Discover the countryside: local favourites from across England
Where do you go when you want to discover somewhere a little different? What do local people notice that the rest of us might walk straight past?
For the final week of Love Your Countryside, we asked CPRE groups across England to share some of what makes the countryside in their area special – from favourite walks and lesser-known places to unusual landscape features, local history and seasonal sights.
They know their local countryside better than almost anyone, and their suggestions take us beyond some of the best-known destinations to reveal the stories, details and places that make each landscape distinctive.
Choose a region and see what you might discover
North East & Cumbria
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North West
Lancashire, Greater Manchester & Liverpool
This is countryside where nature, industry and history often sit side by side. Old chimneys, mills and mines are now habitats for wildlife including owls, peregrine falcons, bats and foxes, while the Forest of Bowland brings fells, heather moorland, upland hay meadows and some wonderfully dark night skies.
Yorkshire & the Humber
North & East Yorkshire
From sweeping heather moorland and peat bogs in the North York Moors to the glaciated valleys and drystone walls of the Yorkshire Dales, North and East Yorkshire contains some extraordinary contrasts.
Head east and the landscape changes again, to the rolling chalk farmland and hidden dry valleys of the Yorkshire Wolds, before meeting dramatic chalk and sandstone sea cliffs.
East Midlands
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West Midlands
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East of England
Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire’s countryside includes chalk streams and the rolling Chiltern Hills, with chalk springs, wildlife and far-reaching views around places such as Barton Hills.
But some of the most interesting stories can be found in the paths running through the landscape.
London
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South East
Hampshire
Hampshire packs an extraordinary variety of countryside into one county.
It is one of only four English counties to contain two National Parks within its boundaries: the South Downs in the east and the New Forest in the south-west.
Add the North Wessex Downs, Cranborne Chase and Chichester Harbour National Landscapes, and around 38% of Hampshire is nationally protected for the quality of its countryside.
Its landscapes range from chalk grassland and chalk rivers to internationally important lowland heath.
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire’s countryside has been shaped by water.
Six major rivers – including the Thames, Cherwell and Windrush – connect a rich network of habitats, from the Thames Valley and Cotswold limestone hills to the chalk landscapes of the Chilterns and the ancient Ridgeway.
Ancient woodland, species-rich meadows, floodplain grasslands, rare chalk streams and productive farmland support wildlife including otters, water voles and kingfishers. Oxfordshire was also at the heart of England’s red kite reintroduction programme, making these magnificent birds a defining sight in the county today.
South West
Devon
With two National Parks, two coastlines and five National Landscapes, Devon contains an extraordinary variety of countryside.
Dartmoor and Exmoor sit alongside the North Devon Coast, South Devon, Blackdown Hills, East Devon and Tamar Valley National Landscapes, with rivers, valleys, hills and rich pasture in between.
Somerset
As Becky Collier from CPRE Somerset puts it, Somerset’s landscape “has it all”. Stretching from Exmoor in the west to Frome in the east, the county encompasses lowland marshes, coastal cliffs, limestone gorges and caves, sandy beaches, wild moors, wooded hillsides, chalk grasslands and patchwork fields.
It includes four National Landscapes, part of Exmoor National Park – also an International Dark Sky Reserve – and two vast ‘super’ National Nature Reserves.
Its superlatives aren’t bad either: Britain’s biggest gorge at Cheddar, Western Europe’s largest managed wetlands on the Somerset Levels and England’s tallest tree at Dunster, alongside the enormous tidal range of the Severn Estuary.
What’s special about your countryside?
These are just some of the places, stories and details that give England’s countryside its extraordinary variety.
Perhaps you’ve discovered somewhere you’d never heard of. Or perhaps they’ve made you think about the things that make your countryside distinctive.
What’s the walk, view, landscape feature, local tradition or little-known place you think more people should know about?
Share it using #LoveYourCountryside and tag CPRE.
