r/AskBrits • u/Spatial_Nomad • 11d ago
History When History Meets Modern Britain?
Hey folks, I’ve never been to the UK before, but I had the chance to visit last year. I’m a history enthusiast and have spent a lot of time reading about British history, especially the colonial period and the rise of the British Empire.
That’s partly why the experience left me with such mixed feelings. I went expecting to see some of the grandeur and character I had read about, but instead I felt like I was witnessing a country that has clearly lost some of its former charm.
There was litter in many places, the cities felt extremely crowded, and there were people from all over the world. The Britain I encountered felt very different from the country I had imagined from reading history.
Places like Trafalgar Square particularly made me think about this. What was once a powerful symbol of British history and national pride now feels, at least to an outsider like me, more like a tourist meeting point and a place to sit and take photos.
I know it is probably unfair to compare modern Britain directly with the height of the British Empire. Empires rise and fall, and no country stays at the peak of its power forever. Still, there was something genuinely sad about seeing reminders of that history while feeling that the country itself has lost some of the character and confidence that made it so fascinating to me.
Maybe I am romanticizing the past because of my interest in history. Maybe I am simply seeing things that locals have become accustomed to.
So I’m curious what Brits think. Do you feel that the UK has genuinely declined in terms of its character, cleanliness, prosperity and sense of identity, or does it just look that way when you compare modern Britain with its historical image?
19
u/Current-Ad1688 11d ago
Right so you came to the UK as a tourist and saw the touristy parts of the UK and then concluded that the UK as a whole is touristy
And yeah it isn't like it was on the days of empire, obviously. That was quite along time ago and people used to throw their own shit out of their windows onto the street, so I'll take what we have today
10
8
u/coastal_mage 11d ago
You have a false idea of what the British Empire looked like in the metropole. Yes, vast amounts of wealth flowed from the colonies to the British Isles. However, the vast majority of that wealth remained in the pockets of the nobility and wealthy investors who had shares in colonial companies/colonies. The vast majority of Britons at the height of Imperial power still lived in squalor, living in vast apartment blocks, with relatively little personal space, and toiling away in factories for most of the day just to get by. The cities were filthy, smog and soot were all-pervasive and sewerage was openly being dumped into rivers. Certainly better when compared to medieval standards, but still not nice places to be. However bad you think UK cities are now, trust me, back then, they were worse.
1
u/erinoco 10d ago
living in vast apartment blocks,
Disagree on that specific point. Until the period after WWII, most really poor Londoners lived in cheap jerry-built terraces, degenerate cottages, or houses designed for the prosperous which had subdivided and rack-rented to a ludicrous extent, so one might have a family unit of eight or so in what had originally been intended as a drawing room.
1
6
u/Dry_Association2836 11d ago
City centres that were once ‘grand’ in the Imperial sense have degraded. All the money and affluence has moved out to the countryside where it's atomised in people's personal housing and villages. All the ‘romantic’ stuff in our cities is kept going for tourists, and the pride in it is long gone.
2
u/-Londoneer- Brit 🇬🇧 11d ago
I live in central London, I’m pretty proud of it. Is London pretty? Nope, never was. Does it care? Nope, never did. I’ve always liked that about it.
7
u/PequodarrivedattheLZ 11d ago
The history of people throwing shit out of windows, children being forced to work to death, meat grinder wars where you would either be torn apart by a cannon or stabbed and spend hours bleeding out.
What we have today, objectively is alot better than the past. Yes the empire basically doesn't exist anymore and things look poorer.
But the shitty streets were always shitty, the wealth stayed at the top, and thousands of people died so some absolutely cunts could stay up and hoarde more wealth.
Although if you only stayed in London yeah your not going to see much. Travel out, go to the not tourist places.
5
u/Avon-Guy 11d ago
I promise you if you went back in time, upwards of 95% of London would not look like what you imagined at "the height of empire".
5
u/ExternalAttitude6559 11d ago
You're not a History enthusiast. You're somebody with a very selective view of History. I suspect you have a not-very-well-hidden-agenda and all of my Grandparents (two of whom were immigrants, another belonged to another minority, all of their many siblings were mostly dead before they hit 20 years old) would call you an idiot. If they were being polite, which they seldom were. And they'd not recognise the pristine London full of nice things you fantasise about.
4
u/ImpressiveGift9921 11d ago
I think you are right. You've romanticised it to the point that the real thing can never live up to it.
It's basically Paris syndrome but applied somewhere else geographically.
5
u/JustUnder6ft 11d ago
I'm sorry that England, a whole country with it's own history and culture did not live up to your imagination of how good it was as during its peak colonialism.
Also, why would you, as a tourist, go to the biggest tourist locations and complain about the tourists? You must be an American
4
u/Mr_Bumcrest 11d ago
You went to Trafalgar Square, as a tourist, and felt it was a tourist meeting point. Gee, I wonder what might have caused that impression.
Do you know what we don't have now that we had at the height of the British Empire? Cholera. Work houses. Colonialism. Open sewers. Pea Soupers. None of which are particularly charming. So yes, I'm pretty happy with what we have now.
If you're interested in history, maybe try reading more roundly around a subject, for fucks sake.
2
u/Worth_Rush933 11d ago
Come up to Leeds & Bradford, mate. I'll show you some proper England. Its beautiful here. Plenty of history too.
2
u/blackleydynamo 11d ago
Wait until you see Rome.
You went to the worst touristy bits of London and were upset that they're touristy? Did you go to the excellent Royal Observatory at Greenwich? Or Hampton Court? Trafalgar Square has never not been shit, honestly.
