In Search of Lost English Charm

What is it that makes England, or any other nation for that matter, stand apart? Is it a language? Perhaps, but there are many lands that share our tongue, some born from our diaspora and some not. A flag? Perhaps, but a flag is merely a sheet of fabric with sentiment, or derision, attached post hoc. I could put before you an endless list of potential answers and vague virtues, and give wax lyrical about why that may or may not be the answer, but it is vaguity unspent potential which has allowed our ills to fester. In truth, the answer is something far more serious than that. It is, to my mind, a series of idiosyncrasies—aesthetically, morally, culturally—that gives our song its resonance, that makes the world around us form sense, gives our home its walls and ceiling; it give us belonging, continuity with our forebears. There exists a simple, understated, but undeniable Englishness, that draws order from chaos, instills trust in one’s fellow man. It has drawn the admiration and the envy of the word, given us a pantheon of the arts unlike any other land. In a word, it is our charm.

If you, dear reader, are inclined to read a piece like this, in a publication like this, then you know all too well that England is a nation in dire straits. Ugliness, atrophy, and alienation stand where once stood order, duty, and custom. Ugliness dominates our cities—where once sat the grandeur of English brilliance, the architectural marvels born from the minds of men who cared, who considered the consequences of their work. Atrophy has infected the political and economic systems, which once dragged England to the top of the world. Now we are poor, and ineffectual, stagnant and plodding, hopelessly, into obscurity. Alienation governs how we feel, as with each passing year this sceptred isle is taken from us, and given to those who will tear down our oak doors for firewood. This, as I am sure you already know, is the state of play in England. It needn’t be like this, however. England is crying out for a movement, a rebirth, a rediscovery. England needs restoration.

British Restorationism is not a retreat into the sepia-toned past, nor is it the timid conservatism that stood idly by as England fell, brick by brick, that clung to a flayed institutions which inverted themselves, and became weaponised against England; cowardly and twee and impotent. It is not the reactionary’s howl, demanding time itself be wound back to an unobtainable eleventh hour. No, Restorationism is a bold, living vision—a clarion call to rekindle England’s charm through deliberate acts of creation. It is the planting of an acorn where a mighty English oak once stood, and shall by the grace of God stand again. It is the weaving of a new tapestry from threads of our ancient beauty, our timeless charm. It is a movement that dares to dream of an England reborn, not as a museum piece, reanimated but fundamentally empty, rather as a living organism where beauty, duty, and identity flourish anew. 

To be a Restorationist is simply to reject where England is going, and to alter that trajectory with the heroism, the will, and the gumption of a man at war. Our current trajectory is the latter stage of the transition from a civilisation to an economic zone, which flattens nations into soulless grids of concrete and commerce; in which the men and women and children are no longer participants in the great game of civilisation, but rather prostitutes in denial, prisoners in velvet cages. It is moribund, the profane, and deeply unnatural. To be a Restorationist is to spurn the utilitarian creed that measures a man’s worth in statistics alone, denies his birthright, ignores the hunger in his soil for meaning, for a home. Restorationism is to resurrect what makes England sing—her hedgerows and spires, her wit and warmth, her quiet, steadfast dignity. This is no mere nostalgia, for these traits are immaterial and therefore immortal; it is a radical act of faith in our capacity to rebuild. It is to proclaim, with every stone laid, every garment sewn, every courtesy extended, that England’s heart still beats, that her charm can be summoned forth by those who dare to fight.

Unlike Conservatism, which has made peace with decay, we must inspire. Ours is a movement for poets who pen odes to forgotten lanes, for builders who raise roofs that echo eternity and shall still be standing long after we are gone, for dreamers who see in England’s past a blueprint for her future; for artists who can capture it. If the solution to a stale and moribund dominant culture is a virile and kinetic counter-culture; the antidote to national shame is national pride; and the cure for death is a life renewed, then there is no path but one of overt, unashamed, unrepentant Englishness, not as costume but as a glimmering armour. In this lies our hope, the love we feel can make us fearless.  

In a decentralised and multi-polar culture, this is easier than ever. For the first time in human history, one need not rely on the civilisational and cultural nucleus for sustenance. There is no sustenance to be found there anyway. New avenues for cultural and artistic exploration are appearing every day, and this represents an opportunity to forge the missing link between where we are and where we could be; in a word, unity.

The great unifying force among this diaspora of people like us is a heartfelt desire to see England as it once was; to walk a cobbled street, in some city or or some village, and know that this is England, and that this will always be England. This is a powerful impulse – the simple desire for a home; undisturbed by political machinations and malevolences, hostile intrusions, and wanton destruction. This is our strength, our rallying call, and our uniform; something to fight for, and to fight in.

