Let’s begin by looking at several of the claimants to the title of Oldest Pub in Britain. The Guinness Book of Records officially recognises Ye Olde Fighting Cocks in St Albans.

Originally named the Round House, the current name was taken from the barbaric sport which used to take place in the bar. While the octagonal building dates to the 11th century, it was moved to its current location in 1599. This fact leads to disputes about the legitimacy of its claim to be the oldest pub.

It’s unsure exactly when Ye Olde Man & Scythe in Bolton was built, but it was mentioned in historic documents from 1251.

However, it too has been rebuilt over time, with only the cellar remaining from the original building.

Continuing a somewhat predictable naming theme, Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem in Nottingham claims to have been built in 1189, though no official documentation proves that, and the current building is about 300 years old.

With no clear winner, I’ll claim the Trip as my personal favourite of the three, having had my share of pints in its tiny rooms and caves carved out of Castle Rock.

The Sheep Heid in Edinburgh claims to be Scotland’s oldest pub, dating the site to 1360.

While they probably no longer sell the food for which the pub is named, it is a listed building with a famous skittle alley about 140 years old.

The Skirrid Mountain Inn claims to be Wales’ oldest pub, with an interesting history serving as a courthouse, with condemned prisoners being hung from a beam in the bar.

Moving on to other superlatives, Britain’s highest pub is also somewhat disputed. The Tan Hill Inn at 528m above sea level is generally considered the highest.

Anything at this altitude in the Pennines sees its share of weather; in fact after this past new year’s, revellers spent 3 days trapped in the pub because of snow. I can think of worse places to be stuck, and by all accounts a jolly time was had by all.

The Cat & Fiddle in Derbyshire is contesting the title however, with measurements placing it anywhere from 515m to 540m.

Meanwhile, Street View takes us to the top of the Glenshane Pass (305m) and Northern Ireland’s highest pub, the Ponderosa.

A number of pubs boast somewhat gruesome histories or legends, including Bristol’s Hatchet Inn, where the front door is rumoured to be covered in human skin (underneath the paint).

Meanwhile, the Bucket of Blood in Phillack takes it’s attractive name from an incident many years ago when the landlord, fetching water from the well, pulled up a pail full of human blood.

The victim is purported to be the local tax collector, with his ghost believed to haunt the pub to this day. A hearty red ale is served to take advantage of this story.

To Scotland, and the more heart-warming story of Edinburgh’s Grayfriars Bobby’s Bar, named for a dog which, in the 19th century, spent 14 years watching over the grave of his owner.

A small statue of Bobby is visible outside the pub, which is near the graveyard where Bobby kept his faithful watch.

Also in Edinburgh, the Canny Mans is notable both for the vast collection of random objects which adorn the ceilings and walls, and the strictly-enforced list of ‘rules’ outside the pub, giving it a reputation as somewhat unwelcoming.

Finally, Glasgow’s Horse Shoe claims the longest bar in the world, though that is disputed by a number of other establishments.

With an estimated 50,000+ pubs in Britain, this is just a tiny selection. Where do you raise a glass?

Thanks to Alex and James for the Scottish locations, and kevinoakgrove for the Ponderosa.

Locations: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales / Categories: Buildings, Street Views, Weirdness

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Google collaborated with the National Trust to allow the Street View trikes to gain entry to 20 of the National Trust’s protected locations.¹

Dorset’s Corfe Castle overlooks the village of the same name, and provides picturesque views of the English countryside from the ruined battlements. Partially destroyed during the English Civil War, pieces of the castle were “borrowed” for construction in the village, where some of the original stones and door frames remain.

There are fantastic views off the north-eastern coast of Northern Ireland at Downhill Demesne and Mussenden Temple. Designed as a library, the temple was built in 1785 near the edge of the cliffs, and by 1997 was in serious danger of being lost to coastal erosion.

Plas Newydd is a Welsh country house which dates from the 14th century, where you can man the cannons across the Menai Strait. Don’t try to ask for directions though, as it’s in the Welsh village with the famously-long-winded name: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch².

Here in Scotland we have our own National Trust, who were unfortunately not involved with the project. However Google did also add images from the beautiful coastline of Loch Ness.

Although we’ve not had any reports of a Nessie sighting (yet), another mystery has been spotted: Some say he’s the Loch Ness monster, all we know is… it’s The Stig!

