I love snow-it seems many, many years since we had a half decent winter - we have the occasional snow fall but nothing of significance.

The problem with Britain is that it`s prevailing weather comes from the west- across the Atlantic - the seas are warmed by the gulf stream which in turn keeps the land temperature relatively warm- leading to lots of wetness- we used to get weather more frequently from the east ( siberia)- but that has become less and less frequent - leading to milder winters.

The boots have a long rise, but hard to believe with the rubber upper they don't originate with LLBean. Otherwise the styles are Northeast hunting styles. no doubt.

those bean boots you speak of are and have been fairly  popular with the ladies around here, of the subgroup we refer to as White People...college educated , culturally elitist, with upper middle class aspirations if not always incomes. i know a few guys who bought them, but id imagine those rubber bottoms would be pretty nasty once you sweated in them afew times...i stick with the all-leather redwings i use at work if god-forbid i have to do anything more strenuous outdoors than drink in a lawn chair.

and they made the long rise until not that long ago. possibly they still have them in their hunting specialties catalog...im 30 and i remember them selling ones that went up to at least the knee when i was a kid.