If you really want to escape the crowds in England, Northumberland is the place to run to. Fewer people live in Northumberland than in many London Boroughs, and yet it’s the sixth-largest county by area. With no cities, Northumbrians live in fishing ports, distinguished market towns and far-flung hamlets in the deep valleys of the …
A land of mighty lakes, dales and fells, Cumbria has the only true mountain range in England. Nearly all of this is contained by the Lake District National Park, synonymous with stirring natural splendour and outdoor escapades on land or water. The largest lakes and the highest mountain in the country are yours to traverse …
In the West Midlands, the rural county of Warwickshire skirts around the Birmingham and Coventry conurbation to form a big hook of thinly populated countryside. This is a place of castles, medieval towns and marvellous country estates. Warwickshire has given us one of history’s most revered wordsmiths and playwrights, William Shakespeare, and his birthplace Stratford-upon-Avon …
With a Celtic heritage and rocky granite coastline, Cornwall has as much in common with somewhere like Brittany as it does the United Kingdom. Sheltered by deep inlets on the coast are village ports that hark back to a different time for their fishing boats and stone cottages. Visit these for tales of smugglers, boat …
Although small in size, Worcestershire packs more than enough to win your heart. In the south are the Cotswolds and their enchanting stone-built villages and heart-lifting rural scenery. Go west and you arrive at the Malverns, dark, brooding hills that rise suddenly over the valley of the River Severn that courses north to south down …
For just a small county on the North Sea, East Yorkshire changes dramatically as you travel through. In the south is reclaimed moorland, criss-crossed by historic canals that helped to get coal to the docks at Goole and Hull for export. Here on the Humber estuary there’s all the activity that comes with prospering industry. …
In the East of England but with quick connections to London, Bedfordshire is a county that isn’t often associated with tourism. But this isn’t to say that there’s little to see either. There are lots of gigantic and palatial country estates, and several, like Woburn Abbey and Whipsnade, have turned their grounds into award-winning wildlife …
It is no disservice to the rest of Oxfordshire to say that the City of Oxford is the county’s crowning glory. The dignified home of one of the world’s oldest and most famous universities has to be visited at least once in a lifetime. But if you are eager to see more there’s a beautiful …
Without a city to speak of, the County of Suffolk is scattered with rural towns, and many of these are as divine as any you’ll see in England. In the south the idyllic countryside of water meadows and mills by the River Stour was immortalised by the 19th-century painter John Constable. Further west are the …
In the East Midlands, Northamptonshire is a mostly rural county with just two large towns, Northampton and Corby. Everybody else lives in sleepy villages with thatched cottages and country pubs. Just like its neighbour Buckinghamshire, this county is littered with stately homes, more than you could hope to fit into one holiday. In fact, Northamptonshire …