UK Private Guide Sightseeing Tours - Special Interest Tours

Since British Tours was founded in 1958 we have been asked to research many tours around special interests and specific themes. Here we list ten of the most frequently requested; they can vary in length, starting and drop-off locations and can be a combination of two or more subjects of particular interest to you.

Charles Dickens

Most places associated with Dickens - where he spent his childhood, his holidays, his honeymoon, where he wrote his books, the towns and the countryside that inspired him - remain unchanged and provide added understanding of this brilliant novelist.

Literary Tours

See the country of Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stephenson and Thomas Hardy; places associated with Ruskin, Wordsworth, Vita Sackville-West and the Bloomsbury group including Virginia Woolf and D H Lawrence; the homes of the Brontes, George Bernard Shaw, Keats and Henry James and the castle in which Rudyard Kipling lived.

Prehistoric Wessex

The carefully shaped stones, the accurately horizontal lintel of 30 Sarsens, the trilithon horseshoe and the midsummer sunrise alignment are unique to Stonehenge and make it the most important prehistoric monument in Europe. However for the real zealot the rich archaeological landscape offers a large number of prehistoric temples, Neolithic harvest hills for fertility rituals and communal tombs.

Wine and Beer

"The Garden of England" grows wonderful grapes - see wine-making at its best and taste some of the fine produce. Kent also grows a good quality of hop, essential for brewing top quality beer and visit to a hop farm is a most interesting experience.

Film and Television Locations

The Remains of the Day, Braveheart, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Coronation Street, Brideshead Revisited, All Creatures Great and Small.

Fun for the Children

Robin Hood and his Merry Men, Maid Marion and the bad Sheriff of Nottingham; HMS Victory where Nelson lay wounded, Henry VIII's battleship the Mary Rose, and HMS Warrior, England's first armoured battleship, a lively and noisy Fort where they can fire guns and handle swords, ever enjoyable Legoland or one of the many theme parks.

William Morris

The greatest of the nineteenth century designers who died over 100 years ago, created textiles, stained glass, wallpapers and carpets to counteract the over-fussy decoration of the Victorian era; they are timeless and as popular now as ever they have been.

Mary Queen of Scots

Cousin of the powerful Elizabeth I who was the daughter of Henry VIII, Mary Queen of Scots is one of history's most romantic women whose exciting but finally tragic life never lost its fascination for writers, film producers and the public.

Jane Austen

Visit her birthplace, the house where she died, her grave and memorial and the towns and countryside that so inspired her writing as well as the beautiful locations in which her novels were made into films.

Early Christianity

It was in 597 that Pope Gregory sent Saint Augustine to re-establish Christianity in Britain - your tour starts with a stone cross commemorating his landing 1,400 years ago.

British Tours Ltd, London, 1999 © All rights reserved.