this post was submitted on
287 points (88% like it)
329 up votes 42 down votes
shortlink:

unitedkingdom

unsubscribe29,228 readers
  1. IRC moving to SnoonetAssign your own flair!

For the United Kingdom of Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales) and Northern Ireland; News, Politics, Economics, Society, Business, Culture and anything else UK related.

Do not editorialise titles.
Please report posts that contain disruptive or misleading titles; try to keep your titles as if they are being reported by proper news organisations if it is linking to a news site. Do not make it seem like a Daily Mail or Sun headline please, these will be removed. Let commentators make their own decisions on an article.

Try to keep a positive attitude.
This is the UK subreddit; posts that seem to come from people coming here only to attack the country in some sort of downvote brigade from another subreddit will be banned.

Images

Images of text, image macros, and so on will be removed.

Images are allowed, but it is encouraged that they are posted in /r/britpics.

UK immigration information

Related Subreddits:

Set your own location flair

If you think your post has been banned, please contact a mod.

The moderators of r/unitedkingdom reserve the right to moderate posts and comments at their discretion, with regard to their perception of the suitability of said posts and comments for this subreddit. Thank you for your understanding.

a community for
to anything interesting: news article, blog entry, video, picture...
message the moderators

MODERATORS

reddit is a source for what's new and popular online. vote on links that you like or dislike and help decide what's popular, or submit your own! learn more ›

286
287

Say what you will about this country, but you've got to admit it's damn pretty [x-post r/pics] (i.imgur.com)

submitted ago by FuriousturtleYorkshire

all 89 comments
sorted by:
best
hot
new
controversial
top
old
best

[–]NotTheNewsLancashire 46 points47 points ago

You've never been to Wigan.

[–]iiyama0 15 points16 points ago

Or fucking Preston. Greggs everywhere.

[–]dylansavage 37 points38 points ago

*sniff

Beautiful...

[–]motophiliac 10 points11 points ago

I know. Pasties as far as the eye can see…

[–]dylansavage 6 points7 points ago

Fillings of hoofed mammals and fowl, legumes and dairy oozing out of their golden brown shells...

[–]motophiliac 4 points5 points ago

See what you did? Now I'm hungry. I can almost see a Gregg's from here, too.

[–]IzzinatahLondon 1 point2 points ago

Fuck. Me too, but there's a Tescos even closer. Take that, Greggs!

[–]harrypagetManchester 4 points5 points ago

There are some beautiful places around Preston way to be fair.

[–]cheets 3 points4 points ago

wtf Wigan has some nice areas once you get out of the town centre, Up and around Haigh Hall is nice.

[–]NotTheNewsLancashire 56 points57 points ago

I like to play a game sometimes. It's called Wigan or Chernobyl.

Wigan or Chernobyl.

Spoiler: It's always Wigan.

[–]Odd-One-OutWest Midlands 7 points8 points ago

You are my hero. I'm going to play this game from now on.

[–]hhmmmm 3 points4 points ago

Like a lot of towns that grew a lot after the second world war, it probably had lots of older nicer buildings destroyed and/or ruined by concrete monstrosities.

As a society we need to go, there are just not on, lets start tearing them down and building anew something that wont be hated by all future generations. It doesnt mean get rid of all of them as there are plenty (although a distinct minority) of buildings from that period that are fine, that look ok and perform their function well, there are just lots more that do neither. There are even a few tower blocks that are decent.

They got the materials, the design and the town planning/community spaces completely wrong almost everywhere and while you could incorporate what you wanted to save in what gets built next.

I still think lots of the identikit housing estates that are built now are making some of the same mistakes, and need to read their Jane Jacobs.

[–]NotTheNewsLancashire 2 points3 points ago

Yeah, but we needed to build another Galaries because our old one was empty after 4-5 years.

[–]cheets 0 points1 point ago

But they built a "GRAND" ARCADE

[–]coupdetat'Ey up 1 point2 points ago

Dude you made of giggle thanks :-) this could be a sub reddit

[–]crspUnited Kingdom 1 point2 points ago

Most of the countryside around Wigan is nice. Even in the town centre there's a lot of nice areas. Around Mesnes Park, for instance, heading up into Standish.

[–]spermracewinnerDurbendoobinshire -3 points-2 points ago

Also: That picture is of a video game.

[–]ali_421Birmingham 0 points1 point ago

English coastal walk simulator 2012?

[–]jkg5150Ilkeston 12 points13 points ago

I often forget this. I live near the edge of a pretty grim former mining town, not exactly full of prosperity, architectural delights, or really any glimmer of hope (it's handy for commuting and I have friends here, or I'd be long gone...)

But walking for 5 minutes can put me in the middle of some absolutely gorgeous scenery, and a little further, to high enough ground for some fabulous views.

