Su Carroll rounds up the things to do in February, including the best activities to try and what to see close to the coastline this month…
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Nature’s Finest
Looking for things to do in February that mark the arrival of spring? Nothing says spring is coming like the arrival of the snowdrop. At the Cambo Country House and Estate on Fife’s stunning coastline, they mark the occasion with the renowned Snowdrop Festival, now in its 16th year.
Cambo Estate at St Andrews is home to the UK’s Plant Heritage national collection of snowdrops. The Erskine family, particularly Catherine Erskine, has been dedicated to preserving, expanding, and meticulously cultivating snowdrops for generations. It has turned this visitor attraction into a haven for snowdrop lovers, known as galanthophiles, who return annually to witness the spectacular display of 200 specialist snowdrop varieties carpeting the estate, and to purchase snowdrops ‘in the green’, for their own gardens.
At the heart of the estate sits Cambo House, home of the Erskines since the late 1600s and still a family home. This year, as part of the snowdrop festival and for the first time in over seven years, Cambo House will be opening its doors for a limited period, providing an opportunity to enjoy a tour of the house, learn about its history and what life was like to live and work there. Refreshments are included with the tour.
Throughout February and early March, cambogardens.org.uk
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St Andrews is, of course, known as the birthplace of golf, with the modern game established in the early 1400s. In 1754, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club was founded, a private members only golf club that until 2004 was the governing authority of golf. That year a spin-off organisation, The R&A, was created with headquarters remaining in St Andrews. Opposite the Royal and Ancient Clubhouse is the R&A World Golf Museum where visitors can explore the rich history of golf from its very beginnings up to the modern day. It boasts one of the largest collections of golf memorabilia in the world, as well as fascinating galleries documenting the evolution of golf. randa.org
2. Austen’s Powers
This is a very special year for Bath and its famous former resident Jane Austen with plenty of activities to mark the 250th anniversary of her birth in 1775. They include dressing up with fellow Jane Austen fans as one of her much-loved characters (pictured), learning more about Jane’s connection to Bath with special talks, tours and trails, exploring Bath locations used in screen adaptations of Jane’s novels or staying at one of the city’s most luxurious hotels on a Jane Austen themed package.
Events will recreate the Regency-era Bath she vividly brought to life on the pages of her novels. There’s a free audio trail focusing on Jane Austen and her life in Bath which takes in highlights of the city and includes extracts from her novels and letters, which describe Bath as it would have been in its Georgian heyday. The tour takes approximately one-and-a-half hours but stop at any point to visit a museum or go into a café or shop. visitbath.co.uk
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Jane Austen wasn’t the only famous female author to have written a novel while living in Bath. In 1816, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein while resident in the city. A new visitor attraction – Mary Shelley’s House of Frankenstein – is part museum, part immersive visitor attraction. It extends over four floors of an atmospheric Grade II listed building in Gay Street, including a dark basement. There are unusual artefacts and vintage items plus a recreation of the 8ft high monster Mary imagined in her nightmares. There are two themed Escape Rooms… if you dare. houseoffrankenstein.com
3. Chess Moves
A new display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh allows visitors to see the iconic Lewis chess pieces from a very different angle. Among the best-known objects in Scotland’s most popular visitor attraction, ten of the medieval gaming pieces have been redisplayed in a new case which allows visitors to view their backs for the first time.
Made from walrus ivory and sperm whale teeth, the pieces range from the wide-eyed Berserker who gnaws frantically on his shield, to a Queen who rests her chin in her hand, a rather fed-up look on her face.
The carved figures are famous for their expressions. However, their backs are just as interesting and intricately detailed. The thrones feature complex vine scroll and interlace carvings, while the hair on some figures tumbles down their backs in stylised ringlets.
The chess pieces in National Museums Scotland’s collection form part of a large hoard discovered in Lewis in the early 19th century.
