Tomorrow is October 1st, which means it's time for the monthly What's On in London — and October might be Jonathan's single favorite month to be in the city. The summer crowds have gone, prices have softened, the museums have hung their big autumn blockbusters, and the parks turn gold. It's the month the locals quietly love and the guidebooks tend to ignore.

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