I have seen some pretty big spiders around in the past, I try not to let them bother me as at least in the UK you can be sure they are harmless. I'm sure there are ones bigger than I have seen, my question is, is there a record for the largest spider found in England?

If not, then which native species grows the largest? As a rough estimate I think the largest I've seen is porobably 4-5cm in diameter, even that made me shudder, but I'm sure there must be larger ones hanging around.

Do you live near Windsor?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1396706.stm

And yes, they are venomous!

Kingfisher

I had no idea there were spiders like that around here! It's amazing that those spiders were thought to be extinct and then suddenly turned up at Windsor castle. The article says they are venomous and can oenetrate human skin, I wonder how venomous though?

I think it depends upon the individual--some people just have more tolerance, and some have less.

Like snakes, the problem with spiders is that the food ingested by the spider tends to be full of nasty stuff. Flies are filthy, so spider bites are quite serious not because of venom, but because of the bacteria etc. which are introduced by the spider's mouthparts.

Kingfisher