Latest additions to the website

 07/05/2008 

New crop of websites! 

Spring has brought its new crop of websites and over recent days we have received many applications from new sites to be included in ours. However quite a few of these have been rejected because they simply are not good enough but rather than just rejecting them out of hand we have put some notes together to help them sort out their issues. Remember we cannot link to a bad site as it would effect our search engine listing where we don't make the rules! 

More... Building a website

 01/05/2008 

Rebuild gathers pace 

Having finally decided on the new design we are now starting with the complicated section menu pages and rebuilding them. We apologise that this may cause a short period of unavailability of the section we are working on, but usually this will only be for a few minutes. As work progresses we are re-inedxing all the pages and adding a new site search facility powered by Google, The CSS design is far more functional and judging by the increase in visitor numbers and page views is being very well received. 

 15/04/2008 

New Home Page 

We have taken the plunge and replaced our Home Page with a new one. It's of a similar layout to the old one however the technology behind it is entirely new having replaced the old table layout with one controlled by CSS (Cascade Style Sheets). We hope you like it. 

 14/04/2008 

New site design 

As Spring is in the air, it is time to give the entire site a wash and polish. This time we are keeping the colour scheme but updating the pages better utilise CSS (Cascade Style Sheets) as they have become more acceptable to the modern browsers. No doubt it will change a bit more before we swap it with the old one. 

 05/04/2008 

New Hotels 

Added 676 new hotels to the accommodation database and over 1,000 hotel pictures have been updated ready for the summer season. 

More... UK Hotel Accomodation

 04/04/2008 

Summer Season Events 

Added over 8,000 events to the National Events Diary that are being held across the country throughout the summer season 

More... Natinal Events and Gigs and Band Tours

 03/04/2008 

New Event Venues 

Added over 600 new event venues across the whole site including many night clubs, cinemas and entertainement centres in preparation to publishing details of a large number of new events being held in the UK over the early summer period. 

More... Entertainment and Event Venues and National Event Diary

 20/03/2008 

Site User Statistics 

Two days ago we achieved one of our highest visitor counts of just under 31,000 user sessions in a 24 hour period. To celebrate we have decided to publish the daily and monthly session counts and also display the number of current users sessions on the site in near real time. You can see the session count in the lower right corner of our Home Page and you can see the ever building statistics by following the link below. 

More... Daily/Monthly Session Graphs

 12/03/2008 

More pictures 

Added over 150 images into the National Image Library made up from a number of old drawings of historic buildings and a selection of black and white images including a collection of images of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway. 

More... National Image Library and RH and D Railway

 03/03/2008 

UK Battlefield Sites 

Added all the locations where major battles have taken place on the UK mainland over the last 1,000 years including those of the Wars of the Roses and the English Civil War 

More... Battlefield Sites

 22/02/2008 

Loads and loads of new events 

Added over 18,000 events of all types and genres to the National Events Diary. These events are linked to their venue and can be accessed either in bulk from the Events Diary or can be viewed from the location of each venue throughout the website. Remember on this site only BIG events show on the national pages, smaller events are displayed on district pages and even smaller ones on the community pages. On the venue pages every event we have listed for that location is shown, if it's not on the venue page then we don't know about it. 

More... National Events Diary

 20/02/2008 

Burtons 

Added 392 Burton's high street stores to the retail database along with their addresses, contact details and links to the Burtons online store 

More... Burton's stores

 18/02/2008 

British Fungi and Lichens 

Added 240 watercolour images to the Flora and Fauna database of British Fungi and Lichens by Ivy Massee published (circa) 1912 

More... British Fungi and Lichens and Flora and Fauna Database

 13/02/2008 

Dorothy Perkins 

Added 566 Dorothy Perkins stores to the Retail Database and a selection of their current Special Offers 

More... Dorothy Perkins Bargains

 07/02/2008 

Greggs the Bakers 

Added 1,200 high street stores of Greggs the Bakers, grouped by their managing division, to the Retail Database, including the store addresses, contact details and links to the Greggs the Bakers website 

More... Greggs the Bakers and Retail Database

 01/02/2008 

Art and Images 

We have created a new section containing stencils about British things for young children to print off and add colour AND we have added over 100 additional watercolours of various species in the Bird section of the Flora and Fauna Database 

More... Colouring for Kids and British Birds

 30/01/2008 

Flora and Fauna Database 

Updated the Flora and Fauna Database with an additional 4,400+ species, 400+ genus and 50+ families. Also adding a new element to the family, genus and species data to accomodate both synonyms and redundant botanic names. 

