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Visit every UNESCO World Heritage Site in the United Kingdom

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A visit every UNESCO world heritage site in the United Kingdom is one of my meta bucket lists. That is a bucket that is too large for me to complete at once, it is one made up from many smaller bucket list items. This page tracks my progress visiting all of the UNESCO World Heritage sites that in the United Kingdom. There are currently 33 locations that are marked as having UNESCO World Heritage status in the United Kingdom. However a few of them are overseas and a long way away from the mainland which makes then very hard to visit.

A UNESCO World Heritage site is one that has been deemed to have cultural, historical, scientific or some other form of significance. The status is meant as a way conserve the site for future generations to also enjoy. The sites usually have some form of legal protection in their country to help prevent their loss.

I plan to update this page as I visit them and provide links the visit report pages for them.

Blenheim Palace

Blenheim Palace is located in Woodstock, Oxfordshire. It is the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough. The palace was constructed between 1705 and 1722. It is also the only non-royal house to also have the title of Palace in the United Kingdom.

Blaenavon Industrial Landscape

Blaenavon is located near Torfaen, Wales. It was a major producer of iron for the United Kingdom. It used locally mined coal, iron ore and limestone to produce the iron. The site had the buildings, canals, railways and horse drawn tramways used at the time to produce iron.

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral is one of the oldest Christian structures in England. It is the Cathedral for the leader of the Church of England. It was founded way back in 597, it has been rebuilt several times over the years. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988.

Castle of King Edward in Gwynedd

King Edward I built a series of castles and walls in Wales to help control the local population. The World Heritage status covers a few of these castles such as; Beaumaris, Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech. They were considered the cutting edge of castle design.

City of Bath

Cornwall and West Devon Mining

Cornwall and Devon produced a great deal of tin and copper in the 18th and 19th centuries. The area in fact produced so much copper at its peak of production that it supplied two thirds of the worlds copper. It developed techniques and processes to mine deep into the earth.

Derwent Valley Mills

The Derwent Valley Miils are what is considered the birthplace of the factory system. It played a key role in the industrial revolution. Such as the development of the water frame by Richard Arkwright that massively increased the production of textiles.

Dorset and East Devon Coastline

The Dorset and East Devon Coastline is also know as the Jurassic coast. It goes all he way from Studland bay to Exmouth a total distance of 154km. There are many fossils along the coast providing a history dating back 185 million years.

Durham Castle and Cathedral

Durham Castle is Norman belt castle dating back to 1072. It has been occupied and used by the university since 1837. The cathedral was built in 1093. It holds some relics such as St Cuthbert’s, St Oswald’s head, Venerable Bebe’s remains. The library holds some very impressive books such as three copies of the Magna Carta.

Lake District

The Lake District is located in Cumbira in the north west of England. It is 2,362 square kilometres in area. All of the highest areas in England are within the Lake District including Englands highest point Scarfell Pike (978 meters high). It also has deepest lakes in England, West Water and Windermere.

Forth Bridge

The Forth Bridge is probably the most iconic bridge in Scotland. It is just a little west of the city of Edinburgh. It is a bright red cantilever bridge that crosses the Firth of Forth. The bridge was designed by Benjamin Baker and John Flower. It was built by William Arrol who also happened to build Tower Bridge in London.

Frontiers of the Roman Empire

At the northern end of the Roman empire the Romans constructed Hadrians wall in 142AD to protect their empire from the savages of the north. Originally only Hadrians Wall was classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site. However this was expanded to include Antonine wall, and some walls and fortifications in Germany.

Giant’s Causeway

The Giants Causeway is an area of the north cost of northern ireland. It is special due to its 40,000 interlocking basalt columns. Most of the columns are hexagons in shape, although there are few with a different number of sides. The highest of the columns is over 12 meters in hight. The causeway is over 12 meters thick in some places.

Spas of Bath

The spas of bath were built by the Romans around in 60AD.

Neolithic Orkney

Neolithic Orkney are a collection of Neolithic monuments on the island of Orkeny in Scotland. There are four main Neolitic sites; Maes Howe, Standing Stones of Stenness, Ring of Brodgar and Skara Bane.

