In the US Southwest, every year around this time, huge male tarantulas (around the size of a human hand) migrate to find mates, in some areas its quite spectacular, (they can be seen all moving across the land at once, by the millions, when they find a female in her burrow they enter, have sex, and then they die.)
They do not bite. (at least the ones here in the US do not bite unless you are threatening them, and I don't think I have ever heard that they are venomous from anybody.)
Some people actually keep them as pets.
So, the article about the spider stowing away to the UK said huntsman spiders were not venomous? Are some species venomous and some not?
Do huntsman spiders bite people frequently?
Where I live now we have both black widow spiders (not common) and I think also brown recluse spiders, but I have only seen the black widows a few times, and I don't know enough about brown recluse spiders appearance to recognize them.