Yes, for reasons as yet unknown, Top Gear’s faceless racing driver has been captured just hanging around at the side of the road. What on earth for we wonder? Wasn’t his last appearance on Street View enough?³

You can see all 20 of the National Trust sights on Street View at this special Google Maps page.

Locations: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales / Categories: Natural Landmarks, Street Views

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Completed over 200 years ago, this stunningly beautiful engineering masterpiece was designed by everyone’s favourite² civil engineer Thomas Telford (1757 – 1834), and to this day it remains the longest and highest aqueduct in the UK.

Despite scepticism at the time (this was the late 1700s after all), Telford was convinced he could build a cast iron trough to carry the canal over the massive 307 metre span of the valley. After all, he had seen his methods succeed at Longdon-on-Tern, where he had designed the world’s first cast iron navigable aqueduct.

Originally constructed as part of the now long-abandoned Shrewsbury Canal, today the Longdon-on-Tern aqueduct still sits astride the River Tern, and is not only Grade I listed but is also a scheduled ancient monument.

Despite this previous experience, the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is truly a testament to Telford’s genius. The cast iron trough he designed soars 38 metres above the valley floor, regularly carrying narrowboats safely³ over the valley.

In ultimate recognition of its importance, on the 27th of June 2009, the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct became a UNESCO World Heritage Site, joining a list of nearly 900 other places of great cultural or physical significance that includes such treasures as the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, and Stonehenge.

Thanks to the ever on-the-ball Jonathan Rawle. See the Wikipedia links in this article for more info, or explore Wikipedia’s list of works by Thomas Telford.

Locations: Wales / Categories: Bridges, Monuments, Watercraft

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You might guess San Francisco. If you’re a Guinness Book of Records-reading smart alec, you might say New Zealand. As it turns out, you’d be wrong – probably. In fact, nobody seems quite sure which is the world’s steepest, and then there’s the problem of what exactly counts as a street anyway.

But we’ve looked into it, got out protractors out, and can now reveal the not-quite-scientifically-verified Google Sightseeing Top Six World’s Steepest Streets! And happily, the intrepid Street View car has struggled its way up (or down) all of them. Here they are, in reverse order:

6) Dornbush Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

In the East Hills area of the city, this quiet-looking residential street has been surveyed at a 31.98% grade – that’s a 17.7° slope. The Street View car missed out one section of the steepest part, which is one-way in the downhill direction. Check out the heavy-duty concrete staircase.

5) Maria Avenue, Spring Valley, California

Here’s a prime example of the “We’ve got a grid system and we’re damn well going to stick to it” school of city planning. Google’s Terrain view shows how the north-south street pattern has been laid out with no regard whatsoever to the steep contours – in fact you have to wonder whether the planners had ever even visited the site!

Maria Avenue marches straight up the southern slope of Dictionary Hill, attaining a surveyed grade of 32% (17.7°) just north of Chestnut Street. This section of road seems to be paved with concrete, and is cut off from the section above: Street View leaps straight across the gap, missing out this part of the road. The next block to the east would have been even steeper – Buena Vista Avenue is shown on the street map, but the builders understandably admitted defeat there.

4) Baxter Street and Fargo Street, Los Angeles, California

We’ll call this one a tie. These two streets are right next to one another in the Silver Lake district of LA, and both have been measured at 32%, but they get the nod over Maria Avenue on account of being altogether more exciting.

Baxter Street goes up and up and up… but then it goes down almost as steeply, giving the alarming impression that you’re about to drive off a cliff as you approach the summit.

Fargo Street is much shorter – only one block – but that’s plenty long enough for the cyclists who enter the annual Fargo Street Hill Climb. In 2008 one nutter rode up it 101 times in one day.

3) Eldred Street, Los Angeles, California

Just pipping Baxter and Fargo, with a 33% (18.3°) grade at its topmost end, LA’s steepest is in the Highland Park area. It rises 67m over only 400m, which presents some interesting challenges for its residents, according to an entertaining LA Times article.