More... Flora and Fauna Database

 21/01/2008 

More Maps and more UK Postage Stamps 

Added lots of maps to our national map section, including ones of all the National Parks in England and Wales. Also added lots more UK Postage Stamps to our stamp collection 

More... New Maps and UK Postage Stamps

 18/01/2008 

Flora and Fauna Citations 

Added over 250,000 citations to the species records and over 37,000 citations to the genus records within our Flora and Fauna database. These are the people that either discovered the item or who determined its location within the taxonomic structure. 

More... Flora and Fauna Database

 14/01/2008 

Poundland Discount Stores 

Added the addresses and contact details of 164 high street stores and the website of Poundland Ltd 

More... Poundland Stores

 09/01/2008 

Waterstones Bookshops 

Added the entire UK division of Waterstones Bookshops to our retail database including links to their online store and customer service contact details 

More... Waterstones High Street Stores

 08/01/2008 

HMV High Street Stores and Evans Offer 

Added all the HMV high street stores and a link to the HMV online store plus all their contact details for Customer Service and the 229 stores. ALSO an exclusive 10% discount at Evans Online for British Towns and Villages users, follow the Evens link below for more details 

More... HMV High Street Stores and Evans Exclusive Discount

 07/01/2008 

J Sainsbury's and new community locations 

Added the entire J Sainsbury retail estate of 800+ stores including all the Sainsbury stores at Jackson's and Bell's. PLUS we have added over 60 new community locations to the main UK database in the process. 

More... Sainsbury's and Sainsbury's Local

 02/01/2008 

ASDA Walmart 

Added the details of the entire ASDA retail estate to our databases with addresses and contact details for all of their stores. Over time we shall be plotting the exact locations of all of these stores on our local maps 

More... ASDA Supercentres and ASDA

 28/12/2007 

UK Retailers - Online Stores 

Published the first pages of a new section about UK Retailers and UK Online Stores. We already have over 120 major outlets in the database and it will no doubt grow very quickly. 

More... UK Retailers - Online Stores

 23/12/2007 

British Postage Stamps 

Completed the fisrt upload of of 250 images to our new gallery of British Postage Stamps with lots more to come over the coming weeks. 

More... Stamp Collection

 22/12/2007 

Physical Terrain Maps 

Added the facility for our users to change the maps into TERRAIN mode (Click the button on the top right corner of the map) to view physical data on the larger scale maps at city, town and parish level. We will no doubt introduce over the entire site in the next few days. 

More... National Maps

 14/12/2007 

Sports Fixtures 

Added 300 major sports events to the National Events Diary. 

More... General Sporting Events and Football

 13/12/2007 

New Events 

Added 3,500+ additional Comedy, Musical, Ballet and Classical events to the National Event Diary from now until the middle of March and also added 34 new event venues. 

More... National Event Diary and Entertainment Event Locations

 10/12/2007 

Pop Concerts and Performances 

Added over 65 new concert locations and over 1,500 pop concerts and performances around the UK from now until early March 2008 

More... e-Gigs and Pop Concerts

 06/12/2007 

New Hotels and New Pages 

Completed the addition of 764 new accommodation locations across the site and redesigned the gazetteer pages to facilitate an increased level of detail. Whilst we have been doing this we have taken the opportunity to place different grades and types of accommodation onto individual pages to simplify your choice of destination and we have also redesigned the dynamic map pages to support our users who are still using Internet Explorer. 

