This is Episode 3 of a special six-part Jane Austen series, sponsored throughout by Strictly Jane Austen. When we picture Jane Austen's world, most of us aren't actually picturing Hampshire in 1810 — we're picturing a television program. Colin Firth striding out of a lake. Keira Knightley on a windswept crag. A proposal in the pouring rain in front of a domed temple.

If I say "British spy," you picture a man: James Bond, George Smiley, Kim Philby. And the one woman most people can name from that world is fictional — Miss Moneypenny, sitting outside M's office, quietly in love with 007. But Miss Moneypenny was real, or at least the woman who inspired her was. Her name was Kathleen Pettigrew, personal assistant to three consecutive chiefs of MI6, and every secret in the wartime service passed across her desk.

This is Episode 2 of a special six-part Jane Austen series, sponsored throughout by Strictly Jane Austen. Today's episode has duels fought over a runaway marriage. It has a scandal so severe it drove one of England's richest men into exile. It has the truth about what those elegant public baths were actually like to get into — considerably less charming than the paintings suggest.

This is Episode 1 of a special six-part Jane Austen series, sponsored throughout by Strictly Jane Austen — Bath's most Austentatious travel company. We talk a lot on this show about the Regency. It's the backdrop to Jane Austen, to Bridgerton, and to a thousand romance novels and costume dramas. But what actually was the Regency? Strictly speaking it was a brief window from 1811 to 1820, when George III's descent into apparent madness meant his eldest son ruled in his place as Prince Regent.

For over a century, in a building most of us could not name, an organization known only by its post office box number — PO Box 500, London — has been quietly reading other people's letters, following other people's footsteps, and keeping the realm's most closely guarded secrets. MI5, the British Security Service, was founded in 1909 in the nervous run-up to the First World War under the motto…

Recorded on location in Hammersmith at Emery Walker's House — the best-preserved Arts and Crafts interior in Britain, packed with original William Morris wallpaper and once home to William Morris's great friend and collaborator, the printer Emery Walker — this is the September edition of What's On in London. Jonathan makes the case that September might be the single best month of the year to visit London: the summer crush lifts as families return to school, everything is still open on summer hours, the weather turns crisp and golden, hotel prices drop, and the cultural calendar goes into overdrive.

In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas is joined by Dr. Richard Claxton, Chief Executive of the National Garden Scheme, for a conversation about one of the most quietly magical institutions in Britain. On weekends across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands, ordinary people — and some rather extraordinary ones — throw open their garden gates and invite strangers in.

This is a special one. Recorded on home soil just days before departure, this is Jonathan Thomas's complete pre-trip briefing before he leaves to walk the entire 84-mile length of Hadrian's Wall — coast to coast across Northern England. It has been fifteen years in the making. Jonathan walks through the whole story: the conversation with his wife a year ago that set everything in motion, the year of training that followed, why he chose this particular trail, and how a long-held someday became a definite date on the calendar.

Follow Jonathan Thomas’s walk along the whole Hadrian’s Wall National Trail in August 2026 — daily progress, the full itinerary, podcasts and dispatches from the trail.

In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas welcomes back Dr. Chris Smith — historian at Coventry University, author of The Hidden History of Bletchley Park and The Last Cambridge Spy, and a returning friend of the podcast for his third appearance — to explore one of the most remarkable and troubling stories in modern British history: the Cambridge Five.

In this monthly episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas returns with his August edition of What's On in London — and this one comes with a personal twist, because Jonathan will be in London himself later in the month. August is London's most contradictory month: the busiest tourist season of the year, a million-plus visitors, packed attractions and carnival streets — and yet simultaneously the month when Londoners themselves flee to Cornwall and France, leaving whole districts strangely quiet.

I’m spending my 60th summer in Frinton-on-Sea in Essex, which is part of the same constituency as Clacton-on-Sea, along with the neighboring town of - Featured, Spilling the Tea, Travel

Pre-orders for my new book, Searching for the Heart of Britain, are open now — and I want to keep giving you real tastes of what's inside. (Last time it - Uncategorized

In this sponsored episode of the Anglotopia Podcast — brought to you by ACP Rail and BritRail — Jonathan Thomas sits down with Tim Roebuck, a man who has - Anglotopia Podcast, Britain's Railways, Featured, Heritage Railways, Travel

In this sponsored episode of the Anglotopia Podcast — brought to you by ACP Rail and BritRail — Jonathan Thomas sits down with Tim Roebuck, a man who has spent his entire career in rail travel: station manager, head of BritRail Travel International in New York, senior VP at ACP Rail for 25 years, and one of the most knowledgeable people alive on the subject of getting around Britain by train.

