Adlington Hall, Cheshire

Join John Betjeman on a tour of a magnificent Cheshire landmark.

"It's very English, Adlington Hall" declares John Betjeman in his reverential tour of the magnificent fifteenth-century Cheshire landmark. The poet chose the locations and wrote and voiced the commentaries for all 26 editions of Discovering Britain with John Betjeman, whose underlying remit was to inspire car-owning viewers to fill their tanks with Shell petrol and hit the road.

The Betjeman-Shell alliance had begun back in the 1930s when the oil giant commissioned the writer to edit a set of guide books to the British Isles, the infamous Shell Guides. The series was directed by Peter Woosnam-Mills, the head of Random Films, which specialised in documentaries on the theme of motoring. It was broadcast on Friday evenings on ITV in 1955-6 and again (as re-edited versions) in the mid-1960s.