The hoard contained 93 gaming pieces in total, from at least four chess sets as well as other games. The pieces were probably made around 1200 in Norway. At this time, Lewis was part of the Norse-Gaelic Kingdom of the Isles, encompassing islands and land along the west coast of Scotland as well as the Isle of Man. There was a strong Scandinavian influence in the region and Norway controlled the kingdom at times. On now, nms.ac.uk
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Everyone loves discovering a secret – Dr Neil’s Garden in Duddingston village is known as Edinburgh’s Secret Garden. At the base of the famous Arthur’s seat and next to a 12th century kirk, it was created by two local GPs, Drs Andrew and Nancy Neil, who started to transform waste ground in 1963 to create a haven for plants and wildlife. It is packed with trees and plants that allow the visitor to connect with nature and relax.
Entry free, but donations welcome, drneilsgarden.co.uk
4. Life’s a Drag
The 60th Anniversary of the British International Drag Racing Festival is being celebrated with an enthralling new exhibition at the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, Hampshire. Burnout! recounts the 1964 festival which was the first large scale event to bring the motor sport – hugely popular in America – to the United Kingdom.
Drag racing, born from the hot rod scene of 1930s America, involves two specially adapted vehicles racing side by side at extreme speeds, fuelled by petrol or nitromethane over a quarter mile distance or 440 yards. Winners are decided through a knockout competition format.
Sydney Allard, a UK car designer and rally driver, built the first British Allard Chrysler dragster in 1961 (pictured) and later sold a smaller version in kit form. The scene gained momentum in 1963 when US drag star Dante Duce challenged Allard to a series of races in the UK. Held at various venues, including Silverstone and the Brighton Speed Trials, the event sparked significant interest and was the pre-cursor to the annual festival.
Ends February 2, nationalmotormuseum.org.uk
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Just a two-mile walk along a footpath from the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu is Buckler’s Hard. Once a bustling shipbuilding village where ships for Nelson’s navy were built, this charming village is now a peaceful haven. The local Maritime Museum tells the story of the village and the ships it built, including three vessels that took part in the Battle of Trafalgar. There are artefacts belonging to Nelson, including his baby clothes, and you can discover how villagers would have lived and worked in the early 1800s in the cramped home of a labourer’s family or the more spacious shipwright’s cottage. bucklershard.co.uk
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5. Prints Charming
The Velarde gallery in Kingsbridge, Devon begin their 2025 programme with an exhibition dedicated to the highly specialised discipline of handmade print. The Original Print Show brings together artists working in all types of handprinting methods, from the classic intaglio techniques of etching, drypoint and mezzotint, to collagraph, woodcut, monotype, screenprint and blind embossing.
The show gives space to one of fine art’s most misunderstood areas of creative practice, demonstrating the extraordinary potential of printmaking for the creation of contemporary works of art.
The exhibition includes both high profile and emerging artists, as well as those whose printmaking practice accompanies their painting and sculptural work. Artworks include a selection of prints by the celebrated Peter Randall-Page RA, whose archive collection of linocuts, screen prints, aquatints and etchings spans 25 years and prints by Katherine Jones RA, whose works are included in the V&A Prints And Drawings Collection.
There are monotypes by Cornwall-based artist Shelly Tregoning, embossed prints by Sue Potter and colourful, geometrically inspired works by Emma Studd. Entomological works by Sarah Gillespie include a peach blossom moth, a mezzotint engraving in an edition of 30 (pictured). Ceramics by Elaine Sheppard Bolt, and sculptures by Antonio Lopez Reche, Richard Perry, Bjork Haraldsdottir and Kinsley Byrne will also be on show.
February 1-April 26, velarde.co.uk
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The lovely Harbour House is a contemporary art space and which is run by a charity dedicated to providing a free-to-all programme of inclusive arts events and wellbeing activities that can have meaningful impact on people’s lives. They do this through art and an ever-changing programme of exhibitions, creativity, and wellbeing practices. The popular Harbour House Kitchen serves food throughout the day, and on Saturday’s there is the famous brunch on sale. harbourhouse.org.uk
6. Folk Heroes
Transatlantic Sessions were created to bring together the best of Nashville, Ireland and Scotland to offer a unique insight into the sheer joy of making music. This year celebrates three decades of this creative collaboration with a series of concerts with the fabulous all-star house band, led by Aly Bain and Jerry Douglas, plus guest vocalists Loudon Wainwright III and Julie Fowlis and others.
