Re: The American's first UK visit
 

My daughter, then very young had never seen an open fireplace until she came to the UK. It seemed to fascinate her. I caught her a couple of times trying to see up the chimney.
"Wow it really goes all the way up to the roof" ? she asked wide eyed

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Did you tell her small children would be sent all the way up to clean it?

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Houses with fireplaces are hardly a rarity in the US. :confused:

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

True but the house we lived in and all the other houses on the estate were not built with fireplaces and she was only seven at the time.

A friend of ours in the UK told us that they had relatives over from Canada. Their small child had never seen a fireplace either and asked if it was a large ashtray. They're only kids after all ;)

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

LOL! When I lived in the Hague, I always enjoyed taking American visitors to Delft and showing them the churches. First the Oude Kerk (old church) - this one dates from the 13th century. Then the Nieuwe Kerk (new church) - they started building that one in 1396 - before we even discovered the Americas - and finished in 1496!

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

I used to live here. We lived across the road from the church which was built around 1120.

The house we lived in was a 350 year-old farmworker's cottage. It was originally 2 1-room cottages which had been knocked into one and then extended upwards and backwards to create a 3-bedroom house. We rented it for about a year before we moved State-side.

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

I can even beat that - just. I grew up in Chichester - our Cathedral dates from 1075.

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

I told her that once there were people who cleaned chimneys and that Santa comes down thru chimneys in houses that have them.

She answered something like. "Well that sounds pretty dumb. Why doesn't Santa use the front door like everybody else"

Smart ass kid :lol:

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

The oldest building I remember being in was a pub in Nottingham near the castle called the Trip to Jerusalem. The landlord told us that it had been a stop for crusaders on the way to the Holy Land. The ceilings were unusually low and he explained that the average height for a full grown man back then was much shorter than now

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

I've went there quite often when I was at RAF Newton, just outside of Nottingham. From what I remember "Trip to Jerusalem" was cut into the rock below Nottingham Castle.

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Almost a 1000 years after the Roman Colosseum then.

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Yes it was and apparently there's a tunnel somewhere linking the pub to the castle or so we were told.

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

But nowt so old as Stone Henge or the Roman baths in the city of the same name. Great places for an American visitor with a sense of history

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Ah, Ye Olde Trip. I was a student in Nottingham. If you didn't drink your beer fast enough, a fine layer of dust from the cave roof would form on the top. That was our excuse anyway. :lol:

Re: The American's first UK visit
 

Sounds like we had the same old haunts. From Nottingham I went on the RAF Leconfield near Beverley, a regular in the Green Dragon.