More... Hotel Accommodation

 30/11/2007 

New Hotels 

We are in the process of adding 760 new hotels and re-designing the way these are displayed for greater speed and simplicity. More news about this when we have finished 

 15/11/2007 

Adding new external websites 

We are now visiting on the web every geographic location recorded in our site looking for websites to add to our directory. We have been to over 600 location already and invited over 1,000 websites to apply for a link. Why wait, if you operate a website that has community interest for example; Clubs, Shops, Businesses, Pubs, Post Offices or most other commercial or charitable concerns in the UK why not apply now? (Applications are, of course, subject to our Terms and Conditions) 

More... Add your UK website and Terms and Conditions

 05/11/2007 

British Moths and British Flowerless Plants 

Added two further sections to the main Flora and Fauna database by itemising those moths found in the British Isles and also the flowerless plants such as ferns, mosses and lichens. Also continuing to link plants, animals and birds to specific places so that you can discover where you can go to see the British Wildlife specie. 

More... British Moths and British Flowerless Plants

 31/10/2007 

800 years of Sailing Ships 

Thirty two detailed line drawings of sailing ships that would have been seen in British waters from the 13th Century until the outbreak of the Second World War 

More... Sailing Ships

 29/10/2007 

Loads going on! 

Added British creepy crawlies to the Flora and Fauna database with over 100 high quality digital photographs of them, also started to itemise where you can see the various British wildlife specie too; if you select a specie the database tells you the locations where it has been seen and if you select a location it gives you a specie list of what you may see there. So far we have done the Wetlands and Wildfowl reserves. Also upgraded the national attraction pages to show you what accommodation is available at each location within a 10Km radius and conversely upgraded the accommodation pages to display attractions and event venues within a 40Km radius. 

More... British Creepy Crawlies and British Tourist Attractions

 28/10/2007 

British Wild Animals 

Completed itemising the main members of the wild animal group in our Flora and Fauna database, created a special section to display them to our visitors and added around 80 high quality digital images to this section. 

More... British Wild Animals

 25/10/2007 

British Bird Pictures 

We have commenced publishing a large number of excellent digital photographs of British Wildlife supplied by Richard Ford of Digital Wildlife. We start adding them to our section on British Birds - Why not have a look at some of them, but remember we still have much to do. 

More... British Birds

 23/10/2007 

British Mushrooms and Toadstools 

Added 17,000 British mushrooms and toadstools (fungi) to the Flora and Fauna database including nearly 1,000 with their recognised common names. Also added pages to allow you to view those with common names. All the other British fungi specie are marked 'native' in the main database. 

More... British Fungi and Main Fungi Database

 18/10/2007 

Native British trees and shrubs 

Completed itemising the major native British trees and shrubs in the British Flora and Fauna database. This section now extracts and displays all the trees and shrubs that are growing in the wild in the British Isles. 

More... British Trees and Shrubs

 17/10/2007 

British Fish 

Added to the Flora and Fauna database the remaining fish specie that are found in and around the British Isles 

More... British Fish

 16/10/2007 

British Freshwater Fish 

Itemised 50 of the main British freshwater fish in the British Flora and Fauna database and created a new section to display them in order of their common names 

More... British Fish

 13/10/2007 

Wild Flower Images 

Added 200 watercolour images of a selection of British Wild Flowers to our new British Flora and Fauna Database 

More... British Wild Flowers

 10/10/2007 

British Birds 

Commenced the entry of British data into the Flora and Fauna database and created a new display only of brids found in the British Isles or the waters immediately around them. 

More... British Birds and Flora and Fauna

 06/10/2007 

Flora and Fauna - Natural History 

Added 300,000 records to the main Flora and Fauna database. Started to catalogue the British entries in preparation to publishing our image library 

More... Flora and Fauna

 28/09/2007 

Pontefract 

Added 10 excellent images of buildings in Pontefract submitted by Roy Gunson 

More... Pontefract

 26/09/2007 

Stonehenge and Avebury 

Added four panoramic images of Stonehenge and one of Avebury Circle to the History section of the site 

More... Stonehenge

 25/09/2007 

Littlecote Roman Villa 

Added Littlecote Roman Villa and a number of high quality photos of the site 

More... Littlecote Roman Villa

 02/08/2007 

Flora and Fauna 

Commenced the build of a huge new database to display our pictures of British Wildlife and British Wildflowers. Added the first 10,000 records to test the system. Will add the remaining 280,000 records when we are happy with the way the pages work 

More... Flora and Fauna

 18/07/2007 

7,000 hotels 

Added a further 1,584 hotels and guest houses to the site making a total of 6,986 accommodation locations that are available for online booking on the site all of which are plotted on our local area maps. 