2) Baldwin Street, Dunedin, New Zealand

Despite being listed in the Guinness Book of Records (and having that sign at the bottom), Baldwin Street doesn’t make the top slot. True, the top section attains an impressive 35% (19.3°) grade; true, it’s quite a slog walking up, even with the steps at the side¹; and true, sliding down it in a wheelie bin is a very bad idea; but it’s not the steepest. Unless anyone else knows better, the winner is…

1) Canton Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The signs at the top say “Do Not Enter”, and in slippery conditions you’d do well to heed them. Canton Avenue, a short cobbled street in Pittsburgh’s Beechview neighbourhood attains a whopping 37%, or 20.3°, gradient, making it the steepest public road in the United States – and, quite possibly, the world. This YouTube video shows what happens when you try and cycle up it, and this article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has more photos, giving an idea what it’s like to live there in winter. You can bet the residents of this house at the bottom of the hill are quite glad of that crash barrier out the front.

Honourable mentions

Here are a few other contenders that, for various reasons, didn’t quite “make the grade”…

West 28th Street, San Pedro, Los Angeles

Apparently this is officially the steepest LA street, at 33.3% (18.4°, just pipping Eldred), but looking at it on Street View, the steep portion is pathetically short. Next!

Ffordd Pen Llech, Harlech, Wales

This lane, said to be the steepest in Britain, plunges down the side of the steep hill topped by Harlech Castle. Sadly, Street View hasn’t reached rural north Wales yet, but there is high-resolution aerial imagery. The sign at the top claims it to be a 40% (21.8°) slope, but that seems dubious. And in any case, look at the sign just below the gradient warning: “Anaddas i fodur”. Unsuitable for motors. Disqualified on a technicality…

Waipio Valley Road, Hawaii

Now we’re talking: 45% gradient, or 24.2° – just look at those contour lines! Sadly, although this potential record-breaker is paved, it is restricted to 4WD vehicles – and in any case, it’s out in the wilds of the north of the Big Island, and with no houses on it you can hardly call this one a street. Still, it looks like quite a drive, judging by the pictures on this page.

Locations: California, Hawaii, New Zealand, Pennsylvania, Wales / Categories: Street Views

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After long negotiations with Britain’s national mapping agency, we’re extremely pleased to announce that from today the website previously known as Google Sightseeing is to become ORDNANCE SURVEY SIGHTSEEING.

Ordnance Survey is one of the world’s largest producers of maps, and from now on we’ll only be linking to their highly detailed printed maps, and pointing out interesting features represented by a vast array of different icons.

We plan to feature footpaths, cycle paths, topographical sightings, water features and much, much more!

One of the most exciting features we’re bringing to you today means that each time you click through to our map, you’ll need to decide whether you need to see the OS Route, OS Road, OS Tour, OS Landranger, OS Explorer, OS Explorer Active or OS Landranger Active map! You’ll also be able to set the scale of the map at this point, but you won’t be able to change your mind again later.

Users of our map page API should be aware that as of today, latitude and longitudes will no longer work in the query string, and all lookups must instead be performed using an OS Grid reference. Additionally, all KML files will henceforth become GML format, and all previous files will cease to work.

Of course, using all this OS map data isn’t free, so we’ll be expecting all of our readers to chip in some cash to pay for the maps.

We’d like to thank you all for your support over the last four years, and sincerely hope you’ll continue with us on the latest leg of our journey towards inevitable Geographic Nirvana.

Update: Due to overwhelming popularity of the new site we’ve already burned through all our venture capital and “Ordnance Survey Sightseeing Inc.” are now bankrupt. The administrators are planning to revert the site to “Google Sightseeing” on April 2nd, 2009.

Locations: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales / Categories: Site News

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Just off the coast of Wales they spotted this large v-shaped row of rocks beneath the water – which looked like a traditional British fishing weir. This was a fishing method whereby the tide would bring fish through the gaps in the rocks, which would then be blocked by wattle fences when the tide turned to flow out again.

The only problem with fishing in this way was that it was far too effective – this was so well known that the Magna Carta, published in 1215, actually includes the following clause:

(33) All fish-weirs shall be removed from the Thames, the Medway, and throughout the whole of England, except on the sea coast.

So our intrepid “scientists” actually took a trip to Wales to check out in person what they had found, and sure enough, one underwater scuba adventure later, they emerged smugly from the water like some sort of Internet-savvy Indiana Jones’.

How would “scientists” cope these days I wonder, without Google Earth to help them do their research?

Thanks to Frank at the GEarth Blog and Jason Kottke.

Locations: Wales / Categories: Natural Landmarks, Watercraft

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• England: Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cambridge, Coventry, Derby, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Scunthorpe, Sheffield, Southampton, York
• Northern Ireland: Belfast
• Scotland: Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow
• Wales: Cardiff, Swansea.

