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map of Britain's greatest walks and the best pubs, hotels and B&Bs
Brampton, Cumbria
One of the great walks of northwest England begins in the pretty village of
Castle Carrock in East Cumbria. After crossing Castle Carrock Beck and High
Gelt Bridge, the glorious 32km (20-mile) view to the Galloway hills opens
up.
Talkin Tarn was filled with meltwater from Ice Age glaciers 10,000 years ago,
but now underground springs keep the lake full. The path under the tarnside
beeches is sheltered from the winds.
On market day in Brampton the locals gather in the square under the clock
tower of the Moot Hall. A bull ring sunk in the cobbles and the stocks hint
of the town’s riotous past, when animals were tethered and baited to death.
Irish immigrants gave the River Gelt its name, “mad river”, to reflect the
furious progress of the waters down their gorge. Ash, hazel and oak trees
hang over the river, while up the bank the footpath wound through glades
carpeted with rustling beech leaves. The gorge is best walked slowly, the
better to watch dippers bobbing and bowing on the stones, a delight whatever
the weather.
Distance 16km (10 miles) Map Explorer 315 Carlisle &
Brampton
Hartland Point, Devon
The tides off this sharp right-angle of cliffs are turbulent, the winds fierce
and the reefs many. The lighthouse, built in 1874, was continually
undermined by the waves until a sea wall was built to protect it. Geological
upheavals hundreds of millions of years old are recorded in the wildly
tilted and contorted strata of the cliffs. Inland, the rolling farmland and
fields conceal all this subterranean violence.
This walk goes up and down a lot: your reward is some of the most stunning
coast views in the West Country, and certainly one of its finest waterfalls.
Starting at the Hartland Quay Hotel, bear left (south) along the coast path
for a little under a mile to reach Speke’s Mill Mouth and the spectacular
fall, more than 60m (200ft) high, that crashes over the cliff to the sea.
Then turn inland by farm lanes to Kernstone Cross, north to Stoke village
and St Nectan’s Church and back down the road to Hartland Quay.
Distance 5½km (3½ miles) OS map Explorer 126
Kingussie, Creag Bheag, River Gynak, Scotland
Kingussie is a snug little town some way up Strathspey, the long valley of the
wide and fast-moving River Spey. The town stands flanked by the Cairngorm
mountains to the east — the highest land in Britain — and the impressive
rolling uplands of the less-well-known Monadhliath mountains to the west.
It is a rather smaller mountain that dominates Kingussie and forms the
centrepiece of this walk — Creag Bheag, a name that owns up to its stature:
Little Rock. From Kingussie station make your way north through the town,
with Creag Bheag rising on your left hand. The tumbling waters of the River
Gynack are a feature of this part of the walk.
At the top of the town the path goes through a caravan park and begins to
climb into open country of birch and juniper scrub. The route is waymarked
with yellow and purple curves that lead to a ridge overlooking Loch Gynack.
The return route to Kingussie turns left here and runs through more woodland
to skirt a golf course and drop back down into the town. But, although the
path up to the summit of Creag Bheag is unmarked, it would be a shame to
miss the views of the Cairngorm and Monadhliath mountains from the top of
Kingussie’s own mini-mountain.
Distance 8km (5 miles) Map Explorer 402
Minsden Chapel, Hertfordshire
Some wild places rely on atmosphere and the stories that surround them for
their sense of wildness; some plunge you straight into the wild by virtue of
their setting in uncontrolled surroundings.
The ruin of Minsden Chapel possesses both qualities. In the skirts of a
Hertfordshire wood, the chapel that refreshed medieval pilgrims en route for
St Albans Abbey stands with its tall flint walls and window arches crumbling
into the mossy green earth. It is a strange, melancholic sight, the slowly
collapsing church screened by trees from any casual passer-by.
Stranger still are the tales that have gathered around the old ruin in the
wood. A psychic brought to the site in 1993 reported experiencing barrels
being unloaded from a farm cart in which a group of fugitives was hiding in
terrible fear.
Minsden Chapel is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monk who appears at
midnight on All Hallows Eve and climbs a set of invisible steps. Sweet organ
music is heard as the monk goes through his paces. It is the only frivolity
to touch this curious relic with its sad aspect and forlorn setting.
Distance 11km (7 miles) Map Explorer 193
Alnmouth, Northumberland
As country walking and exploring grow in popularity, more people are learning
to appreciate eastern Northumberland’s clean beaches, abundant birds and
flowers, uncrowded footpaths and spectacularly sited coastal villages.
One of the most delightful coastal settlements is Alnmouth, sited on its
peninsula in the Aln estuary. Walk from the GNER station around the estuary
and town before setting out along the North Sea Trail, down a coast of dunes
and long beaches to Warkworth, with its fine castle and peaceful river
frontage.
What the Northumbrian seaboard used to enjoy by way of seclusion is still the
preserve of the stretch of coast immediately to the north. The coast of
Berwickshire and East Lothian rises in dramatically craggy cliffs, along
whose edge runs a series of disconnected footpaths. One day they will form a
continuous stretch of the North Sea Trail.
Distance 11km (7 miles) Map Explorer 332
Tiltups End, Cotswolds, Gloucestershire
Clouds scud briskly over the wide-rolling South Cotswold fields and old hedge
track to Chavenage Green. There is a sea-like look to the long waves of dark
upland earth, with the surf of last year’s crab apples scattered in the
ditches.
