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The French chateau where Richard the Lionheart died after being hit by a bolt from a crossbow has quietly been put on the market with a small ad offering this remarkable piece of Anglo-French history for well under a million pounds. The castle of Châlus-Chabrol, about 110 miles...

An eight-year-old boy has made a new friend thousands of miles away after finding a message in a bottle washed up on a Cornish beach. Noah Crooks was helping to clear plastic debris from Storm Eleanor at Stanbury Mouth near Bude with his brother and father earlier this month. His father...

A 373-year-old bill with "one of the earliest" mentions of tea in England has been unearthed in an archive. A curator from Temple Newsam House, near Leeds, found the 1644 bill for medicinal ingredients bought by the estate. Rachel Conroy found mention of bottles of China drink, the old name...

Four British amateur rowers are believed to have set a new world record for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. Friends George Biggar, Dicky Taylor, Peter Robinson and Stuart Watts spent 29 days and 15 hours at sea during the 3,000-mile crossing from the Canary Islands to the...

A butcher who became trapped in a walk-in freezer escaped thanks to a frozen black pudding. Chris McCabe, 70, said he got trapped after the freezer door in his shop in Totnes, Devon, blew shut behind him. Black pudding saves butcher trapped in freezer 11 January 2018 BBC News Chris McCabe...

On 13 November 1553, the 17-year-old Lady Jane Grey became the youngest royal woman to be condemned for treason in British history. Her trial – staged at Guildhall in the heart of the City of London – was a very public humiliation. For Jane, its outcome was a personal catastrophe. How had...

The RAF - the world's oldest airforce - celebrates its 100th birthday on 1st April, so it's time to celebrate the plucky little aircraft that helped win the war... The plucky little plane that won the war! As the RAF celebrates its centenary, Robert Hardman salutes the Spitfire that sent...

New movie Darkest Hour follows Britain's great wartime leader Winston Churchill in his early days as Prime Minister as Hitler closes in on Britain and highlights the pivotal role of his wife Clementine. Their granddaughter Emma Soames says it's about time that Clementine's role was recognised...

Gemstones from the Crown Jewels were hidden in a biscuit tin at Windsor Castle for safekeeping during World War Two, a BBC documentary will reveal. It was buried below a secret exit on the orders of King George VI to prevent the jewels falling into Nazi hands. Crown Jewels hidden in biscuit...

Morris dancers have celebrated the ancient pagan custom of wassailing by donning black make-up and leading a procession in a bid to prepare orchards for the New Year. The tradition through the villages of Much Marcle and Dilwyn in Herefordshire involves people pouring cider over tree roots...

A leather bound 400-year-old Welsh bible that survived a French invasion, fires and even being used as toilet paper was discovered gathering dust in the back of a church after four centuries. The leather bound 1620 Llanwnda Bible, which withstood the last invasion of Britain in 1797, defied the...

New British historical drama Britannia aims to be the new Game of Thrones. Set in AD 43, the series follows ancient Rome's conquest of the Celts in the British Isles — "a mysterious land ruled by wild warrior women and powerful druids who can channel the powerful forces of the underworld."...

New BBC pre-apocalyptic drama Hard Sun started last night. The series opened with a man hacking into security service GCHQ and coming across a secret so terrifying the authorities want to keep it from public knowledge: that the Sun is going to cause global mass extinction within the next five...

Last week the NHS collapsed. So did the national rail network, and the police service. This was preceded by an explosion in homelessness, and before that an implosion of the judicial and penal system. The year is seven days old. And, if you believe the reports, the country is already on...

Last year’s documentary Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur, which traced the discovery of a new titanosaur species in Argentina, pulled in an impressive 7.5 million viewers, the highest rating for a natural history programme since an episode of Frozen Planet in 2011. Now the veteran...

London beat every other EU city to be crowned tech investment champion of 2017 despite the move to Brexit. The capital had more technology money pour in than the rest of the top ten combined, including Paris, Dublin and Berlin. Best Brexcity London confounds doom-mongers to be crowned...

A HORNY drunk called 999 in a panic after getting seven curtain rings stuck on his todger. The pensioner, 67, is thought to have fallen asleep after putting on the steel bands and taking Viagra during a boozy night in. He woke up in his armchair and realised they were stuck. SOUR DRAPES 999...

He may have a fearsome reputation for savagery and ruthlessness but new research suggests Blackbeard might also have been an avid reader. The infamous pirate and his fellow buccaneers on the 300-year-old flagship Queen Anne's Revenge may have enjoyed reading adventure stories, an...

Shining laser beams onto hillsides could be used as a method of scaring white-tailed sea eagles away from flocks of sheep. The technology is to be trialled in Argyll, an area where crofters and farmers have had issues with the raptors preying on lambs. Scottish Natural Heritage said the...

With the Royal Mail having issued Game of Thrones stamps, Damian Thompson is wondering why it doesn't issue Brexit stamps... Damian Thompson The Royal Mail is pandering to the Remoaners by not making Brexit stamps In 1973 the Royal Mail made stamps to commemorate us joining the Common Market...