The BBC claims that 22,369 miles of roads have been imaged in the UK alone, which has taken a year to complete. Interestingly Google appear to have already begun the next stage of the process, as camera cars have been spotted in the last few days in more rural locations, as well as countries that still have no coverage at all.

However The Guardian claims that the biggest challenge in the project was was actually the British weather last summer – as the cars’ cameras are rendered useless by rain and snow.¹

We’ve been posting loads of things onto our Twitter feed already, but here’s a roundup of some of the best ones seen… so far!

Here’s the best available view of Anthony Gormley’s awesome Angel of the North in Tyneside:

Qantas managed to get themselves some bonus coverage for their sky advertising stunt in Liverpool:

Twitter users all over the country have been finding themselves:

Here’s a couple of Londoners who might not want to be seen in public after this. The one wearing antlers is apparently comforting the other guy, who appears to be puking into a pint glass… Classy.

Also in London, many famous pieces of art have been captured, alongside this rather poignant piece by UK super-graffiti-artist Banksy:

In Cardiff a couple has had their happy day recorded for the world to see, and a van man on his lunch makes his feeling known:

In Bristol the car has captured a nasty looking bike crash in progress:

Also, Google have announced that hidden somewhere in the UK imagery is the stripy-jumpered Wally – of Where’s Wally? fame! I imagine there will be vast competition to be the person that finds him!

Our very own Rob Witherow submitted this in an attempt to take the crown of Ultimate Google Street View Sightseer, but somehow we think the real Wally will be slightly more… 3-dimensional!

Street View launched in the US in May 2007 and is already available in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain and Italy. The Netherlands version of the service also launched yesterday, bringing the total number of countries covered to nine, and where some images have already started being removed! Presumably as the guys at Google use sites like this one as filters to spot any dodgy imagery…

Thanks to Stuey, Rob Maddison and the whole of Twitter!

Locations: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales / Categories: Street Views

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Street View has arrived here in the UK at long last, and Google have given us imagery in many parts of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Additionally, Street View is now available in the Netherlands for the first time, and while they were at it, Google has added several new cities in France and Spain!

Coverage is extensive, and covers all of the UK’s major cities. Both of the GSS HQs in Edinburgh and Oxford have coverage, and London has an absolutely staggering number of blue lined streets!

In Edinburgh the images appear to have been taken mainly during the Edinburgh Festival, which explains why there’s lots of odd looking people around.¹ You can see the seating for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo in place on the Castle Esplanade.

Here’s London’s seat of power, Downing Street, showing off their awesome security measures, which has been captured alongside all of the other standard tourist sights like the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.

In Belfast, it seems that the famous Northern Irish political murals aren’t safe from Google’s face-blurring software!

The Netherlands has also received a large helping of Street View today with coverage of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Here’s the “Coffee Shop Extase” and Sex Museum:

Other reports are coming in of new Street View imagery in France (including Calais and Le Havre), Spain (including expanded coverage or Barcelona), Northern Italy, and expanded coverage in numerous US states.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter for the latest news, and new Street Views throughout the day.

Google Maps Mania has a good selection of London sights to see, but what else have you found?

Locations: England, France, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Wales / Categories: Site News, Street Views

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Recently the BBC has uncovered that thrill-seeking kayakers have been sliding down the reservoir’s spillway during times of high water, which probably makes this the world’s largest water slide.

This “dangerous” activity has been banned by Welsh Water but, as this video on the BBC shows, it looks like one hell of a way to spend an afternoon.

At the time these images were taken the spillway was in full flow but apparently, at times of low water, a couple of houses that were submerged to make way for the reservoir can be seen protruding from the surface.

Thanks to VGT and the BBC.

More about the Llyn Brianne Reservoir Spillway at Wikipedia.

Locations: Wales / Categories: Structures, Watercraft

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The stone was erected in 2000 by the company reclaiming the quarry and surrounding land for housing. Some good pictures can be found at this Flickr set.

More mysterious are the several nearby shapes created from rocks, sand and gravel – a compass, a spiral and other assorted designs. Exhaustive research (i.e. trawling through Google while drinking my morning cup of tea) has failed to reveal any information about these features. Are they art? Very ambitious graffiti? Alien communications? Who made them? Can any locals enlighten us?

Thanks to AndrewAnorak.

Locations: Wales / Categories: Monuments, Weirdness

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