Amid peaceful countryside, past historic towns and through the heart of London, the River Thames flows in an easterly direction for some 346 kilometres from its source in Gloucestershire until entering the North Sea.
The 2014 Scottish independence debate and the re-ignition of the SNP's call for a second vote in the wake of Brexit - and indeed Brexit itself - begs a reappraisal of what nationality and borderer identity actually mean in the twenty-first century and how the past affects this.
The Isle of Wight, lying off the south coast of England, has been a popular tourist destination for 200 years but has played an important role in the history of Britain for centuries.
Originally established as a Roman settlement to serve the forts along Hadrian's Wall, the Cumbrian city of Carlisle has a wealth of fascinating history.
Wolverhampton was a Staffordshire market town in the Middle Ages but became a major industrial town during the Industrial Revolution, renowned for coal mining, metalworking and steel making.
The largest county in England, Yorkshire encompasses modern cities, industrial heritage, historic towns and villages, wide landscapes of hill and moorland, fertile agricultural regions, a long and unspoiled coastline, and much more, in which the people of Yorkshire are at work daily.
Liverpool was a small port on the River Mersey in the medieval period, but started to grow rapidly in the eighteenth century, benefitting from the expanding transatlantic trade.
Having been granted city status during the Golden Jubilee celebrations in 2002, Stirling is Scotland's smallest city, but has an enthralling wealth of architectural and historic heritage that would be the envy of much larger places in the country.
Greenwich was home to a royal palace from medieval times and was a particular favourite of the Tudor monarchs, and the Royal Observatory was built in Greenwich Park in the reign of Charles II.
In this book, Alan Taylor reveals that the history of Dorset's oil starts in the 1850s with attempts to extract oil and gas from mined oil shale at Kimmeridge.
Nottingham was established as a settlement even before the Normans built their castle there, but the castle became an important stronghold and the medieval town grew around both it and the original settlement in today's Lace Market area.
The two communities of Hampstead and Highgate, perched on London's northern heights, are remarkable for their leafy, atmospheric narrow streets and stunning architecture.
So, what is the significance of the seventeenth-century Sir Thomas Abney to Loughborough, and what is the connection between the young Princess Alexandrina, later to become Queen Victoria, and Loughborough?
For thousands of years, the landscape of Wiltshire has played host to carefully concealed hoards of material wealth; from tools to weapons, jewellery to money.
