Brick tax

Tax on bricks introduced in Great Britain in 1784 to help pay for the American War of Independence.

Eccles cake

Named after the town in Lancashire where it was first made, the Eccles cake is a confection made of flaky pastry filled with currants.

Beeston Castle

Former royal castle built in the 1220s by Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester, (1170–1232), on his return from the Fifth Crusade.

Humphrey Chetham

English merchant responsible for the creation of Chetham’s Hospital and Chetham’s Library, the oldest public library in the English-speaking world.

Benefit of Clergy Act 1575

Act of Parliament that removed the right of those charged with rape or burglary to claim benefit of clergy, and so to be tried in an ecclesiastical court.

Statute of Silence 1581


Act of Parliament introducing a series of increasingly gruesome punishments for speaking or publishing anything that Queen Elizabeth I did not wish to hear.

Cock Lane ghost

Purported haunting that attracted mass public attention in 1762.

Number of the beast

Hideous beast whose number is 666, introduced in the Book of Revelation, which many have seen as a description of the end of the world.

Cotswold Olimpick Games

The Cotswold Olimpick Games is an annual public celebration of games and sports held on the Friday after Spring Bank Holiday near Chipping Campden, in the Cotswolds of England.