I should do that more often...

[–]terahurtsSunny Cleethorpes 2 points3 points ago

Pretty much the same for me, although I do get a nice view of the Humber estuary if I take the long way to Tesco.

A 20 minute drive however takes me up and over the Lincolnshire Wolds. The A153 between Louth and Horncastle gives a lovely view of the rolling hills suddenly dropping away down to the Fens.

[–]transfuseAberystwyth, Northumberland, Lincolnshire 2 points3 points ago

I love my little corner of NE Lincs here in the wolds, even though the other two places I live in also have ridiculously beautiful scenery.

[–]cewubaaca 24 points25 points ago

I can even identify that part of coastline for you. The cove on the left with the little village is Port Gavern, and the main village is Port Isaac where the TV series Doc Martin is filmed. [Edit] Doc Martinis to Doc Martin is.

[–]im_only_sleeping_A Land of Engs 14 points15 points ago

Doc Martinis ?! - that would change the show a bit. Martin Clunes absolutely pissed!

[–]OneSalientOversightAustralia 4 points5 points ago

DM: Bert. Give me a drink.

Bert Large: Oo aye Doc? Yer looking to drown yer sorrows or summit?

DM: Shut up and give me a drink, otherwise I will force you to have a vivisection.

Bert Large: I oready ad one of those. Back in the 80s it was. Sed I woudnt have more babies they sed.

Al Large: Ah dad. I think yer talking about a vasectomy. Doc's talking about...

DM: Will someone PLEASE get me a Martini?

[–]im_only_sleeping_A Land of Engs 1 point2 points ago

Ha! That's Great!

[–]cewubaaca 0 points1 point ago

Oops, sorry!

[–]no_egrets 1 point2 points ago

Confirmed.

[–]Mepsi 5 points6 points ago

While very pretty, I can't help but wonder how many of those fields used to be covered in a larger area of woodland.

[–]lebski88/r/bristol 5 points6 points ago

Right on the coast maybe not woodland. Admittedly not the fields you currently see though. Some sort of heather maybe?

[–]Mepsi 2 points3 points ago

I'm not an expert but I can see the wooded area on the right and then further up in the top centre which probably used to meet.

[–]terahurtsSunny Cleethorpes 9 points10 points ago

Most of the UK was forest at one point. Pretty much every bit of countryside you see is man-made, including the moors. Blame those sneaky neolithic immigrants coming over here and cutting down our trees.

[–]Digipete 2 points3 points ago

It always amazes me to think about how much work thy actually did back then. To cut down a forest in this day and age involves the use of chainsaws, skidders (I don't know if the U.K. uses hat word or not, a skidder here in the states is a tractor specifically used to tow logs out of the woods.), wood chippers, trucks, and then an excavator or a stump grinder to remove the stumps.

All that work was done with hand tools and horses or cattle back then, and it was done to a large portion of the country.

Here in the area of the states known as New England we had virtually the same thing happen between the 16 to 18 hundreds. A lot of our forests have actually grown back to the point that most people do not even realize that a forest they are looking at is only a couple of hundred years old.

[–]terahurtsSunny Cleethorpes 7 points8 points ago

I've got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about the 'Natural Landscape' that people protesting about windfarms and the like bang on about to be honest. It's all very well to complain that the turbines are spoiling their view (personally, questions of if they are a big white elephant or not aside I quite like the look of them) but when the 'view' is a bunch of factory-farmed mono-cropped fields that are probably not much older than the people doing the complaining my fists start to itch.

I'm all for celebrating our landscape and protecting our countryside, but people need to remember that pretty much all of it is a result of thousands of years of agriculture, and other human activities.

[–]dotgeorgie 2 points3 points ago

My point in the whole wind farm debate is "I'm sure people probably thought telephone lines and power lines were ugly when they were first built, now how often do you notice them?". But the whole "this isn't natural anyway" thing sounds a lot better. Thanks!

[–]dairymaid 1 point2 points ago

I for one have found many a landscape to be ruined by power lines.

[–]dairymaid 2 points3 points ago

I happen to like wind farms for some reason but I find your point kind of moot. Yes the "natural" landscape has been thoroughly shaped and processed by man, but it is still generally a landscape of nature. Wind turbines are most definitely industrial features.

[–]terahurtsSunny Cleethorpes 1 point2 points ago

I'd challenge it generally being a landscape of nature. It's kept the way either by an awful lot of farmers doing farming type thing to it, or it's actively managed to keep it in the condition it's in.

[–]BristolShamblerUnited Kingdom 2 points3 points ago

a lot of deforestation in Britain is comparatively recent. In the middle ages Sherwood forest covered 100,000 acres, but is now a crappy little park with an old famous tree in it. Up till the 20th century areas of it were still being cut down, until it was made into a park.

