What is an icon?

What makes something an icon?
Is it to do with being famous or important?
Is an icon beloved or somehow symbolic?
Why is a cup of tea iconic and not a glass of orange juice?
Do we include the Humber Bridge as well as Tower Bridge?
Wimbledon or Wembley?

Icons ARE...

Icons, for the purposes of the ICONS Online project, have to be uniquely important to life in England and the people who live here. Some are obvious. Stonehenge. Cricket. The Crown Jewels. Others are more controversial.

ICONS Online has agreed some ground-rules for the project:

• Icons are symbolic - they represent something in our culture, history or way of life
• Icons are recognisable in a crowd - if no-one has heard of it or knows what it looks like, it cannot be an icon
• Icons are fascinating and surprising - they have hidden depths and unexpected associations

Icons AREN'T...

For the ICONS project, 'icons' doesn't mean people. Churchill and Darwin may live on as historical figures but they won't be included as icons in this collection. Key individuals will not be ignored! It just means that the ICONS website will include Shakespeare’s plays rather than the man from Stratford, Stephenson's Rocket rather than Mr Stephenson himself.