Overt Englishness must become the unifying counter-cultural symbol of the pro-British movement. Englishness in speech, in dress, in mannerism, and in social ritual. Our nation dies when these things are forgotten. Embrace Englishness, wear it with pride. Know England’s history as if it were your own – it is your own. Know it like you know the back of your hand. Wear it like a well-fitted glove. Live it every waking hour. Celebrate the cultural symbols. Vote with your wallet, and withdraw your tithe from those who wish to do harm on our island home.

Defend England, rhetorically and spiritually. Refine yourself until you resemble the Englishman of old. Read the great English works – better yet, create some more. Know every line of Shakespeare, every note of Elgar. Take a Hackney Carriage. Visit a country house. Holiday in the country or on the coast. Frequent the pub. Read the great English novels and poems, watch the great English films and plays, listen to great English music. Know England, and live England.

You are of the same cast as great writers and artists, explorers and conquerers, warriors and philosophers, kings and common men, who loved England with a sufficient force, so as to drive them to do great deeds. Never forget this.

And lastly, do not despair. Despair is the death of rebellious vigour. We will win. The sun will shine on England again. The blue skies will chase the dark clouds far away. Despair, hopelessness, and fatigue is where the atrophists and hangmen want you. Be angry, and let your anger rouse you. But do not despair. A thousand years of Englishmen are willing you to victory from the great beyond, and there are a thousand more whose very existence depends on you.

Gaze upon our cities, dear reader, and let your heart break for what has been lost, and then the pain shall fuel you. Where once rose the elegant symmetry of temples and terraces, intricate gables, and cloisters, and cupolas, the humane simplicity of our greatest days, now loom the concrete hulks and glass monstrosities of an uncaring age. These are not buildings but wounds and scars, put there as an opening salvo, when war was declared from within. Restorationism demands that we heal these wounds. We must champion architects who draw from England’s rich tradition, who craft homes and halls that lift the spirit rather than crush it until boot-heel. Let us rebuild our towns with limestone and oak, our cities with spires that pierce the heavens. Let every new structure proclaim: this is England, and she is beautiful once more. In the age of anonymity, seek distinction. 

English charm is not only seen but felt in the hearts of all to whom it is a birthright. It is woven into the very anatomy of our souls, and we feel it intrinsically when it is around us. Walk among the hills, through the villages, along the coasts. That thing you feel, that warm and comforting voice that tells you that you are home, the trust, the fraternity, is England. These intrusive elements of our society that make us feel ill and out of place, these impositions of barbarism, tagging, anti-sociality, violence, criminality, anonymity, and atomisation, is not England. This discrimination, this outward preference for the former and contempt for the latter is the basis of our survival. The Restorationist knows that manners and charms and idiosyncrasies are not relics or myths, but the mortar of a civilisation. 

It is not simply enough for us to birth an artistic and civilisational movement, capable of driving England back to greatness, though this is essential. Englishness must dominant our every act and move, our every word and thought. We must honour duty—to neighbour, to stranger, to the land itself—as a sacred charge. We must re-establish an England in which man trusts man, doors are held open, where voices are lowered in respect, where communities gather not in suspicion but in unifying song. This is the social fabric we must reweave, thread by gentle thread, until alienation gives way to belonging. Let us greet the shopkeeper by name, thank the postman with a nod, offer a seat to the weary. These small acts are the heartbeat of charm, the quiet defiance of a people who choose connection over chaos.

To embrace overt English brotherhood in the age of the atom is a revolutionary act. It is to stand in defiance of a world that seeks to erase it. The politics of atrophy, with its relentless march toward uniformity, would have us all live in the same glass towers, wear the same shapeless clothes, speak the same flattened tongue. It is the creed of anywhere will do. Ours is somewhere is mine, somewhere is ours.

Somewhere in our populace are the distant progenies of Bacon, of Drake, of Raleigh, of Wren, Brunel, Newton, Shackleton, Wordsworth; men who went forth and conquered, built, innovated, created, captured, all for the glory of England. They loved England with sufficient passion as to do great things in her name. We are no different, but our challenges are.

Restore England. Do not worship the ashes of an extinguished fire, build a bigger fire, and let it illuminate the world with our brilliance, our genius, our vision and our might. Scatter the atrophist and the leacher, who gain their sustenance from feeding on the corpses of our forebears. Reimagine England as a beacon to the world in an age of insanity. Dream of the stars, for it was we who conquered the earth.

No matter how dark the night, how bleak the day, how insurmountable the task may feel, how wicked and treacherous the politician, how inept the civil servant, how vast the conquering army – England will always be worth fighting for.