Spring has finally arrived. With longer days and flowers beginning to bloom, this is a great time of year to enjoy some walking. Discovering Britain, the Society’s series of geographically-themed walks, includes plenty of routes that show off the best of the season.
Spring sees Britain’s countryside bursting with new life, a sight enduringly captured by our nation’s poets and writers. The Discovering Britain walk in the Quantock Hills explores how William Wordsworth and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge were inspired by this special Somerset landscape.
The South West is also Thomas Hardy Country and the ‘Partly real, partly dream’ walk visits Hardy’s childhood home in Dorset. With the walk taking you through places at the heart of Hardy’s Wessex, including picturesque hamlets and working farms, water meadows and heathlands, spring is the perfect time to explore the rural landscapes and communities that inspired his writing.
The ‘Crumbly, creamy or tasty’ walk follows the story of Lancashire’s milk fields and traditional cheese makers. See the cows that produce our milk as they return to the fields for spring, visit the dairy farms that look after them, and even taste some traditional Lancashire cheese.
For many coastal areas, spring is the start of tourist season. There are over 30 coastal walks on the Discovering Britainwebsite, from Llandudno and Margate, to Dunbar and Strangford Loch. One of the most recent coastal walks explores St Abbs in the Scottish Borders. The ‘Sustenance from the sea’ walk explores how this picturesque fishing village has adapted to a changing economy of leisure and tourism.
There are over 150 walks in the series. Each one is self-guided and free to download from the Discovering Britain website