[–]terahurtsSunny Cleethorpes 0 points1 point ago

I've edited my post to reflect this, I can vaguely remember seeing a map of what I think was called the Great Forest at some point during a geography lesson, that stretched from Grantham up into the north, can't seem to find an online source though.

[–]MijolnirWales 2 points3 points ago

We lost most of our forest in the industrial revolution, demand for charcoal for steel smelting caused the worst deforestation

[–]Wibbles 1 point2 points ago

We also stripped all our Yew trees out during the middle ages to make bows.

[–]MijolnirWales 0 points1 point ago

Not necessarily. Yew bows are formed best from coppice, which provides effective continuous crop. Most Yew coppice in churchyards were originally for longbow manufacture. Coppice working is a lost form of forestry that maintained a lot of woodlands in good condition.

[–]Wibbles 0 points1 point ago

Coppicing doesn't produce a thick enough branch of wood for Yew longbow manufacture, the best bows are formed from the trunk of the tree. We cut down the majority of our own Yew trees to keep a steady supply of longbows, and after depleting our own reserves persuaded by Italians and Germans/Austrians to deplete their own through high Yew prices and laws demanding that they bring Yew in with their merchandise if they want to trade in our ports.

[–]MijolnirWales 0 points1 point ago

Coppice will produce a thick enough piece of timber and will be less brittle than a piece taken from a full grown tree. Whilst I'm not disputing that Yew wood did reach very high prices and was imported, Robert Hardy's definitive work ''Longbow: A Social and Military History'' clearly states that yew coppice was utilised in their construction. In the past, I have cut yew coppice for longbow makers.

[–]Wibbles 0 points1 point ago

If you'd like to look up some historical documents, you'll find that entire Yew trees very much were cut down so their trunks could be used to make longbows. It's the primary reason the number of trees fell in Britain and Germany/Austria, because suppliers would rather cut down the entire tree and use the wood in manufacture rather than coppicing it.

[–]MijolnirWales 0 points1 point ago

I'm not saying you're wrong... I'm just saying that I have read in several reputable sources that Yew coppice was used. And if felled, Yew will coppice continuously from the old stool.

[–]terahurtsSunny Cleethorpes 1 point2 points ago

Edit: It wasn't just our neolithic ancestors who chopped down the forests - As BristolShambler and Mijolnir point about below a lot of it was quite recent - I was just pointing out that what we consider natural landscape is mostly down to us chopping bits of it down, digging holes in it, building stuff on it, or moving bits of it around to improve the view.

[–]no_egrets 1 point2 points ago

This blows my mind every time I look at aerial photography of the area around me. Almost every visible patch of green has been marked out, cleared and tilled to grow crops of one sort of another.

[–]shrik 4 points5 points ago

/r/BritPics is my go-to place for desktop wallpaper rotation.

[–]stephendyDorset 7 points8 points ago

Watching the sailing in Weymouth earlier and the scenery was incredible. We have some lovely coastline... Love watching coast on TV too!

[–]Torquemada1970Slurrey 3 points4 points ago

Somehow, I get the feeling that this isn't a shot of Croydon.

[–]HazelCLUnited Kingdom 4 points5 points ago

That's lovely :)

[–]tanepiperEdinburgh 3 points4 points ago

Totally looks like Civ V

[–]Rusty_tiger 7 points8 points ago

Its been done, http://i.imgur.com/jGuRD.jpg

[–]whencanistopLondon 3 points4 points ago

I hope Civ 6 looks like this top post over at /r/Civ

[–]IzzinatahLondon 1 point2 points ago

No it doesn't. It isn't hexagonal enough.

[–]Buckeye70 1 point2 points ago

Wow...incredible.

American here who has an odd fixation with the UK...My ancestors were Irish, and I want to do a MAJOR vacation and just wander around soaking up the landscape and history...I'm thinking I'd need 3-4 weeks to do it right.

Until I do, keep posting pics like these. I appreciate them all.

[–]YidEssex 36 points37 points ago

American here who has an odd fixation with the UK...My ancestors were Irish.

I've always admired the USA as my parents are Canadian.

[–]papalkombatW-s-M 10 points11 points ago

To be fair he does say it was an odd fixation.

[–]Ch13fWiggumHerefordshire 10 points11 points ago

in that case you might like /r/britpics

[–]motophiliac 3 points4 points ago

You have to do Glen Coe if you ever do visit the UK. Through that to the Scottish Highlands. Plus, if whisky's your thing, many, many distilleries.

[–]RobertTheSpruceDerbyshire 3 points4 points ago

Depending on when your ancestors left, Ireland may well have been part of the UK, making them British when the left. Not an odd fixation at all.