Britain’s National Health Service Key Facts Launched on 5 July 1948 Funded through a flat rate National Insurance tax on all British citizens The NHS was - British Heritage, British History, Britishness, Featured, Great British Icons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJqimlFcJsM Football is a simple game, twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win. - British Music, British Sport

Before there were black cabs, before there were individual motorcars owned by ordinary families, there was public transportation. And in Britain, public - British Cars, Great British Motoring, Uncategorized

It’s been a quiet fortnight in the sleepy market town of Horsham, West Sussex. We’re home from our holiday, the choir season is over, and we are relaxing - Uncategorized

In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas sits down with Jeremy Harte — folklorist, winner of the Catherine Briggs Folklore Award, - Anglotopia Podcast, British History, British Landscape, Featured

In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas sits down with Jeremy Harte — folklorist, winner of the Catherine Briggs Folklore Award, curator of Bourne Hall Museum in Surrey, and author of Cloven Country: The Devil in the English Landscape and Travelers Through Time: A Gypsy History — to discuss his remarkable new book Treasures on Earth: Buried Wealth in the English Landscape…

For nine days each September, London throws open hundreds of buildings normally closed to the public - for free. Open House Festival returns for its 35th edition, 12-20 September 2026, with 621 listings including No 10 Downing Street, the Lloyd's Building at 40, BBC Broadcasting House and the Zaha Hadid Foundation archive. - Attractions, Culture, History, London Events News Guide and Tips for Open House London 2026: The Weekend London Unlocks Its Front Doors (and How to Do It)

Historic Royal Palaces has unveiled the largest investment in learning and community engagement in the Tower of London's history - boosting learning capacity by 250%, with two new learning centres, an Archive Study Centre, a green classroom in the Moat and the Tower's first-ever dedicated community room. - Attractions, History, London News Guide and Tips for The Tower of London Announces Its Biggest-Ever Investment in Learning and Community

A newly discovered gold signet ring engraved with the phoenix emblem of Queen Elizabeth I has gone on display at Hampton Court Palace from July 15. The - Attraction News, British Heritage, British History, Travel, Tudor Era

Stewards of England’s Landscape Key Facts Founded in 1895 by a combination of social reformers, artists, and craftsmen Preserves over 200 properties and - British Heritage, British History, British Landscape, Featured, Great British Icons, National Trust

When you think of picturesque England, your mind probably jumps straight to the Cotswolds, Oxford, Cambridge or Windsor. Same! When I met my Texan - Columns, Featured, Spilling the Tea

There are cars that are iconic because they're beautiful, or because they're powerful, or because they've achieved extraordinary feats of engineering. And - British Cars, Great British Motoring, Uncategorized

I've always known that a huge part of what draws Americans to Britain isn't just the castles and the countryside — it's the feeling that some part of us - America's British History, Anglophilia, Anglotopia Podcast, British Heritage, British History, Featured

In this second sponsored episode with Find My Past — the follow-up to our Genealogy 101 introduction — Jonathan Thomas and Jen Baldwin, Research Specialist at Find My Past, go deeper into the records, techniques, and stories that turn a nervous beginner into a confident family historian. The episode covers the extraordinary richness of the 1921 census and 1939 register, why the newspaper archive is the place where ancestors stop being names and start being people, how the Industrial Revolution left its fingerprints across every family tree, the truth about name changes and spelling variations (it was almost never Ellis Island), how to avoid drowning in common surnames like Thomas or Smith, the unexpected discoveries that make genealogy so addictive — including Jen's own Cornish mail-order bride ancestor, an Irish great-great-grandfather with two arrests across two countries, and Audrey Thompson the World War II rat-catching champion — and how to connect all of it to the great currents of British history.

In this sponsored episode of the Anglotopia Podcast — brought to you by Find My Past, one of the world's leading family history websites — Jonathan Thomas sits down with Jen Baldwin, Research Specialist at Find My Past and a professional genealogist since 2010, for a warm, practical, and genuinely inspiring introduction to British and Irish family history research. Jen specializes in British social history and the British diaspora — exactly the intersection where family stories meet the great sweep of British history — and her own family tree reaches back to London in 1635.

Pre-orders for my new book, Searching for the Heart of Britain, are open now — and I wanted to give you a real taste of what's inside, not just a - Anglophilia, Anglotopia Press, Brit Book Deals, British Heritage, British Landscape, Britishness, Dorset, Featured

We Go Way Back, the UK's first exhibition dedicated to ancient DNA, opens free at the Francis Crick Institute from 16 July 2026 to 2 July 2027 - exploring how genetic material from ancient bones and teeth is rewriting the story of human evolution, migration and disease. - Attractions, Culture, London Events News, Special Exhibitions Guide and Tips for The UK's First Ancient DNA Exhibition To Open at the Francis Crick Institute

In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas sits down with Jonathan W. Jordan — New York Times bestselling military historian, Wall Street Journal book critic, and now federal...

Great Events in Colonial American History – Article 23 The British Context The winter encampment at Valley Forge—from December 1777 to June 1778—occurred during the darkest period of the American...

In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas sits down with Jonathan W. Jordan — New York Times bestselling military historian, Wall Street Journal book critic, and now federal judge — to discuss his richly researched new book Ike and Winston: World War, Cold War, and an Extraordinary Friendship. Spanning a quarter century from their first meeting on Christmas Eve 1941 — when Eisenhower was a little-known brigadier, and Churchill was the most famous man in the world — to Churchill's death in January 1965, Jordan traces one of the most consequential personal relationships of the 20th century.