The first performances are at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow, followed by a date in Perth and further performances across the UK. Guests and the band interweave original material with age-old tunes and songs as they explore shared roots and find new common ground, celebrating the rich musical traditions that connect Scotland, Ireland and the US.
Loudon Wainwright III has carved out a distinguished career over more than half a century as one of our most original singer-songwriters. He’s released over 30 albums, won a Grammy, acted in films and TV shows (including MASH), and has had his songs recorded by artists including Johnny Cash, Bonnie Raitt and his son, Rufus Wainwright.
Hailing from the Outer Hebrides and now based in the Highlands, Julie Fowlis (perhaps best known for her work with the Disney Pixar movie Brave) is widely heralded for championing traditional Gaelic. Her music is deeply influenced by the Hebridean islands where she grew up and by the Highland landscapes where she now resides.
Celtic Connections, Glasgow (January 31, February 2) Concert Hall, Perth (February 3), transatlanticsessions.com
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Scone Palace in Perth has centuries of history to explore. 1,500 years ago this site was the capital of the Pictish kingdom and later home to the Earls of Mansfield. Scone was the site of an early Christian church and a priory but was badly damaged in the mid-16th century Scottish Reformation. From the 9th century it was the crowning-place of the Kings of Scots and home to the Stone of Scone, also known as the Stone of Destiny. The Palace of Stone that stands on the site today was completed in the early 1800s in Gothic revival style.
Seasonal opening, scone-palace.co.uk
7. Remembering the Miners’ Strike
On March 1 1984 the National Coal Board announced that it planned to close 20 coal mines with the loss of 20,000 jobs. The year-long strike that followed changed the political, economic and social history of Wales forever.
A summer of hope and high-spirited defiance leading to a winter of violence, hardship, loss of livelihoods – and ultimately life – across some of Wales’ hardiest communities. Forty years later, the effect of the Miners’ Strike lives on. An exhibition at the National Museum of Cardiff, Streic! 84-85 Strike!, tells the story of what happened with photos and placards of protest alongside personal stories of comradeship in their clash against a rapidly changing world.
The majority of Welsh miners initially voted against a strike but later played a major part in picketing and demonstrations. Miners’ wives rose to the challenge of supporting their men by raising funds and organising food distribution, but were also active on picket lines and marches.
Most of the stories come from Wales, where only a small percentage of the workforce returned to work during the strike, and the exhibition shows how events still resonate today.
Ends April 27, museum.wales
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Techniquest in the heart of Cardiff Bay has two floors of mesmerising models, marvellous machines and mind-boggling interactive displays. You can launch a rocket, try your hand at virtual surgery, experience a real-life earthquake and even feel the force of a hurricane. There are over a hundred exhibits on five themes: space, the environment, chemistry, biomedical science and world issues.
Families will love the new Mini Metro play area for children under seven.
8. Material Gains
A fascinating exhibition, Artist Textiles: Picasso to Warhol, can be seen at Aberdeen Art Gallery as part of an international tour. Tracing the history of 20th century art in textiles, it explores how people were once able to engage with modern art in a personal and intimate way through their clothing and home furnishings.
The show, organised by the Fashion and Textile Museum, London, showcases examples of key European and American art movements including Fauvism, Cubism, Constructivism, Abstraction, Surrealism and Pop Art, as well as the work of leading fashion designers and manufacturers.
Highlights include work by George Braque, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Sonia Delaunay, Raoul Dufy, Barbara Hepworth, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso, Ben Nicholson and Andy Warhol. The Aberdeen exhibition also features a selection of work by contemporary artists Zandra Rhodes, Damien Hirst and Valentino and Howard Hodgkin.
Ends April 13, aberdeencity.gov.uk
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The Zoology Museum is the only large, international exhibition of zoological specimens in the north of Scotland. There’s everything from protozoa to the great whales, including taxidermy, skeletal material, study skins, fluid-preserved specimens and models. Meet Rani the tiger or see an extensive collection of animal skeletons. Visit via Cruickshank Gardens.
Entry is free, abdn.ac.uk
9. On Parade
British artist Matthew Rosier will bring his signature community-led installation artwork to Berwick in Northumberland when he transforms the historic barracks into a living parade. Berwick Parade will utilise giant-scale projections on three walls of Berwick Barracks as projections of members of the town’s diverse community march around the square in an immersive experience.
