One Hundred & One Beautiful Towns in Great Britain

For Anglophiles, armchair travelers, history buffs, and anyone planning a trip to the British Isles, this lavishly illustrated book is the definitive guide to Great Britain's beautiful historic towns. The fifth book in Rizzoli's successful One Hundred & One series is an informative tour of Great Britain's most beautiful corners, with evocative photographs and detailed listings for everywhere from Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon to the Scottish Highlands and undiscovered country inns of the Cotswolds.

The towns of Great Britain's countryside are among the most charming and unchanged in Europe's history, steeped in a heritage that reflects at once an unexpected diversity of purpose and a ubiquitous loyalty to long-standing tradition. Organized geographically, this book is a unique photographic tour of the most beautiful towns in every region of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. From the Norman castle towns of the southeast to the spectacular Roman architecture of Bath and St. Albans, from Celtic cottage farms in the Scottish Lowlands to the stone, coal, and iron towns of the Welsh borders and the industrial north, One Hundred & One Beautiful Towns in Great Britain is as much about the history of the isles as it is about their beauty today.

Tom Aiken is a writer, poet, editor, theater director, musician, and critic. A cultural historian of Britain and Europe, he is a past winner of the Lincoln Memorial Essay award, author of two young adult novels, and has contributed to the Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, and The Spectator.