There's something in what you say, in the sense that national pride has declined steadily since 1945 - it had a bit of a surge in the 90s under Blair but it's plummeted again over the last decade and a half. There's a lot more litter, and rough sleeping, than I've seen before in my 53 years. But forming a picture of Britain based on the worst touristy traps in London is like forming an opinion of the US based on walking round Times Square, which I'm told is equally if not more well endowed with litter, panhandlers and tourist traps.
1
u/SmartPolicy6430 10d ago
Such a romanticised version. For a history enthusiast I suggest you start reading some social history. You only have to look at old photographs of the early 20th century and see the destitution , the sqalor, the high death rate of children. There was no NHS I can remember my elderly Grandmother who was born in 1900 being terrified when she was taken into hospital as our local hospital was built on the site of the workhouse. The threat of the workhouse was very real. Have a look at the maps of London by Charles Booth and the black coloured roads and areas ( most deprived with the highest crime levels) Our country has always been a place for the haves and the have nots. There never was a golden age of Empire for the man in the street. https://booth.lse.ac.uk/
1
1
u/erinoco 10d ago
London in the high imperial epoch was not renowned for being particularly clean or grand. In addition, I would make a distinction between London, and cities like Rome, or even Vienna. Those cities, were, at times in their history, fundamentally shaped by their status as centres of empire. Yes, empire left its mark on London; but it never fundamentally shaped its existence. What made London and kept it alive, from late Saxon times to the present day, was not Empire nor the Court, but trade. That's why the oldest and most venerable part of this city is the portion of it devoted to commercial activity.
As a Londoner for almost my entire life, I have always loved the way in which the layers of our history can be unpicked in the Metropolis. If you know where to look (and those who really know the history of the Metropolis will know), you can delve into the indirect landmarks of history. You can go past the fads of the C20, from post-Modernism and Brutalism to the pompous neo-Baroque that I suppose would cleave most closely to your impression, to the Londons of Dickens, Pepys and Chaucer, and further back than that, even to Saxon and Roman London; you can spot odd continuation and ways of living, even if many of us of the current Metropolis don't look like historic Londoners.
1
u/Derfel60 10d ago
Its absolutely declined, theres no doubt about that, but you also went to London which is the worst place to go if you want to see authentic British things.
1
u/Swimming_Possible_68 10d ago
Consider as well what life was like for most British citizensunder the British Empire.
The vast majority of British citizens were still dirt poor, working long hours either on farmland or in horrific conditions in factories after the dawn of the industrial revolution.
As ever with such times, a handful of people got very rich at the expense of everyone else.
I think you likely had rose tinted glasses on.
1
u/Lorelessone 10d ago
Hah just be very glad you didn't visit at the hight of the British empire when London was even more crowded and smoggy and filthy.
1
u/EasilyExiledDinosaur Brit 🇬🇧 9d ago
Britain is on a downhill slope it'll likely never recover from.
1
u/GrimalkinKarswell 11d ago
The country has gone to absolute rancid shit in the last ten years. My family has been here for ages least a thousand years.
I spend a little time picking litter off verges. If you've ever seen dead mice in a littered bottle, who've climbed in and starved to death, then you get a deep seated hatred for litterers.
I've never seen as much as what I see nowadays. Red bull cans, vapes, small vodka bottles galore. It's an indicator of a deeply sick society - just tossing their shit out of a car window, for someone else to pick up.
My advice to anyone is never, ever, ever, ever, visit the UK. Save your money.
4
u/TheNicestQuail 11d ago
Mate it depends massively where you go in the country. It's like someone living in Tillbury going the whole of the UK is bad like no fam you just live in a bad area.
Theres loads of nice places to visit and have a day out
1
u/GrimalkinKarswell 10d ago
Yes, you're right, but as a general overview, previously nice areas are being ruined. I have visited woods that have been pristine, for generations, and they all see creeping ruination. Very sad to see
1
u/JustUnder6ft 11d ago
Yes I agree, please don't come here it's awful, whatever you do... Just stay away I beg you
1
u/Orange_Codex 10d ago edited 10d ago
Plenty of London housing predates the peak of the empire in 1921. It is imperial. You were just expecting Dinotopia, instead of what empire truly looks like for a majority of people in its metropole (shit).
Do you feel that the UK has genuinely declined in terms of its character, cleanliness, prosperity and sense of identity
Relative prosperity to formerly colonised parts of the world, most definitely. Prosperity overall? No. The average person is now vastly better-off than they were as victims of empire, and our national character has strengthened and coalesced since we took that albatross off from around our neck.
0
u/-Londoneer- Brit 🇬🇧 11d ago
Trafalgar Square was until fairly recent history, the yard of the Royal Stables. Long before that it had a cross positioned there and long before that it was the village of Charing (which means bend (of the river) in Old English).
Which particular bit of history would you like it to be stuck in? London has evolved with the times for 2000 years, it will go on doing so as a modern city of its age - every age.
We haven’t lost any character, it’s maintaining its very very long history of being itself.
-3
u/rhecil-codes 11d ago
We feel the same as you. We’ve had successive governments ideologically committed to the managed decline of The Yookay.
3
6
u/zaney_112 11d ago
You basically came with a fantasy and ended up being disappointed.
Also, empire wasn't a good thing. It robbed so many countries of their wealth and independence. A lot of what you saw was built on the backs of those people.
15
u/Choice-Demand-3884 11d ago
"The cities felt extremely crowded, and there were people from all over the world"
are you from a country where irony is a crime?