[–]Buckeye70 0 points1 point ago

I believe they left Ireland ~1850 (I'm still working on the family genealogy). The O'Connor clan is tough to pin down--and they made a 100 yr stop in Canada, which only makes it more difficult to work through...Fascinating though.

[–]Honey-BadgerBristolian 2 points3 points ago

Just so you know, try not too associate the UK and Ireland too much, the Irish hate it. You might also like /r/VillagePorn

[–]AndroidApe 3 points4 points ago

Things have changed in recent years, the Irish aren't as anti-English as they used to be.

[–]theRainChicken 3 points4 points ago

I'm not anti-English at all but I still don't like it when people think we're the same country. I think it's more to do with it just being incorrect than any sense of nationalism.

[–]AndroidApe 1 point2 points ago

Yeah, that's fair enough.

[–]dotgeorgie 1 point2 points ago

To be fair, as a (sort-of) Brit living in Ireland, any time there's something good on the BBC, my friends are always like "I envy your Britishness". One of them loves the Queen and the Royal family.

[–]Honey-BadgerBristolian 0 points1 point ago

that may be true but i bet if a yank were to refer to them as British or god forbid even English i bet harsh words would be exchanged.

[–]Buckeye70 0 points1 point ago

Yeah, I know that's something I need to avoid...

However, I really meant that I want to take a trip around all of the UK...Start in London, do Wales, up through Scotland, then over to Ireland.... I've seen so many images and read so much that I want to see as much as I can.

And thanks for the link!

[–]hhmmmm 1 point2 points ago

Well he could be refering to Northern Ireland.

[–]BristolShamblerUnited Kingdom 0 points1 point ago

...then they might hate it even more, depending on which neighbourhood...

[–]incitinghatred 0 points1 point ago

go to devon its wonderful

[–]shieldup 0 points1 point ago

That's a gorgeous photo, what's the source?

[–]Raffles_Dad 1 point2 points ago

I keep doing this right now, living in a town with fields and hills all around and during the summer I keep stopping and catching the views between houses of the beautiful hills and fields.

[–]DingDongHelloWhoIsItSW1A 0AA 1 point2 points ago

Took the kids hiking around Purbeck yesterday, lovely round there

[–]lackofbrainNowhere in particular 0 points1 point ago

Marble-us!

[–]control_group 0 points1 point ago

Very nice. It looks kind of organic, though, which makes the buildings look like some kind of infectious rash.

[–]psysizeHertfordshire 1 point2 points ago

I stayed there for a couple weeks last summer, in the white house right near the centre of the picture (on the cliff side), we had some amazing weather and the views are just beautiful, some nice people and pubs round there as well, defiantly recommended for a family holiday.

[–]jandemorEspain 1 point2 points ago

Only from above, and at a safe distance.

[–]k321k321Durham 0 points1 point ago

True, but there are usually clouds...

[–]mackduck 1 point2 points ago

It is- but then I live right on the Northern edge of the New Forest- so a walk is highly desirable and glorious at all times of the year.....

[–]dumbkidLondon -1 points0 points ago

ok "what you will about this country, but you've got to admit it's damn pretty [x-post r/pics]"

[–]MiserubleCant 0 points1 point ago

The irony of this title being that quite a few cornish people would prefer not to be part of "this country"!

[–]haija 1 point2 points ago

When was divided and oveused has become pretty? pretty is borderless, vast and free. Walls, borders, and fences are as ugly as caged colorful birds. http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6ybgkvO2P1r81c8do1_1280.jpg

[–]coupdetat'Ey up 0 points1 point ago

Especially when you crank up the saturation

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points ago

I find that picture to be a bit ugly. A field of modern agriculture whilst nearly being a biological desert, pretty much typifies everything wrong with modern society.

[–]ODufferEngland -1 points0 points ago

I can see your point. However, we have to eat, and the clock is difficult to turn back.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

Mechanised agriculture is a false economy and certainly not the only means. The net output looks good for monocrops, but when you consider the energy that went in (chemical, mechanical, people, fuel) then it is terribly inefficient. To quantify that for 1974 studies concluded that 1 calorie of oil was needed to make 1 calorie of food. I presume it has only gotten worse since then. Going back even further we find any ancient agricultural civilisation and some modern have wrecked their environment through grazing and over ploughing. Average soil depth in agricultural areas actually drops. Iraq used to be called The Fertile Crescent, Greece was a land of abundance, I believe the Yellow river used to be clean, and Texas went from relative abundant pasture land to a dust bowl. There are actually modern integrated food systems with greater over all yields without the crazy amount of inputs, but it cannot satisfy the needs of industry.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy. © 2012 reddit inc. All rights reserved.

REDDIT and the ALIEN Logo are registered trademarks of reddit inc.

π Rendered by PID 30165 on app-84 running fc22e53.