More... Accommodation

 17/07/2007 

5,000 events added 

Adjusted our hotel booking pages to accommodate the new additional reservation system facilities of Booking.com. Added 5,000 events to the National Events Diary through to March 2008 as part of our agency with Ticketmaster. Remember that smaller events show at District level throughout the site. 

More... Events

 02/07/2007 

Lighthouses 

Added all the lighthouses managed by Trinity House 

More... Lighthouses

 29/06/2007 

Ticketmaster 

We are pleased to announce the we have acquired an affiliate agency with Ticketmaster and are now able to provide ticket purchasing facilities for many of the events listed in the event sections of this site. As this service is developed we will be adding a "Get me some tickets" button to the relevant events. 

More... Ticketmaster and Events

 26/06/2007 

Load Balancing 

MAJOR UPGRADE - The site has now been transferred into a Load Balancing environment to increase the performance and reliability and at the same time all the databases that drive our dynamic pages have been upgraded into SQL 2000. These two moves will allow us to greatly expand our site and add loads more new functionality. 

 23/06/2007 

Bird Sactuaries and more Hotels 

Added all the Bird Sanctuaries managed by the RSPB. We are also pleased to announce the we have acquired an affiliate agency with Booking.com (formerly Active Hotels) and will be adding a further 4,500 hotels to the database in the coming weeks 

More... RSPB and Booking.com

 05/06/2007 

Hotels - Late Rooms 

We are pleased to announce the we have acquired an affiliate agency with Late Rooms and added 5,000 accommodation locations (hotels, B+B's, Guest Houses and Apartments) throughout the site along with their description, directions to them and a map of their location. 

More... Late Rooms

 25/05/2007 

SYHA 

Added the properties of the SYHA (Scottish Youth Hostel Association) for Scotland 

More... SYHA

 20/05/2007 

Scottish Wildlife Trust 

Added the properties of the Scottish Wildlife Trust 

More... SWT

 15/05/2007 

Adding Events 

Owners, managers and hirers of event venues and attractions can now add events at their locations directly to the National Events Diary from their venue pages. 

 12/05/2007 

YHA 

Added the properties of the YHA (Youth Hostel Association) for England and Wales 

More... YHA

 10/05/2007 

Historic Scotland 

Added the properties and attractions on the care of Historic Scotland 

More... Historic Scotland

 07/05/2007 

National Trust for Scotland 

Added the properties and attractions in the care of the National Trust for Scotland 

More... NT Scotland

 06/05/2007 

CADW 

Added all the CADW sites into the National Attractions and also a new dynamic map that displays all the Welsh CADW properties on the same map 

More... CADW

 06/05/2007 

National Trust Map 

Added a new dynamic map that displays the locations of all the National Trust properties and attractions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, all on the same map. 

More... National Trust Map

 03/05/2007 

National Trust 

First block of new data is now available on the site as we have now added all of the sites, we can find, managed by the National Trust in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to our section on Visitor and Tourist Attractions 

More... National Trust

 30/04/2007 

Dynamic Pages 

It took a whole year to do but we have finally moved over to dynamic database driven pages. Now we can get on with adding loads of new items. 

 20/04/2007 

Northern England 

Completed the move of Northern England into the new dynamic pages. 

More... Northern England

 03/04/2007 

Eastern England 

Completed the move of Eastern England into the new dynamic pages. 

More... Eastern England

 29/03/2007 

Search the Nation 

Added a new powerful search function that allows the user to Search the Nation for a particular location. 

