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Hello Katie. The most quintessentially English thing I can think of is The Best Loser's Cup. This was awarded to Sir Thomas Lipton after he came close to winning the America's Cup yacht race, but of course did not actually do so. Only an Englishman would win a cup for coming second.

The other thing is several things, i.e. the odd games we have here. England has given so many sports to the world, and the ones that are only played in this country are fascinating as alternative examples of how people realise the same essential idea. Obvious examples are the surviving public school forms of football - Eton Wall Game, Eton Field Game, Harrow Football, Winchester College Football. There is also the traditional mob football, in Ashbourne and elsewhere, stoolball in Sussex/Kent/Surrey, the World Marbles and Conker Championships in Frimley Green and Oakham, and of course cheese rolling. Aunt Sally in Oxfordshire (knocking the target off a pole with sticks) is fun to watch, as is Knur and Spel, an ancestor of golf, in Lancashire/Yorkshire. People pursuing these pastimes, oblivious to the outside world and its "preferred" English games, is very English to me.

For me it is 'a cup of tea' and the 'Parish Church'. You can find solace in both.

http://www.icons.org.uk/

A nice cream tea is definately one of my favourites - with lots of clotted cream. Not so good for your waistline!

Cream tea, Cornish Icecream and Bakewell tart. All cosumed (on separate occasions of course) on a sunny afternoon in my granny's garden with all the family saying how lovely the weather is.