Ironbridge Gorge

The Ironbridge gorge is a deep gorge caved out of the rocks by the river Severn in Shropshire. The iron bridge that spans the gorge was the first of its kind in the world. It was constructed in 1779 to help with mining of the local raw materials that were used in the Industrial revolution.

Jodrell Bank Observatory

Jodrell bank was one of the pioneers in radio astronomy. It is located in the north of England away from sources of interference. It was constructed in 1945 by Bernard Lovell from the university of Manchester. Its main dish is 76 meters in diameter, there are also three smaller dishes on the site.

Greenwich

The thing that most people will have heard of Greenwich for is the Osbervatry along with Greenwich meal time. A lot of significant astronomical and navigation were developed there. It was given world heritage status in 2008.

New Lanark

New Lanark is a small village roughly 40km southeast of Glasgow. It was founded in 1786 by David Dale who wanted hosing for the people that worked in his cotton mills. The cotton mills in the area were actually in use until 1968. The houses of the village were restored and given protected status. New Lanark was made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2001.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland. The old part of the city is made up from many Reformation era buildings. The new part was constructed in the 18th/19th centuries.

Palace of Westminster

The Palace of Westminster is the seat of government in the United Kingdom. It holds the house of parliament and the house of Lords. It is situated on the north bank of the river Thames in the City of Westminster. The palace was first constructed in 1016, however that palace was destroyed by fire in 1834. The palace was rebuilt to what is there today from 1840 to 1876. The palace has the iconic tower called the Elizabeth tower which people tend to call Big Ben.

Pontcysyllte Aquaduct

The Pontcysyllte aqueduct is a large stone and cast iron aqueduct in northeast wales. It is made up of eighteen stone arches that carry the Llangollen canal over the river Dee. Constuction was completed in 1805. It is the longest aqueduct in Great Britain it also the highest aqueduct in the world.

Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew

he gardens at Kew were founded in 1840. It holds one of the largest collections of preserved plant specimens in the world with over 8.5 million. It also holds and impressive number of books, with over 750,000. A fun fact is that Kew Gardens have their own police force, Kew Constabulary.

St Kilda

St Kilda is a small group of islands to the North West of Scotlands main coast. There had been a small number of people living on the islands for the past two thousand years. However in 1930 the last permament resident left the islands. It is still and important location for seabirds. It hosts the worlds largest colonies of gannets and over 100,000 puffins.

Saltarire

Saltarire is a village in Shipley that was built by business man Titus Salt in 1851. Salt moved his cotton mills to one location, with such a large amount of working also moving he needed a place for them to live so he built the village to house them. It was given World heritage status in 2001.

Slate landscape of Northwest Wales

The slate landscape of northwest wales is quite a large area of land. It encompasses ten different valleys or quarries over the north of wales. Such as Penrhyn quarry, Ogwen valley and Dinorwic quarry.

Stonehenge

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire. It is a large stone circle made of of stones that are 4m high by 2.1m wide they weigh roughly 25 tons each. The current estimate is that it was constructed somewhere between 3000BC and 2000BC. Stonehenge was built so that it allignes to the summer solstice.

Studley Royal Park

Studley park is an 800 acre park in North Yorkshire. It has an 18th century landscaped garden, a large Cistercian ruin, other ruins include Jacobean mansion a victorian church. There used to be a house within the park but that was destroyed by fire in 1946.

Tower of London

The Tower of London is a castle on the north bank of the river Thames. Contruction of the castle began in 1066, there were significant expansions in the 12th and 13th centuries. The tower has served many proposes during its long time, armoury, treasury, it was home to the Royal Mint for a time. It currently houses the Crown Jewels.

There are a couple of places on the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites in the United Kingdom that is not in the above list. These are too far to be able to currently do. They are the following.

  • Gorham’s Cave Complex – Gibraltar
  • Gough and Inaccessible Islands – Tristian da Cunha
  • Henderson Island – Henderson Island
  • Historic town of St George – Bermuda

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