Just beyond Chavenage Green stands the handsome Elizabethan house of Chavenage
Manor, home of Nathaniel Stephens, lord of the manor and a staunch
Parliamentarian during the Civil War.
A sunken roadway leads north through the old overshot coppice of Longtree
Bottom. In a tumbledown pumphouse at the edge of the wood lies an ancient
diesel engine.
Brandhouse Farm offers the barking of dogs and the whinnying of excited
horses. Listen to the conversational cawing of rooks in the leafless ash
trees along Shipton’s Grave Lane and enjoy an ale in Tipputs Inn.
Distance 10½ miles) Map Explorer 168
Chiltern Hills, South Oxfordshire
Here, between the western skirts of the Chiltern Hills and the broad valley of
the Thames, the long pale fields have a subtle dip and roll, with
flint-built farms in the hollows and woods on the skyline — beautiful
country to walk in.
Chiltern kites can be seen on the buffeting winds: since their reintroduction
in the early 1990s, about 300 pairs thrive and breed along the hill range
north and west of London.
At Nuffield, walkers can turn aside briefly to pay their respects to the car
designer and philanthropist William Morris, Lord Nuffield, who lies under a
modest grave slab by Holy Trinity Church. I gave him silent thanks for those
wonderful round-nosed cars, bulging with character, more like family members
than vehicles.
Back in the fields once more, the way leads over stubble and ploughland to
Homer Farm, its farmhouse of red brick and flint, its barn up on staddle
stones. Then it’s homeward along a classic country lane, potholed and
puddled between coppiced hedges and mossy banks, looking forward to a refreshing
drink in the King William IV.
Distance 9½ Map Explorer 171
Blagdon Lake, Somerset
For well over a century Blagdon Lake water has been piped to Bristol’s taps,
16km (10 miles) over the hills to the north. Cross the broad dam of the
lake, then follow the fishermen’s path through the trees along the north
bank of the lake and strike out across fields to reach the lane by Bellevue
Farm — well named for its prospect of water and hills.
The southward views grow better and better as the lane rises. At the top of
Awkward Hill you can look down over fields patchworked with green grass and
red ploughland, out across the whole expanse of Blagdon Lake to the steep
wall of the Mendip Hills beyond.
Down by the lake once more, squelch towards Blagdon over boggy meadows where
wild geese will lumber into the air at your approach, trumpeting
reprovingly. It’s almost time for them to be off to their mating and
brood-rearing, 3,000km north of these green Somerset fields.
Back at the New Inn, sitting on the terrace, enjoying a cheddar ploughman’s
lunch and a kingly view over the lake, you might hear a love-struck
blackbird singing.
Distance 8km (5 miles) Map Explorer 141, 154
Yarpole and Croft Ambrey, Herefordshire
Around the church tower at Yarpole the swelling daffodils make contrasting
notes in the tentative chorus of spring. Under the oaks at the bottom of
Fishpool Valley is a string of medieval fishponds, their water petrol-blue
from the chemicals exuded by the rotting leaves that lined them.
At the top a sentinel avenue of sweet chestnuts falls away with the lie of the
land towards 14th-century Croft Castle, tucked away below. Crofts have lived
here since the Norman Conquest in a succession broken only once.
Leave Croft Castle and turn north through Croft Wood. From the high ramparts
of the Iron Age hillfort of Croft Ambrey, you can gaze over 50km of tumbled
border hills from sharp-prowed Titterstone Clee in the northeast to the
Powys mountains in the west. The bones of this panorama have changed little
in the 2,000 years since the last native British inhabitants quit Croft
Ambrey after 600 years of occupation.
Tramp through Oaker Coppice and across Bircher Common and on down the field
slopes towards Yarpole, looking south over lowlands washed with muted
colours.
Distance 8km (5 miles) Map Explorer 203
Wentwood, Gwent
“A dismal derelict waste, an upland hell and the bleakest of monuments to
man’s suicidal folly and cupidity.” That was how the poet Harold Massingham
saw the ancient forest of Wentwood in 1952. Massingham had some
justification for his gloom — most of Wentwood had been felled ten years
earlier during the Second World War, and what remained was mostly Forestry
Commission conifers.
However, not all the great forest had been done away with. Deep among the
conifers were centuries-old oaks and beeches, medieval forest banks full of
violets and wood sorrel, and dense cover where spotted woodpeckers, dormice
and butterflies found refuge.
Now that the Woodland Trust has bought up a good chunk of Wentwood, a
long-term plan of replanting and restoration as ancient woodland is under
way.
The paths among the trees are tangled and confusing, but that only adds to the
magic of walking here. Kestrels dash in and out of the fringes, buzzard
leave their treetop nests and circle overhead, mewing; woodcock dart from
cover to cover, though you’ll have to be quick to spot these.
Come in spring and the ground under the trees is a mass of bluebells, with
drifts of wild daffodils nearer the open light. It is as if the wildlife of
Wentwood has only been biding its time, and will increase and flourish as
the old forest comes back to health and wellbeing as a monument to something
better in man’s cross-grained nature.
Distance 8km (5 miles) Map Explorer 14
