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Love Your Countryside Month

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A celebration of the extraordinary ordinary

Our favourite countryside isn’t always the most well-known. It might be the place you walk the dog. The landscape that tells you you’re nearly home. 

These are the everyday places where community and countryside meet, part of how we live, work and feel connected to nature and each other. 

This September, we’re inviting you to celebrate the countryside you love. To explore it, share it and show what it means to you. 

Sign up for four weeks of countryside inspiration straight to your inbox

Sign up and we’ll send you a month of ideas for getting out, ways of seeing the countryside differently, and stories from people who love it as much as you do.

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Be one of the first 1,000 to sign up and we’ll send you a Love Your Countryside badge, to say thank you for joining in. 

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What the countryside means to us

People across England have been telling us why they love the countryside. Here’s a selection of what we’ve heard so far.

‘I love the countryside because there’s always something new to notice, birdsong one week, hawthorn blossom the next.’

‘I love the countryside because it’s where I go when I need to feel like myself again.’

‘I love the countryside because the same footpath looks completely different in every season.’

‘I love the countryside because it’s not just beautiful, it’s productive, farmed and full of life.’

‘I love the countryside because it’s the place that makes anywhere else feel like home.’

‘I love the countryside because it connects me to a village that’s been here since the Romans.’

Branches across England are hosting local walks throughout Love Your Countryside month. Find one in your area below. 

Events are still being planned, so if there are currently no activities listed in your area, do check again in a few days.

Join a walk near you this September 

North East & Cumbria

Event details forthcoming.

North West

CPRE Lancs, Lancashire & Greater Manchester – Celebrating 100 years of CPRE!

Date: 19 September

Time: 1.00 – 2.30pm

Location: Meet at Formby Railway Station at 1pm to walk along the coast to the Ainsdale Discovery Centre

Register here

Yorkshire & the Humber

Event details forthcoming.

East Midlands

CPRE Derbyshire & Nottingham

Date: 20 September

Time: 1.30pm

Location: Kirk Hallam (Derbyshire)

Registration details coming soon.

West Midlands

Event details forthcoming.

East of England

Event details forthcoming.

London

Event details forthcoming.

South East

CPRE Hampshire, Basingstoke – On the Edge Walk

Date: 6 September

Time: 10.30am – 4pm / 12.30pm for a shorter walk

Location: Basingstoke War Memorial Park, Orchard Cafe , White Hart Lane, Basingstoke, RG21 4AG

Register here

 

CPRE Sussex – