw the emergence of the Norwich school of painters, the first provincial art movement outside of London. Its prominent members were "founding father" John Crome (1768–1821), John Sell Cotman (1782–1842), James Stark (1794–1859), and Joseph Stannard (1797–1830).[30]
During the Baroque and Rococo periods, the first major native portrait painters of the British school were English painters Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds, who also specialised in clothing their subjects in an eye-catching manner. Gainsborough's Blue Boy is one of the most famous and recognized portraits of all time, painted with very long brushes and thin oil colour to achieve the shimmering effect of the blue costume.[31] Gainsborough was also noted for his elaborate background settings for his subjects.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood achieved considerable influence after its foundation in 1848 with paintings that concentrated on religious, literary, and genre subjects executed in a colourful and minutely detailed style. Its artists included John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and subsequently Edward Burne-Jones. Also associated with it was the designer William Morris, whose efforts to make beautiful objects affordable for everyone led to his wallpaper and tile designs to some extent defining the Victorian aesthetic and instigating the Arts and Crafts movement. The Royal Society of Arts is an organisation committed to the arts and culture.[32]
King's College in Cambridge is regarded as one of the greatest examples of late English Gothic architecture. It has the world's largest fan vault, while the chapel's stained-glass windows and wooden chancel screen are considered some of the finest from their era.
A number of umbrella organisations are devoted to the preservation and public access of both natural and cultural heritage, including English Heritage and the National Trust. Membership with them, even on a temporary basis, gives priority free access to their properties.
English Heritage is a governmental body with a broad remit of managing the historic sites, artefacts and environments of England. It is currently sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. English Heritage manages more than 400 significant buildings and monuments in England. They also maintain a register of thousands of listed buildings,[34] those which are considered of most importance to the historic and cultural heritage of the country.[35]
Historic England is governmental body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with protecting the historic environment of England by preserving and listing historic buildings, scheduling ancient monuments, registering historic parks and gardens and by advising central and local government.[36] The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty is a charity which also maintains multiple sites. One of the largest landowners in the United Kingdom, the Trust owns almost 250,000 hectares of land and 780 miles of coast. Its properties include over 500 historic houses, castles, archaeological and industrial monuments, gardens, parks and nature reserves.
London's British Museum hosts a collection of more than seven million objects[40] is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world, sourced from every continent, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginning to the present.[41] The library has two of the four remaining copies of the original Magna Carta (the other two copies are held in Lincoln Castle and Salisbury Cathedral) and has a room devoted solely to them. The British Library Sound Archive has over six million recordings, many from the BBC Sound Archive, including Winston Churchill's wartime speeches.
The British Library in London is the national library and is one of the world's largest research libraries, holding over 150 million items in all known languages and formats; including around 25million books.[42] The most senior art gallery is the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, which houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900.[43] The Tate galleries house the national collections of British and international modern art; they also host the famously controversial Turner Prize.[44] The Ashmolean Museum was founded in 1677 from the personal collection of Elias Ashmole, was set up in the University of Oxford to be open to the public and is considered by some to be the first modern public museum.[45] In 2011 there were more than 1,600 museums in England.[46] Most museums and art galleries are free of charge.[47]
The Roman Baths in Bath; a temple was constructed on the site between 60–70CE in the first few decades of Roman Britain.
A blue plaque, the oldest historical marker scheme in the world, is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the UK to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event.[48] The scheme was the brainchild of politician William Ewart in 1863 and was initiated in 1866.[48] It was formally established by the Royal Society of Arts in 1867, and since 1986 has been run by English Heritage.[48]
Tourism plays a significant part in the economic life of England. In 2018, the United Kingdom as a whole was the world's 10th most visited country for tourists,[49] and 17 of the United Kingdom's 25 UNESCO World Heritage Sites fall within England.[50]VisitEngland is the official tourist board for England. VisitEngland's stated mission is to build England's tourism product, raise its profile worldwide, increase the volume and value of tourism exports and develop England and Britain's visitor economy.[51] In 2020, the Lonely Planet travel guide rated England as the second best country to visit that year, after Bhutan.[52]
William Hogarth's depiction of a scene from Shakespeare's The Tempest is an example of how English literature influenced English painting in the 18th century.
The 20th-century crime writer Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time.[66] Her mystery novels are outsold only by Shakespeare and The Bible. Described as "perhaps the 20th century's best chronicler of English culture", the non-fiction works of George Orwell include The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working class life in the north of England.[67] Orwell's eleven rules for making tea appear in his essay "A Nice Cup of Tea", which was published in the London Evening Standard on 12 January 1946.[68]
England, like most European countries, has undergone a roots revival in the last half of the 20th century. English music has been an instrumental and leading part of this phenomenon, which peaked at the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s. The English Musical Renaissance was a hypothetical development in the late 19th and early 20th century, when English composers, often those lecturing or trained at the Royal College of Music, were said to have freed themselves from foreign musical influences, to have begun writing in a distinctively national idiom.[73]
Alfred Hitchcock is often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker, and was described as "a straightforward middle-class Englishman who just happened to be an artistic genius."
The peak of English drama and theatre is said to be the age of Elizabeth I; a golden age in English history where the arts, drama and creative work flourished. Morality plays emerged as a distinct dramatic form around 1400 and flourished in the early Elizabethan era in England. Characters were often used to represent different ethical ideals. Everyman, for example, includes such figures as Good Deeds, Knowledge and Strength, and this characterisation reinforces the conflict between good and evil for the audience. The Castle of Perseverance (c. 1400–1425) depicts an archetypal figure's progress from birth through to death. Horestes (c. 1567), a late "hybrid morality" and one of the earliest examples of an English revenge play, brings together the classical story of Orestes with a Vice from the medieval allegorical tradition, alternating comic, slapstick scenes with serious, tragic ones. Also important in this period were the folk dramas of the Mummers Play, performed during the Christmas season. Court masques were particularly popular during the reign of Henry VIII. The first permanent English theatre, the Red Lion, opened in 1567.[91] The first successful theatres, such as The Theatre, opened in 1576. The establishment of large and profitable public theatres was an essential enabling factor in the success of English Renaissance drama.
Archaeological excavations on the foundations of the Rose and the Globe in the late 20th century showed that all the London theatres had individual differences, but their common function necessitated a similar general plan.[92] The public theatres were three stories high, and built around an open space at the centre. Usually polygonal in plan to give an overall rounded effect, although the Red Bull and the first Fortune were square. The three levels of inward-facing galleries overlooked the open centre, into which jutted the stage: essentially a platform surrounded on three sides by the audience. The rear side was restricted for the entrances and exits of the actors and seating for the musicians. The upper level behind the stage could be used as a balcony, as in Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra, or as a position from which an actor could harangue a crowd, as in Julius Caesar.[93]
The re-opening of the theatres in 1660 after the Restoration of Charles II signalled a renaissance of English drama. With the restoration of the monarch in 1660 came the restoration of and the reopening of the theatre. English comedies written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710 are collectively called Restoration comedy. Restoration comedy is notorious for its sexual explicitness, a quality encouraged by Charles II (1660–1685) personally and by the rakish aristocratic ethos of his Royal court. For the first time women were allowed to act, putting an end to the practice of the boy-player taking the parts of women. Socially diverse audiences included both aristocrats, their servants and hangers-on, and a substantial middle-class segment. Its dramatists stole freely from English Jacobean and Caroline plays, and even from Greek and Roman classical comedies, combining the various plotlines in adventurous ways.
Restoration audiences liked to see good triumph in their tragedies and rightful government restored. In comedy they liked to see the love-lives of the young and fashionable, with a central couple bringing their courtship to a successful conclusion (often overcoming the opposition of the elders to do so). Heroines had to be chaste, but were independent-minded and outspoken; now that they were played by women, there was more mileage for the playwright in disguising them in men's clothes or giving them narrow escape from rape. These playgoers were attracted to the comedies by up-to-the-minute topical writing, by crowded and bustling plots, by the introduction of the first professional actresses, and by the rise of the first celebrity actors. This period saw the first professional woman playwright, Aphra Behn. In the mid-1690s, a brief second Restoration comedy renaissance arose, aimed at a wider audience.
The unsentimental or "hard" comedies of John Dryden, William Wycherley, and George Etherege reflected the atmosphere at Court and celebrated with frankness an aristocratic macho lifestyle of unremitting sexual intrigue and conquest. The Earl of Rochester, real-life Restoration rake, courtier and poet, is flatteringly portrayed in Etherege's The Man of Mode (1676) as a riotous, witty, intellectual, and sexually irresistible aristocrat, a template for posterity's idea of the glamorous Restoration rake (actually never a very common character in Restoration comedy). The single play that does most to support the charge of obscenity levelled then and now at Restoration comedy is probably Wycherley's masterpiece The Country Wife (1675), whose title contains a lewd pun and whose notorious "china scene" is a series of sustained double entendres.[94]
During the second wave of Restoration comedy in the 1690s, the "softer" comedies of William Congreve and John Vanbrugh set out to appeal to more socially diverse audience with a strong middle-class element, as well as to female spectators. The comic focus shifts from young lovers outwitting the older generation to the vicissitudes of marital relations. In Congreve's Love for Love (1695) and The Way of the World (1700), the give-and-take set pieces of couples testing their attraction for one another have mutated into witty prenuptial debates on the eve of marriage, as in the latter's "Proviso" scene. Vanbrugh's The Provoked Wife (1697) has a light touch and more humanly recognisable characters, while The Relapse (1696) has been admired for its throwaway wit and the characterisation of Lord Foppington, an extravagant and affected burlesque fop with a dark side.[95]
As a reaction to the decadence of Charles II era productions, sentimental comedy grew in popularity. This genre focused on encouraging virtuous behavior by showing middle class characters overcoming a series of moral trials. Playwrights like Colley Cibber and Richard Steele believed that humans were inherently good but capable of being led astray. Through plays such as The Conscious Lovers and Love's Last Shift they strove to appeal to an audience's noble sentiments so that viewers could be reformed.[96][97] The Restoration spectacular hit the London public stage in the late 17th-century Restoration period, enthralling audiences with action, music, dance, moveable scenery, baroque illusionistic painting, gorgeous costumes, and special effects such as trapdoor tricks, "flying" actors, and fireworks.
National performing arts are held annually at the Royal Albert Hall, as well as The Proms during the summer.
Large outdoor music festivals in the summer and autumn are popular, such as Glastonbury (the largest greenfield festival in the world), V Festival, Reading and Leeds Festivals. England was at the forefront of the illegal, free rave movement from the late 1980s, which led to the pan-European culture of teknivals mirrored on the UK free festival movement and associated travelling lifestyle.[98] The most prominent opera house in England is the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden.[99]The Proms, a season of orchestral classical music concerts held at the Royal Albert Hall, is a major cultural event held annually.[99] The season is a significant event in English culture and in classical music. Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek described the Proms as "the world's largest and most democratic musical festival".[100]
The Royal Ballet is one of the world's foremost classical ballet companies, based at the Royal Opera House. The company employs approximately 100 dancers and has purpose-built facilities. Its reputation built on two prominent figures of 20th century dance, prima ballerina Margot Fonteyn and choreographer Frederick Ashton. Since the Royal Albert Hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres have appeared on its stage. It is the venue for The Proms concerts, which have been held there every summer since 1941. It is host to more than 390 shows in the main auditorium annually, including classical, rock and pop concerts, ballet, opera, film screenings with live orchestral accompaniment.[101] England is home to numerous major orchestras such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra.[102]
A staple of English easide culture, the quarrelsome couple Punch and Judy made their first recorded appearance in Covent Garden, London in 1662.[103] The various episodes of Punch and Judy are performed in the spirit of outrageous comedy—often provoking shocked laughter—and are dominated by the anarchic clowning of Mr. Punch.[104] Regarded as English cultural icons, they appeared at a significant period in English history, with Glyn Edwards stating: Pulcinella went down particularly well with Restoration English audiences, fun-starved after years of Puritanism. We soon changed Punch's name, transformed him from a marionette to a hand puppet, and he became, really, a spirit of Britain – a subversive maverick, a kind of puppet equivalent to our political cartoons.[103]
A traditional Punch and Judy booth, at Swanage, Dorset, England
The circus is a tradition form of entertainment in England. Chipperfield's Circus dates back more than 300 years in Britain, making it one of the oldest family circus dynasties.[105][20]Philip Astley is regarded as the father of the modern circus.[20] Following his invention of the circus ring in 1768, Astley's Amphitheatre opened in London in 1773.[20][106] As an equestrian master Astley had a skill for trick horse-riding, and when he added tumblers, tightrope-walkers, jugglers, performing dogs, and a clown to fill time between his own demonstrations – the modern circus was born.[107][108] The Hughes Royal Circus was popular in London in the 1780s. Pablo Fanque's Circus Royal, among the most popular circuses of Victorian England, showcased William Kite. Joseph Grimaldi, the most celebrated of clowns from England is considered the father of modern clowning.[109]
Pantomime is a musical comedy stage production, designed for family entertainment. It is performed in theatres throughout England during the Christmas and New Year season. The art originated in the 18th century with John Weaver, a dance master and choreographer at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London.[110] Pantomime story lines and scripts are almost always based on traditional children's stories: some of the popular English stories featured include Jack and the Beanstalk, Peter Pan, Babes in the Wood, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Dick Whittington and His Cat. In 19th century England it acquired its present form, which includes songs, slapstick comedy and dancing, employing gender-crossing actors, combining topical humour with a story loosely based on a well-known fairy tale.[110] It is a participatory form of theatre, in which the audience sing along with parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers, such as "It's behind you".[111]
Music hall is a type of theatrical leisure popular from the early Victorian era to the mid 20th century. The precursor to variety shows of today, music hall involved a mixture of popular songs, comedy, speciality acts and variety entertainment. English performers who honed their skills at pantomime and music hall sketches include Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel, George Formby, Gracie Fields, Dan Leno, Gertrude Lawrence and Harry Champion.[112][113] English music hall comedian and theatre impresario Fred Karno developed a form of sketch comedy without dialogue in the 1890s, and Chaplin and Laurel were among the music hall comedians who worked for him.[114] A leading film producer stated; "Fred Karno is not only a genius, he is the man who originated slapstick comedy. We in Hollywood owe much to him."[115]
The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual event that has taken place on the streets of Notting Hill, London since 1966.[116] Led by the British African-Caribbean community, the carnival has attracted around one million people, making it Britain's biggest street festival and one of the largest in the world.[116] Also of note is the extensive impact of Irish culture for St. Patrick's Day. The largest St Patrick's Day Parade takes place in Digbeth, Birmingham, where there is a strong Irish community.
Since the early modern period the food of England has historically been characterised by its simplicity of approach and a reliance on the high quality of natural produce.[117] During the Middle Ages and through the Renaissance period, English cuisine enjoyed an excellent reputation, though a decline began during the Industrial Revolution with the move away from the land and increasing urbanisation of the populace. This has resulted in a traditional cuisine which tended to avoid strong flavours, such as garlic, and also complex sauces which were commonly associated with Roman Catholic Continental affiliations.[118]
The last half century has seen significant changes in food manufacturing, retailing and consumption;[124] an interest in different international cuisines; and the establishment of large restaurants, food outlets, coffee shops and supermarkets. However, distinctively English dishes,[125] artisanal production, delicatessens, home cooking and traditional establishments such as pubs, cafes and tearooms remain widespread. The 1990s saw the rise of the gastropub, serving traditional English dishes, and farmers' markets, where English cheeses, breads, vegetables and other items are sold.[126] Food culture in England has been taken more seriously since the 1960s due to writers and broadcasters such as Derek Cooper, Matthew Fort, Jonathan Meades and Nigel Slater.[127]
Consumption of dairy products in England has varied over time. Historically farms turned surplus milk into cheese and households made simple cream cheese and cottage cheese.[220] The coming of the railways meant fresh milk could be transported quickly to the cities.[221] Until the 1990s milk was generally delivered to customers in reusable glass milk bottles to the door by a milkman driving an electric milk float, but by 2018 supermarket sales of different kinds of milk in plastic cartons and of cream accounted for over 95% of the market.[222] Yellow sweetcream (rather than lactic)[223] butter is most common in England, in both salted and unsalted varieties.[224] Commercial standardisation in the late 19th century[225] led to a fairly large number of regional cheeses, including:
English cheesemaking was restricted by wartime rationing and the number of dairy farms has diminished considerably since the abolition of the Milk Marketing Board in 1994,[229] but many of the remaining producers sell added-value products such as artisanal cheese and farmhouse ice cream[230] and there are now over 750 different cheeses.[231] Recent decades have seen English replicas of French cheeses, such as Brie,[232]Camembert[233] and chèvre.[234] A number of British cheeses were accepted as having EU protected geographical status. Homegrown artisanal cheeses are made by both long-established and new producers. These include hard cheeses such as Lincolnshire Poacher, and semi-soft or soft cheeses, such as Stinking Bishop, Cornish Yarg and Oxford Blue.
Drinks
Tea and beer are typical and rather iconic drinks in England. Beer is used metaphorically to refer to pleasure, as in cakes and ale and beer and skittles. Most tea drunk in England is black tea.[235] The types of single origin tea most commonly sold are Assam and Darjeeling from India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Lapsang Souchong from China.[236]English breakfast tea is a strong blend that goes well with milk and sugar. Earl Grey tea is flavoured with bergamot. A cup of tea is often accompanied with a biscuit or piece of cake.
Traditional English beer,[241] unlike lager, is made with warm/top-fermenting yeasts and encompasses bitter and pale ale, other (less hoppy) types of ale, porter[242] and stout.[243]Pale ale, when served draught, gained the name of bitter amongst drinkers in the first half of the 19th century because it was more hopped than other ales of the time such as mild, but is generally much less hopped than modern American pale ale.[244]India pale ale was exported to India but also consumed in England.[245]Pale ale has long been sold in bottled form and Burton Pale Ale enjoyed particular popularity.[246]Light ale is a low-alcohol bitter, often bottled.[247] More recently the terms golden ale[248] and amber ale[249] have been used to differentiate between pale ales of different shades. Other types of ale include strong Burton Ale,[250]old ale,[251]barley wine,[252]mild ale,[253] and brown ale.[254] Bitter became the predominant English beer style in the 1950s, largely supplanting mild ale and Burton ale,[255] and has accordingly been described as "the national drink of England".[256] Research in 2014 found that although "beer fans divide equally between ale and lager drinkers … classic bitter is still the favourite for ale drinkers".[257]Cobra Beer is an Indian-style lager that was created in 1989 to be drunk with food, which is now brewed in Burton upon Trent and sold in almost all Indian restaurants. Cider and perry is produced in the West Country.[258]Scrumpy refers to rough dry farmhouse cider. Shandy is beer mixed with a non-alcoholic drink, such as lemonade.[259]Ginger beer is a usually sold as a non-alcoholic, carbonated drink flavoured with ginger, but is sometimes brewed (fermented).[260]
Magna Carta stated there should be a single measure for ale.[261] In pubs beer and cider are served draught by the pint or half-pint, either in a straight glass or a dimpled glass tankard (known as a jug),[262] and may be drunk with snack food (e.g. crisps, dry roasted or salted peanuts, and pork scratchings) or a meal[263] However, the number of pubs fell by around a third between the early 1970s and 2017[264] and since 2014 more beer has been sold in bottles by supermarkets and off licences (off-trade) than in pubs (on-trade).[265]Marston's Brewery and Greene King are the two largest brewers of premium cask and bottled beers, having grown by acquisition. Shepherd Neame Brewery is the largest family-owned brewery.
Gin has been popular in England since the late 17th century and is mixed with tonic water, ice and a slice of lemon.[266]Pimm's No. 1 Cup, a gin-based drink containing a mixture of herbs and liquors, is used to make punch for summer social events.[267] The rise of micro-distilleries in England at the start of the 21st century led to an upsurge in interest in both gin and vodka. The south of England has seen the reintroduction of vineyards making English wine.[268] Lemon barley water, invented by Matthias Archibald Robinson in 1823,[269] is made by pouring pearl barley water over the rind and/or pulp of a lemon and adding sugar to taste. The Wimbledon tennis championships are associated with this drink.
Witchcraft has featured in England for millennia. The use of a crystal ball to foretell the future is attributed to the druids. In medieval folklore King Arthur's magician, the wizard Merlin, carried around a crystal ball for the same purpose. John Dee, consultant to Elizabeth I, frequently used a crystal ball to communicate with the angels.[287] Probably the most famous depiction of witchcraft in literature is in Shakespeare's 1606 play Macbeth, featuring the three witches and their cauldron. The ghost of Anne Boleyn is a frequently reported ghost sighting in the UK. Differing accounts include seeing her ghost ride up to Blickling Hall in a coach drawn by a headless horseman, with her own head on her lap.[288]
Countries where English is natively spoken or has official status
The English language originated in England and is the native language of the English people. It is a member of the West Germanic language family. The modern English language evolved from Middle English (the form of language in use by the English people from the 12th to the 15th century); Middle English was influenced lexically by Norman-French, Old French and Latin. In the Middle English period Latin was the language of administration and the nobility spoke Norman French. Middle English was itself derived from the Old English of the Anglo-Saxon period; in the Northern and Eastern parts of England the language of Danish settlers had influenced the language, a fact still evident in Northern English dialects.
There were once many different dialects of modern English in England, which were recorded in projects such as the English Dialect Dictionary (late 19th century) and the Survey of English Dialects (mid 20th century), but many of these have passed out of common usage as Standard English has become more widespread through education, the media and socio-economic pressures.[289]Received Pronunciation is considered the most prestigious accent in England. Despite the country's relatively small size, there are many distinct regional accents, and individuals with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood everywhere in the country.[290]
Cornish, a Celtic language, is one of three existing Brythonic languages; its usage has been revived in Cornwall. Historically, another Brythonic Celtic language, Cumbric, was spoken in Cumbria in North West England. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London and the Great Vowel Shift. Through the worldwide influence of the British Empire, English spread around the world from the 17th to mid-20th centuries. Through newspapers, books, the telegraph, the telephone, phonograph records, radio, satellite television, broadcasters (such as the BBC) and the Internet, as well as the emergence of the United States as a global superpower, Modern English has become the international language of business, science, communication, sports, aviation, and diplomacy.
In schools, language teaching is compulsory from the age of seven. French, German, and Spanish are commonly taught in all schools. Arabic, Bengali, Mandarin, Greek, Gujarati, Modern Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Punjabi, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, and Urdu are also taught.[291]
Major constitutional documents include: Magna Carta (foundation of the "great writ" Habeas corpus—safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary state action), the Bill of Rights 1689 (one provision granting freedom of speech in Parliament), Petition of Right, Habeas Corpus Act 1679 and Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949. The jurist Albert Venn Dicey wrote that the British Habeas Corpus Acts "declare no principle and define no rights, but they are for practical purposes worth a hundred constitutional articles guaranteeing individual liberty".[297] A strong advocate of the "unwritten constitution", Dicey stated English rights were embedded in English common law, and "the institutions and manners of the nation".[298]
Christianity became the dominant religion in England in the 7th century. Polytheistic Indo-European religions, often referred to as paganism, were practised before Christianity took hold. The most notable of these religions were Celtic polytheism, Roman polytheism and Anglo-Saxon paganism, which was the religion of the early English people, or Anglo-Saxons, and which was in many ways very similar to the closely related Norse paganism practised by the Scandinavian peoples and that would later be introduced to England by the Danes.
Christianity was first established in Britain by the Roman Empire. According to legend, Christianity was introduced to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea, who came to Glastonbury. There is also a tradition ascribing this accomplishment to Lucius of Britain. Archaeological evidence for Christian communities begins to appear in the 3rd and 4th centuries. The Romano-British population after the withdrawal of the Roman legions remained mostly Christian. The Anglo-Saxon invaders and settlers who replaced them, founding the English nation, represented a stark return to pre-Christian religion for Britain. From the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons beginning in the 4th century until the arrival of the Augustinian Mission in 597 AD, England was entirely pagan, and the pre-Christian Germanic religion was practised openly in pockets throughout the country for many decades after this.
In 1536, the Church of England split from Rome over the issue of the divorce (technically, the marriage annulment) of King Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon. The split led to the emergence of a separate ecclesiastical authority. Later the influence of the Reformation resulted in the Church of England adopting its distinctive reformed Catholic position known as Anglicanism which maintains episcopacy while adopting a Lutheran theology. For more detail of this period see the following article: Timeline of the English Reformation.
Today, the Church of England is the established church in England. It regards itself as in continuity with the pre-Reformation state Catholic church (something the Roman Catholic Church does not accept) and has been a distinct Anglican church since the settlement under Elizabeth I of England (with some disruption during the 17th-century Commonwealth of England period). The British Monarch is formally Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Its spiritual leader is the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is regarded by convention as the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion. In practice the Church of England is governed by the General Synod of the Church of England, under the authority of Parliament. The Church of England's mission to spread the Gospel has seen the establishment of many churches in the Anglican Communion throughout the world particularly in the Commonwealth of Nations.
A strong tradition of Methodism developed from the 18th century onward. The Methodist revival was started in England by a group of men including John Wesley and his younger brother Charles Wesley as a movement within the Church of England; it developed as a separate denomination after John Wesley's death. Other non-conformist Protestant traditions were also established in England. Saint George is recognised as the patron saint of England. Before Edward III, Edmund the Martyr was recognised as England's patron saint, and the flag of England consists of the Saint George's Cross. However, Saint Alban is venerated by some as England's first Christian martyr.
Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol played a major role in reviving the "spirit" of Christmas and seasonal goodwill.
In 17th-century England, the Puritans condemned the celebration of Christmas.[301] In contrast, the Anglican Church "pressed for a more elaborate observance of feasts, penitential seasons, and saints' days. The calendar reform became a major point of tension between the Anglicans and Puritans."[302] The Catholic Church also responded, promoting the festival in a more religiously oriented form. King Charles I of England directed his noblemen and gentry to return to their landed estates in midwinter to keep up their old-style Christmas generosity. Following the Parliamentarian victory over Charles I during the English Civil War, Puritan rulers banned Christmas in 1647.[303]
Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans.[301] The book, The Vindication of Christmas (London, 1652), argued against the Puritans, and makes note of Old English Christmas traditions, dinner, roast apples on the fire, card playing, dances with "plow-boys" and "maidservants", old Father Christmas and carol singing.[304] The Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 ended the ban. Following the Restoration, Poor Robin's Almanack contained the lines: "Now thanks to God for Charles return, / Whose absence made old Christmas mourn. / For then we scarcely did it know, / Whether it Christmas were or no."[305]
In the early 19th century, writers imagined Tudor Christmas as a time of heartfelt celebration. In 1843, Charles Dickens wrote the novel A Christmas Carol that helped revive the "spirit" of Christmas and seasonal merriment.[306][307] Dickens sought to construct Christmas as a family-centred festival of generosity, in contrast to the community-based and church-centred observations, the observance of which had dwindled during the late 18th century and early 19th century.[308] Dickens influenced many aspects of Christmas that are celebrated today in Western culture, such as family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games, and a festive generosity of spirit.[309] A prominent phrase from the tale, "Merry Christmas", was popularized following the appearance of the story.[310] The term Scrooge became a synonym for miser, with "Bah! Humbug!" dismissive of the festive spirit.[307]
The Father of Railways, George Stephenson, built the first public inter-city railway line in the world, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which opened in 1830. With his role in the marketing and manufacturing of the steam engine, and invention of modern coinage, Matthew Boulton (business partner of James Watt) is regarded as one of the most influential entrepreneurs in history.[317] The physician Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccine is said to have "saved more lives... than were lost in all the wars of mankind since the beginning of recorded history."[318][319][320]
The Royal Institution of Great Britain was founded in 1799 by leading English scientists, including Henry Cavendish and its first president, George Finch. Its foundational principles were diffusing the knowledge of, and facilitating the general introduction of useful mechanical inventions and improvements, as well as enhancing the application of science to the common purposes of life (including through teaching, courses of philosophical lectures, and experiments).[327]
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution began in England due to the social, economic and political changes implemented in the previous centuries. Whereas absolute monarchy stayed the normal form of power execution through most parts of Europe, institutions ensured property rights and political safety to English people after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Aided by these legal and cultural foundations, an entrepreneurial spirit and consumer revolution drove industrialisation in Britain.[328] Under the newly formed Kingdom of Great Britain, output from the Royal Society and other English initiatives combined with the Scottish Enlightenment created excessive innovations in science and engineering.[329] Domestically it drove the Industrial Revolution, resulting in industrialised agriculture, manufacture, engineering and mining, as well as new and pioneering road, rail and water networks to facilitate their expansion and development.[329] The opening of Northwest England's Bridgewater Canal in 1761 ushered in the canal age in Britain.[330][331] In 1825 the world's first permanent steam locomotive-hauled passenger railway – the Stockton and Darlington Railway – opened to the public.[330]
Geographical and natural resource advantages of Great Britain also contributed, with the country's extensive coastlines and many navigable rivers in an age when water was the easiest means of transportation along with its had high quality coal. According to British historian Jeremy Black, "an unprecedented explosion of new ideas, and new technological inventions, transformed our use of energy, creating an increasingly industrial and urbanised country. Roads, railways and canals were built. Great cities appeared. Scores of factories and mills sprang up. Our landscape would never be the same again. It was a revolution that transformed not only the country, but the world itself."[332]
Thomas More (1478–1535) addressed the social problems of humanity in his summit work, Utopia (1516). The rest of his works have as a common thread the exaltation of idealism and the condemnation of tyranny.
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) developed philosophical and scientific empiricism, which made him one of the pioneers of modern scientific thinking in developing the experimental scientific method. His most prominent philosophical works are The Advancement of Knowledge (1605), Novum Organum or Indications related to the Interpretation of Nature (1620).
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) was a very influential figure in the development of Western political philosophy through his work Leviathan (1651), a treatise on the nature of human beings and how societies are organized.
John Locke (1632–1704) is considered the father of enlightened thought, one of the most influential thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment, and one of the founders of social contract theory, epistemology and political philosophy.
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) had great influence through his writings on social democracy, claiming land ownership, freethinking, religion and slavery, in the American revolutionaries who led the independence of that country.
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) developed the utilitarian doctrine, embodied in his main work: Introduction to the principles of morality and legislation (1789). In addition, it left strengthened and appropriate the concept of Deontology widely used in laws and codes of professional work that looks to the future.
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was a representative of the classical and theoretical economic school of utilitarianism. In his work on freedom, he exposes his fundamental ideas about the limits of freedom of the individual and society.
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) was a philosopher, mathematician, logician and writer, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and known for his influence on analytical philosophy in the early twentieth century.
The rules of football were first drafted in 1863 by Ebenezer Cobb Morley, and England has the oldest football clubs in the world.[344] At club level, England is recognised by FIFA as the birthplace of club football, due to Sheffield F.C. founded in 1857 being the world's oldest club.[345]The Football Association is the oldest governing body in the sport. The FA Cup and The Football League were the first cup and league competitions respectively. In the modern day, the Premier League is the world's most-watched football league, most lucrative, and amongst the elite.[346] Its biggest clubs include Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City. In 2016, Leicester City, who were 5,000–1 outsiders at the start of the season, became champions.[347] By some measures it was the greatest sporting upset ever: multiple bookmakers had never paid out at such long odds for any sport.[347]
Cricket is generally thought to have been developed in the early medieval period among the farming and metalworking communities of the Weald.[349] The England cricket team is a composite England and Wales team. One of the game's top rivalries is The Ashes series between England and Australia, contested since 1882. The climax of the 2005 Ashes was viewed by 7.4million as it was available on terrestrial television.[350] England has hosted five Cricket World Cups (1975, 1979, 1983, 1999 and 2019), winning the 2019 edition in a final regarded as one of the greatest one day internationals ever played.[351]
England hosted the ICC World Twenty20 in 2009, winning this format in 2010 beating rivals Australia in the final. In the domestic competition, the County Championship, Yorkshire are by far the most successful club having won the competition 32times outright and sharing it on 1 other occasion.[352]Lord's Cricket Ground situated in London is sometimes referred to as the "Mecca of Cricket".[353]
William Penny Brookes was prominent in organising the format for the modern Olympic Games. In 1994, then President of the IOC, Juan Antonio Samaranch, laid a wreath on Brooke's grave, and said, "I came to pay homage and tribute to Dr Brookes, who really was the founder of the modern Olympic Games".[357] London was the first major city to host the Summer Olympic Games three times, in 1908, 1948, and 2012. England competes in the Commonwealth Games, held every four years. Birmingham hosted the 2022 Commonwealth Games, the seventh time a UK country has hosted the event.
Sport England is the governing body responsible for distributing funds and providing strategic guidance for sporting activity in England. England, and other countries of the United Kingdom, compete as a separate nations in some international sporting events. The England cricket team actually represents England and Wales.[358] However, in the Olympic Games, England competes as part of the Great Britain team. English supporters are now more likely to carry the Cross of Saint George flag than the British Union Flag.[359]
First played in 1877, the Wimbledon Championships is the oldest tennis tournament in the world.
Tennis was created in Birmingham in the late 19th century, and the Wimbledon Championships is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, and widely considered the most prestigious.[361] Major Walter Clopton Wingfield is credited as being a pioneer of the game.[362] The world's oldest tennis tournament, the Wimbledon championships, first occurred in 1877, and today the event takes place over two weeks in late June and early July.[360] Created in the Tudor period in the court of Henry VIII, the English dessert strawberries and cream is synonymous with the English summer, and is famously consumed at Wimbledon.[363]
The first known modern rowing races began from competition among the professional watermen in England on the River Thames in London. Prizes for wager races were often offered by the London Guilds and Livery Companies or wealthy owners of riverside houses.[364] The oldest surviving such race, Doggett's Coat and Badge was first contested in 1715 and is still held annually from London Bridge to Chelsea.[365] During the 19th century these races were to become numerous and popular, attracting large crowds. Prize matches amongst professionals similarly became popular on other rivers throughout Great Britain in the 19th century, notably on the Tyne. Since 1829 an annual rowing race between the Cambridge University Boat Club and the Oxford University Boat Club, rowed between men's and women's open-weight eights on the River Thames, has taken place. It is also known as the University Boat Race and the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.
Golf has been prominent in England; due in part to its cultural and geographical ties to Scotland, the home of Golf.[366] There are both professional tours for men and women, in two main tours: the PGA Tour and the European Tour. England has produced grand slam winners: Cyril Walker, Tony Jacklin, Nick Faldo, and Justin Rose in the men's and Laura Davies, Alison Nicholas, and Karen Stupples in the women's. The world's oldest golf tournament, and golf's first major is The Open Championship, played both in England and Scotland. The biennial golf competition, the Ryder Cup, is named after English businessman Samuel Ryder who sponsored the event and donated the trophy.[367] Nick Faldo is the most successful Ryder Cup player ever, having won the most points (25) of any player on either the European or US teams.[368]
King Alfred the Great statue in Winchester, Hampshire. The 9th-century English king encouraged education in his kingdom.
Private schools have a long history in England; some were set up before the tenth century. The oldest is King's School, Canterbury, which was founded in 597. A group of these schools, much later, invoked the name "public school" to indicate that they were open to the public regardless of religious beliefs. In Tudor times, Edward VI reorganised grammar schools and instituted new ones so that there was a national system of "free grammar schools." In theory these were open to all, offering free tuition to those who could not afford to pay fees. In 1562 the Statute of Artificers and Apprentices was passed to regulate and protect the apprenticeship system, forbidding anyone from practising a trade or craft without first serving a 7-year period as an apprentice to a master. Guilds controlled many trades and used apprenticeships to control entry.[384]
Most schools came under state control in the Victorian era. Initially, schools were categorised as infant schools, primary schools and secondary schools (split into more academic grammar schools and more vocational Secondary modern schools). England has many independent (fee-paying) schools, some founded hundreds of years ago; independent secondary schools are known as public schools. Eton College, Harrow School, Shrewsbury School and Rugby School are four of the best-known. The nature and peculiarities of these public schools have frequently featured in English literature.
State schools are government-funded schools which provide education free of charge to pupils. There are a number of categories of English state-funded schools including academy schools, grammar schools, community schools, faith schools, foundation schools, free schools, studio schools, university technical colleges, and a number of state boarding schools and city technology colleges. About one third of English state-funded schools are faith schools;[385] i.e. affiliated with religious groups, most often from the Church of England (approximately 2/3 of faith schools), or the Roman Catholic Church (around 3/10).[386] A number of state-funded secondary schools are specialist schools, receiving extra funding to develop one or more subjects which the school specialises.
Most primary and secondary schools have compulsory school uniforms. Allowances are almost invariably made to accommodate religious dress, including the Islamic hijab and Sikh bangle (kara). For each of the statutory curriculum subjects, the Secretary of State for Education is required to set out a Programme of Study which outlines the content and matters which must be taught in subjects at the relevant Key Stages.[387] The most recently published National Curriculum was introduced into schools in September 2014.
Grammar schools can be run by the local authority, a foundation body or an academy trust. They select their pupils based on academic ability.[388] The original purpose of medieval grammar schools was the teaching of Latin. Over time the curriculum was broadened, first to include Ancient Greek, and later English and other European languages, natural sciences, mathematics, history, geography, and other subjects. In areas children can enter a prestigious grammar school; there are also a number of isolated fully selective grammar schools and a few dozen partially selective schools.[389] The oldest state school in England is Beverley Grammar School, which was founded in 700 AD.[390]
England has a rich television and broadcasting heritage. Although cinema, theatre, dance and live music are popular, the favourite pastime is watching television.[399] The television channels include BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 as well as other television channels specialising in entertainment, drama, culture, arts, science, travel, nature, and sports.[400] Television networks include UKTV channels such as U&Yesterday, U&Eden and U&Dave owned by BBC Studios.[401] The broadcaster Sky has several flagship channels, including Sky Arts, Sky Atlantic, Sky Cinema, and Sky Nature.[402]
The BBC is a publicly funded broadcaster that has been in service since 1922, paid by taxation. Its mission is to inform, educate, and entertain.[403]Channel 4 is similarly chartered to the BBC, with a remit to provide public service broadcasting and schools programs, however it runs commercial advertisements to provide a revenue stream. It produces a number of digital channels, branded as Channel 4, as well as More4 and Film4.[404] The Royal Television Society is an educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world.[405]
The English use as their national flag the red cross of St George. St George's Day is marked as the day of the patron saint, and is also celebrated as the day of the birth and death of William Shakespeare.
The Barbary lion is a national animal of England. In the Middle Ages, the lions kept in the menagerie at the Tower of London were Barbary lions.[410] English medieval warrior rulers with a reputation for bravery attracted the nickname "the Lion": the most famous example is Richard I of England, known as Richard the Lionheart. Lions are frequently depicted in English heraldry, either as a device on shields themselves, or as supporters. They also appear in sculpture, and sites of national importance. The lion is used as a symbol of English sporting teams, such as the England national cricket team.
English cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with England. It has distinctive attributes of its own, but is also very similar to wider British cuisine, partly historically and partly due to the import of ingredients and ideas from the Americas, China, and India during the time of the British Empire and as a result of post-war immigration.
Finnish cuisine is notable for generally combining traditional country fare and haute cuisine with contemporary continental-style cooking. Fish and meat play a prominent role in traditional Finnish dishes in some parts of the country, while the dishes elsewhere have traditionally included various vegetables and mushrooms. Evacuees from Karelia contributed to foods in other parts of Finland in the aftermath of the Continuation War.
Christmas pudding is sweet, dried-fruit pudding traditionally served as part of Christmas dinner in Britain and other countries to which the tradition has been exported. It has its origins in medieval England, with early recipes making use of dried fruit, suet, breadcrumbs, flour, eggs and spice, along with liquid such as milk or fortified wine. Later, recipes became more elaborate. In 1845, cookery writer Eliza Acton wrote the first recipe for a dish called "Christmas pudding".
Trinidad and Tobago has a unique history and its food is influenced by Indian-South Asian, West African, Creole, European, American, Chinese, Amerindian, and Latin American culinary styles. Trinidadian and Tobagonian food is dominated by a wide selection of dishes, most notably, doubles, roti, pelau, callaloo and curried crab and dumplings. Trinidad and Tobago is also known for its prepared provisions, such as dasheen, sweet potato, eddoes, cassava, yam, soups and stews, also known as blue food across the country. Corresponding to the Blue Food Day event held annually in Trinidad and Tobago.
Dutch cuisine is formed from the cooking traditions and practices of the Netherlands. The country's cuisine is shaped by its location on the fertile Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta at the North Sea, giving rise to fishing, farming, and overseas trade. Due to the availability of water and flat grassland, the Dutch diet contains many dairy products such as butter and cheese. The court of the Burgundian Netherlands enriched the cuisine of the elite in the Low Countries in the 15th and 16th century, so did in the 17th and 18th century colonial trade, when the Dutch ruled the spice trade, played a pivotal role in the global spread of coffee, and started the modern era of chocolate, by developing the Dutch process chocolate.
Canadian cuisine consists of the cooking traditions and practices of Canada, with regional variances around the country. First Nations and Inuit have practiced their culinary traditions in what is now Canada for at least 15,000 years. The advent of European explorers and settlers, first on the east coast and then throughout the wider territories of New France, British North America and Canada, saw the melding of foreign recipes, cooking techniques, and ingredients with indigenous flora and fauna. Modern Canadian cuisine has maintained this dedication to local ingredients and terroir, as exemplified in the naming of specific ingredients based on their locale, such as Malpeque oysters or Alberta beef. Accordingly, Canadian cuisine privileges the quality of ingredients and regionality, and may be broadly defined as a national tradition of "creole" culinary practices, based on the complex multicultural and geographically diverse nature of both historical and contemporary Canadian society.
Cobbler is a dessert consisting of a fruit filling poured into a large baking dish and covered with a batter, biscuit, or dumpling before being baked. Some cobbler recipes, especially in the American South, resemble a thick-crusted, deep-dish pie with both a top and bottom crust. Cobbler is part of the cuisine of the United Kingdom and United States, and should not be confused with a crumble.
Carrot cake is cake that contains carrots mixed into the batter.
Christmas dinner is a meal traditionally eaten at Christmas. This meal can take place any time from the evening of Christmas Eve to the evening of Christmas Day itself. The meals are often particularly rich and substantial, in the tradition of the Christian feast day celebration, and form a significant part of gatherings held to celebrate the arrival of Christmastide. In many cases, there is a ritual element to the meal related to the religious celebration, such as the saying of grace.
Scottish cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with Scotland. It has distinctive attributes and recipes of its own, but also shares much with other British and wider European cuisine as a result of local, regional, and continental influences—both ancient and modern.
British cuisine is the specific set of cooking traditions and practices associated with the United Kingdom, including the cuisines of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. According to food writer Colin Spencer, historically, British cuisine meant "unfussy dishes made with quality local ingredients, matched with simple sauces to accentuate flavour, rather than disguise it".
There are many geographically indicated foods of the United Kingdom. In British cuisine, there is a custom of naming foodstuffs with reference to their place of origin. However, there are other reasons for this practice; Scotch egg, which was invented in London and Dover sole which indicates where they were landed, for example.
The cuisine of Kosovo is a representative of the cuisine of the Balkans and consists of traditional dishes by ethnic groups native to Kosovo. Due to Albanians being the main ethnic group in Kosovo, it is mainly an expression of Albanian cuisine, also adopting some elements of other Balkan countries.
Cornish cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with Cornwall and the Cornish people. It has been heavily influenced by the geography of the county as well as its social history.
A History of English Food is a 2011 non-fiction book, a history of English cuisine arranged by period from the Middle Ages to the end of the twentieth century, written by the celebrity cook Clarissa Dickson Wright and published in London by Random House. Each period is treated in turn with a chapter. The text combines history, recipes, and anecdotes, and is illustrated with 32 pages of colour plates.
The cuisine of the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, is noted for its high-quality food produced from the fertile farmland, river valleys and coast that make up the region. The area has a long history of agriculture that has developed from the Roman era.
↑ Dobraszczyk, Paul (2014). Iron, Ornament and Architecture in Victorian Britain: Myth and Modernity, Excess and Enchantment. Ashgate Publishing. p.143. ISBN978-1-472-41898-2.
↑ According to Elizabeth Einberg, "by the time he died in October 1764 he had left so indelible a mark on the history of British painting that the term 'Hogarthian' remains instantly comprehensible even today as a valid description of a wry, satirical perception of the human condition." See the exhibition catalog, Hogarth the Painter, London: Tate Gallery, 1997, p. 17.
↑ The Provoked Wife is something of a Restoration problem play in its attention to the subordinate legal position of married women and the complexities of "divorce" and separation, issues that had been highlighted in the mid-1690s by some notorious cases before the House of Lords.
↑ Food in England: A complete guide to the food that makes us who we are Dorothy Hartley (1954)
↑ Richard L. Greaves Society and Religion in Elizabethan England, ISBN978-0-8166-1030-3p. 474: here. The French term à l'anglaise means cooked simply and served with no sauce save perhaps butter, or dipped in flour and a mixture of egg, salt, pepper and oil, and then rolled in breadcrumbs.
↑ "Bread and cheese and onions were traditional for centuries, carried in bag or pocket to the fields" Food in England: A complete guide to the food that makes us who we are Dorothy Hartley (1954)
↑ The Authorised Version of the Bible (1611) refers to Esau selling his birthright to his twin brother Jacob in exchange for a meal of "bread and pottage of lentiles". A modern supermarket has promoted the same dish Pottage of lentils.
↑ Spring-born English lamb fed on grass is actually at its best in the summer, from around mid-June to September). Over the last half century there has been a swing in preference amongst English consumers from mutton to lamb.
↑ 'English cooking: A new approach' (1960) Rupert Croft-Cooke
↑ "The lamb 'shank' is the lower part in the rear leg. The same joint in pork is the 'hock' and in beef, the 'leg'. The equivalent joint on the front legs are 'fore shank' for lamb, 'knuckle' for pork and 'shin' for beef....If these joints are so popular in lamb, why don't we see more of the same joints in pork and beef? The reason is simple – size; a lamb shank will sit happily on a large dollop of mash and makes a very satisfying meal for one, but a knuckle or hock will appear as a great mountain of meat – not well suited to fine dining rooms. A shin or leg of beef is even bigger." Shanks, Hocks, Knuckles, Shins and Legs
↑ What makes a British sausage British?. The 1984 episode Party Games of the television comedy 'Yes, Minister' involved Jim Hacker resisting the abolition of the British sausage by the EEC. As a result of his heroic stand he became Prime Minister.
↑ A number of settlements in England are named after this vegetable. The Agrarian History of England and Wales: Volume 2, 1042–1350, page 40, H. E. Hallam & J. Thirsk (eds.)
↑ Goose is traditionally eaten at Michaelmas Michaelmas GeeseArchived 20 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine . Nottingham Goose Fair derived its name from the thousands of geese that were driven from the Lincolnshire fens to be sold in Nottingham at the fair each year.
↑ Despite the name, Scotch eggs appear to have originated in England rather than Scotland.
↑ A raised pie (i.e. a free-standing pie that does not have the support of a pie tin) made with hot water crust pastry, particularly associated with the town of Melton Mowbray, and sometimes topped with red currants.
↑ Kirwan in 1864 advised that "The great English soups are, real turtle, mock turtle, ox-tail, gravy, giblet, hare, green-pea soup, and pea soup. The great English broths are chicken broth, mutton broth, Scotch-barley broth, veal broth, and beef broth or tea, which is almost equivalent to the French grand bouillon." Host and Guest, A book about dinners, dinner-giving, wines and desserts, Andrew Valentine Kirwan, 1864
↑ A common proverb is "too many cooks spoil the broth"
↑ "It could be said that broth occupies an intermediate position between stock and soup. A broth (e.g. chicken broth) can be eaten as is, whereas a stock (e.g. chicken stock) would normally be consumed only as an ingredient in something more complex. A soup, on the other hand, would usually be less simple, more finished, than a broth." Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson, Oxford University Press, 1999
↑ Baron Pouget's Oxford Sauce is a spicy table sauce created by Baron Robert Pouget in 2000 to celebrate the Millennium and can now be found in supermarkets.
↑ Custard or crème anglaise is traditionally thickened with egg, but may also refer to 'instant' custard made with custard powder.
↑ Rhubarb is strictly a vegetable but is used for culinary purposes like a fruit. Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb is produced in the Rhubarb Triangle in West Yorkshire.
↑ "How to make the perfect full English breakfast". 30 June 2015. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. The Telegraph. Anthony Trollope in The Warden describes "the well-furnished breakfast-parlour at Plumstead Episcopi… The tea consumed was the very best, the coffee the very blackest, the cream the very thickest; there was dry toast and buttered toast, muffins and crumpets; hot bread and cold bread, white bread and brown bread, home-made bread and bakers' bread, wheaten bread and oaten bread; and if there be other breads than these, they were there; there were eggs in napkins, and crispy bits of bacon under silver covers; and there were little fishes in a little box, and devilled kidneys frizzling on a hot-water dish; which, by the bye, were placed closely contiguous to the plate of the worthy archdeacon himself. Over and above this, on a snow-white napkin, spread upon the sideboard, was a huge ham and a huge sirloin; the latter having laden the dinner table on the previous evening. Such was the ordinary fare at Plumstead Episcopi."
↑ Bacon may be either smoked or unsmoked. The latter is termed 'green', and is paler and milder than the smoked variety.
↑ For example, one retailer offered a breakfast in 2018 comprising "three rashers of British bacon, three British pork sausages, three hash browns, two half slices of fried bread, two fried eggs, two half tomatoes, two black puddings, baked beans and sliced mushrooms." Big Daddy Breakfast. The English Breakfast Society researches, records and publishes the history, heritage and traditions of the English breakfast.
↑ Consumer preference in England changed from white to brown eggs in the 1970s, but as of 2018 it is now again possible to buy white eggs from a supermarket.
↑ Fruit cakes were historically known as plum cake. They may be matured for several weeks and 'fed' from time to time with alcohol such as sherry, Madeira or brandy.
↑ "The British are so easy to please. It is the most extraordinary thing. They actually like their pleasures small. That is why, I suppose, so many of their treats — teacakes, scones, crumpets, rock cakes, rich tea biscuits, fruit shrewsburys — are so cautiously flavourful. They are the only people in the world who think of jam and currants as thrilling constituents of a pudding or cake." 'Notes From A Small Island' Bill Bryson (1995)
↑ See in particular English Bread and Yeast Cookery, 1977, by Elizabeth David. Lammas was historically a festival to celebrate the annual wheat harvest. A loaf of bread in the shape of a wheatsheaf is often baked to celebrate Harvest Festival.
↑ "White loaf baked in a special tin and cut lengthwise along the top, often dusted with flour." Flour Advisory Bureau
↑ "White loaf made from two round pieces of dough. One (smaller than the other) is secured on top of the larger piece. Often dusted with flour before baking." Flour Advisory Bureau. A regional variant is the Birmingham Close Notched Cottage Loaf, which is distinguished from a standard cottage loaf by its many notches.
↑ "Thick, long, white loaf, lightly cut across the top so that the cuts open out or 'bloom' to give a crisp crust. Sometimes sprinkled with poppy seeds." Flour Advisory Bureau
↑ "Round smooth crusted loaf often topped with cracked wheat." Flour Advisory Bureau
↑ A type of cob loaf. " Round, crusty white loaf with a deeply cut cross on the top." Flour Advisory Bureau
↑ Also called a porcupine or hedgehog loaf. Another type of cob loaf with shallow cuts across the top of the loaf to create a chequerboard pattern.
↑ "A special shape, usually plaited with three strands of white dough, sometimes enriched with eggs or milk. Flour Advisory Bureau
↑ "Loaf baked in a rectangular open tin." Flour Advisory Bureau
↑ "Large flat-topped loaf baked in a lidded square tin." Flour Advisory Bureau
↑ A traditional loaf requires just flour, yeast, salt, water and a little oil or fat. Home baking has been encouraged by the introduction of bread machines. See Real Bread Campaign
↑ Sourdough is made by hand using a flour and water starter, containing naturally-occurring wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria, to sour or ferment the dough. See The rise and rise of sourdough bread The Guardian 12 August 2014
↑ In 1938 milk was considered to be "the most important product of British Agriculture … far more truly the cornerstone of our agriculture than wheat": Viscount Astor and B. S. Rowntree, British Agriculture, 1938, p. 251. The Provision of Free Milk Regulations, 1946, provided free milk in schools to all children under the age of 18.
↑ French and Italian butters are often made with cream containing bacterial culture, which gives them a riper flavour.
↑ The leading brands of butter using British milk are Anchor and Countrylife. Most retailer own-label butter is also made with British milk and there is some artisanal English butter production. The fat content of English butter normally ranges from 80% to 83%, but can be as high as 86%.
↑ Camp Coffee was sold in Britain from the 19th century.
↑ The Telegraph (5 August 2015)'Is Britain falling out of love with tea?' At the time of Jonathan Routh's 'Good Cuppa Guide: Where to have tea in London' (1966) tea was the most popular beverage.
↑ Millar, Rupert (19 July 2018). "Beer and Cider Boom in the UK". thedrinksbusiness.com. New breweries include the Meantime Brewery and the Camden Town Brewery. The divide between 'real ale' and 'craft beer' relates to ingredients, techniques and method of serving. CAMRA's campaigning objectives remain focussed on real ale, cider and perry after a motion in April 2018 that it should "act as the voice and represent the interests of all pub goers and beer, cider and perry drinkers" failed to pass CAMRA motion.
↑ Until the 15th century, ale and mead were the main drinks, both made without hops. The introduction of hops, which are preservative, allowed weaker ales to be brewed and led to a decline in mead production. The constituent ingredients of beer – malted barley, yeast, hops and water – all influence its character. Beers vary considerably in colour, bitterness (from hops), alcoholic strength, age, and whether served from cask or bottle. Categories indicate the style of beers, but are not regulated, change over time, sometimes overlap (e.g. mild ale and light bitter, mild ale and weaker old ale, or dark mild ale and brown ale), and are dependent on the way in which brewers describe their beers. The terms pale ale and bitter are often used interchangeably. See A Beginner's Guide to British Beer Styles.
↑ IPA was pioneered by George Hodgson's Bow Brewery and popularized in the 1820s by Samuel Allsopp & Sons of Burton. "The difference between a pale ale and an India Pale Ale is hard to discern. Take Worthington's White Shield and Bass Red Triangle. Following the 1927 merger, both beers were the same brew; however, one was designated an IPA the other a pale ale. To complicate matters Bass also brewed Blue Triangle, which was the same as Red Triangle except the Blue wasn't bottle conditioned." Brewing in Burton-upon-Trent, Ian Webster, Amberley Publishing Limited, 2018. Greene King IPA, Worthington's White Shield and Fuller's Bengal Lancer are brand examples.
↑ Hop Back Brewery's Summer Lightning and Brakspear's Oxford Gold are brand examples. Golden ale was developed at the end of the 1980s to compete against lagers, which grew in popularity in England in the late 20th century. Samuel Allsopp & Sons had invested £80,000 in the 1890s in a new 60,000-barrel brewery designed to make lager, but the venture was not successful.
↑ Young's Winter Warmer, Marston's Owd Rodger, Green King Strong Suffolk and Tower Brewery's Burton Strong Ale are brand examples.
↑ Generally strong and popular as a winter warmer. Theakston's Old Peculier and Loddon's Hocus Pocus are brand examples.
↑ Barley wine has an unusually high, wine-like, alcohol content of up to 12%.
↑ Mild ale is normally lightly hopped, low in alcoholic strength and ruby in colour, although can sometimes be strong or pale. Mild ale was sometimes described as X ale, in comparison to stronger XX to 6X beers (Simmonds of Reading's Archangel Stout was advertised as XXXXXXX). See Mild. Why don't men drink mild ale any more? The Telegraph 15 May 2015. Banks's Mild, Greene King XX Mild and Brakespear MildArchived 24 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine are brand examples. Timothy Taylor's Ram Tam is an example of a stronger dark mild ale advertised as a Winter Warmer.
↑ "After WWII, Bitter really took off as pub-goers began to reject Mild Ale, the previously dominant draft beer style.... Bitter is not a strictly governed style and beers bearing that appellation might be golden to red, drily bitter or honey-sweet, rich in hop perfume or rather austere. Depending on strength, they might be called Ordinary, Best. or Extra Special Bitter. It is easier, perhaps, to say what Bitter is not. Once the classy alternative to Mild, then the conservative alternative to trendy lager, it is now the preferred choice of the anti-hipster—not Double IPA, and definitely not fruit-infused barrel-aged Saison." 'Ordinary, Best and Extra Special: How English Bitter Inspired a Revolution in Brewing', Jessica Boak and Ray Bailey, Beeradvocate, October 2015 Bitter.
↑ Bitter in The Oxford Companion to Beer, ed. Garrett Oliver
↑ It was formerly common for different types of beer to be mixed as a cocktail, for example Black and Tan (stout and pale ale), Cooper (stout and porter), light and bitter (draught bitter and bottled light ale), Boilermaker (bottled brown and draught mild ale), mother-in-law (old and bitter), and mild and bitter (abbreviated to AB).
↑ Originally ginger beer was brewed by leaving water, sugar, ginger and ginger beer plant to ferment for several days
↑ Patent granted to Matthias Archibald Robinson, of Red Lion-street, St George the Martyr, London, Grocer, for certain improvements in the mode of preparing the vegetable matter commonly called pearl barley, and grits or groats made from the corn of barley and oats, by which material, when so prepared, a superior mucilaginous beverage may be produced in a few minutes. Dated 20 August 1823. The Repertory of Patent Inventions: And Other Discoveries and Improvements in Arts, Manufactures, and Agriculture. T. and G. Underwood, 1825.
↑ Wolfgang Vierick (1964), Der English Dialect Survey und der Linguistic Survey of Scotland – Arbeitsmethoden und bisherige Ergebnisse, Zeitschrift für Mundartforschung 31, 333–335 in Shorrocks, Graham (1999). A Grammar of the Dialect of the Bolton Area, Part 1. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. p.58. ISBN3-631-33066-9.
↑ Old, Hughes Oliphant (2002). Worship: Reformed According to Scripture. Westminster John Knox Press. p.29. ISBN9780664225797.
↑ Carl Philipp Emanuel Nothaft (October 2011). "From Sukkot to Saturnalia: The Attack on Christmas in Sixteenth-Century Chronological Scholarship". Journal of the History of Ideas. 72 (4). University of Pennsylvania Press: 504–505. JSTOR41337151. However, when Thomas Mocket, rector of Gilston in Hertfordshire, decried such vices in a pamphlet to justify the parliamentary 'ban' of Christmas, effective since June 1647...
↑ Sandys, William (1852). Christmastide: its history, festivities and carols. London: John Russell Smith. pp.119–120.
↑ Miall, Anthony & Peter (1978). The Victorian Christmas Book. Dent. p.7. ISBN0-460-12039-5.
↑ Les Standiford. The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits, Crown, 2008. ISBN978-0-307-40578-4
1 2 Joe L. Wheeler. Christmas in my heart, Volume 10. p.97. Review and Herald Pub Assoc, 2001. ISBN0-8280-1622-4
↑ Smith, George (2008), "Isaac Newton", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 29 April 2021
↑ J. Gascoin, "A reappraisal of the role of the universities in the Scientific Revolution", in David C. Lindberg and Robert S. Westman, eds, Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), ISBN0-521-34804-8, p. 248.
↑ Wohleber, Curt (Spring 2006). "The Vacuum Cleaner". Invention & Technology Magazine. American Heritage Publishing. Archived from the original on 13 March 2010. Retrieved 8 December 2010.
↑ Quentin R. Skrabec, Jr. (2005). "The Metallurgic Age: The Victorian Flowering of Invention and Industrial Science". p. 169. McFarland
↑ Wilson, Arthur (1994). The Living Rock: The Story of Metals Since Earliest Times and Their Impact on Civilization. p. 203. Woodhead Publishing.
↑ Klein, Jürgen (2012), "Francis Bacon", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 17 January 2020
McNeil, Robina; Nevell, Michael (2000). A Guide to the Industrial Archaeology of Greater Manchester. Association for Industrial Archaeology. ISBN978-0-9528930-3-5.
Norbrook, David (2000). Writing the English Republic: Poetry, Rhetoric and Politics, 1627–1660. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-78569-3.
Withington, Robert (2008). English Pageantry; An Historical Outline. Read Books. ISBN978-1-4086-8062-9.
Further reading
Briggs, Asa (1994). A Social History of England: from the ice age to the channel tunnel; new ed. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN029783262X (1st ed. 1983).
Hattaway, Michael (2008). Elizabethan Popular Theatre: Plays in Performance. London: Routledge. ISBN9780415489010.
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