The creative installation marks the first commission of The Living Barracks project, which aims to restore and renew the historic site that played a pivotal role in the town’s social and cultural life for centuries.
Designed by the renowned architect Nicholas Hawksmoor, and home to The King’s Own Scottish Borderers since 1881, the immense fortified walls stand as a testament to the turbulent history of the Anglo-Scottish Borders and has played its part in Jacobite risings and Napoleonic Wars.
Now, the Parade Ground will become a site that celebrates the town’s contemporary culture and creates a connection where the townspeople and the iconic building are physically entwined.
Berwick Parade has been commissioned on behalf of Create Berwick, a five-year initiative that will bolster the town as a cultural destination through investment in arts, creative businesses and culture.
The filmed installation will be accompanied by live performances from the King’s Own Scottish Borderers Pipe Band.
February 28–March 2, createberwick.co.uk
Locals Love
It’s not just the locals that love Berwick. Manchester artist L S Lowry (1887-1976) would frequently holiday here. Famous for his matchstick men paintings, he visited the town of many times from the mid-1930s until the summer before he died.
The Lowry Trail follows in his footsteps, sharing some of the hidden gems of the town and identifying the locations found in many of his finest paintings and drawings of the town. Lowry loved the architecture and closeness to the sea. He stayed at the Castle Hotel near the railway station and produced more than 20 paintings and drawings of Berwick during his visits.
The Lowry Trail has interpretation panels on both sides of the River Tweed and you can download a copy online.
berwickpreservationtrust.co.uk/lowry-trail
10. Classic Comedy
Who can forget those classic TV moments when the aspiring Harold Steptoe would screw up his face as he called dad Albert a “dirty old man”? Galton and Simpson’s hugely popular Steptoe and Son ran on the BBC for a total of eight series between 1962 and 1974. The tribulations of father and son running a rag and bone business with their very different ideas about everything were hugely popular and were recreated in versions around the world. A tribute theatre show with scenes from classic episodes is touring the UK and Southern Ireland to raise money for charity.
Steptoe and Son – Live! is crammed full of comedy, a warring father and son, played by Dan Lewis and Giorgio Lowe (pictured), a failing business and so many hilarious situations, which will keep audiences gripped from start to finish. It has been adapted by Daniel Lewis. Performances across the UK include coastal calls at Greenock, Arbroath, Felixstowe and Chatham.
Nevadd Dwyfor Arts Centre, Pwllheli, February 1, steptoeandsonontour.co.uk
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Plas Glyn y Weddw in Pwllheli, once a family home, was opened as an art gallery in 1896 when the gardens and grounds were open to the public. The building was sold after the war and turned into residential flats. By the late 1970s it was rapidly deteriorating until 1979 when it was bought by the artist Gwyneth ap Tomos and her husband Dafydd. In the mid-1990s it was taken on by a charitable trust. It’s now an arts and heritage centre with a changing programme of exhibitions and beautiful woodland to explore. There’s also a lovely cafe on site. oriel.org.uk
Coming Soon
2025: A Space Odyssey
One of the world’s most remarkable explorers – Colonel Chris Hadfield, acclaimed astronaut, test pilot, spacewalker, spaceship commander, and bestselling author – has announced an all-new UK and Ireland tour for 2025, where he’ll discuss the latest developments in space science and share stories from his incredible career.
The show will include never-before-seen space imagery of earth, the Moon and Mars taken from the International Space Station and the James Webb Space Telescope and will take you on an immersive journey. Chris Hadfield: A Journey Into The Cosmos in June draws on his experience on three spaceflights – moments of joy and great danger, insights into cutting-edge space technologies, and his unique perspective on where we are at this pivotal time in human history.
There’s a chance to ask Chris questions and enjoy a live music performance by Chris who, in 2015, entranced the world by performing David Bowie’s Space Oddity as he circled the earth in the International Space Station.
Chris has written five bestselling books, and has been an adviser on Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space exploration companies, as well as to King Charles III on a space sustainability plan called the Astra Carta.
The tour includes dates in Canterbury, Liverpool, Bath, Dublin, Edinburgh and Brighton.