Reasons to Love Britain 3

After 20 years in the US, you gain a new respect for the sheer local intensity of history in the UK.

I am now living around 6 miles from the centre of Manchester in an old mill town called Radcliffe. Just down the road is the Parish Church of All Saints Manchester. It's a spectacular early 19th century Church that in the US would be a major monument. Here, literally noone seems to notice it. In the centre of Radcliffe, a mile away in the other direction, is another spectacular 19th century church. And then a mile outside is another Anglican Parish Church - St. Mary's Radcliffe, which is on a site used as a church since Anglo-Saxon times and which today has a church building which dates from the 15th century.

There are literally hundreds and hundreds of such buildings within a 20 mile car journey. Very few people here seem to even notice them.

After 20 years in the US, I am stunned.

In fact I feel a new website coming on - a Medieval Manchester site to accompany my Medieval New York site.