More... Search the Nation

 22/02/2007 

Active Server Page Progress 

Very busy over the last few months as the whole of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been moved into the new dynamic database pages and the old pages demised. A new section for the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies has been built too! 

 12/01/2007 

Event Venue 

Added the ability to view events in the National Events Diary by Event Venue 

More... Event Venues

 07/01/2007 

National Events Diary 

Added the ability to view the National Events Diary using Event Type 

More... Events Diary

 02/12/2006 

Falkland Islands Photo Album 

Created the new Falkland Islands Photo Album to mark the Silver Jubilee of the Liberation 

More... Photo Album

 20/10/2006 

Southern England 

Have moved the whole of southern England, all counties and districts below London and Bristol into the new database 

 02/04/2006 

Active Server Pages everywhere! 

Commenced converting the entire site to database driven Active Server Pages 

 15/03/2006 

Active Server Pages 

Test of new style Active Server Pages in the Huntingdonshire section of the site 

 22/02/2006 

Google Maps 

Prototype Google Maps added to the site 

 02/12/2005 

UK Administrative Structure 

Added a description of the area and administrative structure of the nation 

More... More

 05/11/2005 

UK Maps 

Added a new experimental dynamic map system to the site, this application allows users to pan and zoom to any location in the UK and also to view satellite images of the chosen location. 

More... UK Maps

 06/10/2005 

Southern Hemisphere 

Added South Georgia and our Antarctic bases to the British Towns Network 

More... South Georgia and Antarctic bases

 27/09/2005 

Falkland Islands 

Added the Falkland Islands to the British Towns Network 

More... Falkland Islands

 21/09/2005 

Demographics 

RSS feeds added to the Demographics section from the Office of National Statistics and a number of "new" museums added to the Attractions database. We have also added new image icons to the National Events sections 

More... National Demographic

 19/09/2005 

Event Application 

Created new online Application Form to allow Event Organisers to submit their events directly to our database 

More... How to add an event

 15/09/2005 

Historical Wales 

Completed the historical notes for all the "old" counties of Wales 

More... Wales

 28/08/2005 

Northern Ireland 

Completed the historical notes for all of the old counties of Northern Ireland with many old photographs. 

More... Northern Ireland

 20/08/2005 

Sir Caerfyrddin (Carmarthenshire) 

Historical notes for Sir Caerfyrddin (Carmarthenshire) added to the site 

More... Sir Caerfyrddin

 16/08/2005 

RSS News Feeds 

RSS News Feeds from the BBC have been added to the County and Region pages of the entire site 

 12/06/2005 

Amazon and Google 

Associated links to Amazon and Google have been added to the County and Region pages of the entire site 

 20/04/2005 

And more Historical Notes 

Even more historical notes added to Ceredigion, Bute, Caithness and Buckinghamshire 

 12/02/2005 

More Historical Notes 

Historical notes added about the counties of Windsor, West Berkshire, Reading and the 'old' counties of Huntingdonshire (Cambridgeshire) , Breconshire (Powys) and Berwickshire (Scottish Borders) 

 04/02/2005 

Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire 

Continuing to add historical notes to the counties having completed Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire 

More... Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire

 17/01/2005 

Rathlin Island 

A completely new page added for Rathlin Island, just off the coast of Northern Ireland, in the district of Moyle. Rathlin has an up and coming "colony" of artists and craft workers and is a hot-spot for wreck diving in the UK. 

More... Rathlin Island

 12/01/2005 

Local Notes 

We have commenced uploading historical and geographical notes on each county to the site beginning with those of Aberdeenshire, Anglesey and Argyll but no prizes for guessing we're tackling this in alphabetical order! 

 20/12/2004 

Events Diary 

The National Events Diary is beginning to fill up for next year. If you are running an event AND the event has its own website then let us know using the Feedback Form above 

More... Events Diary

 01/12/2004 

Spring Clean 

The entire site is having is annual coat of paint and some new features including a new set of page headers and footers to allow for easy access to all parts of the site.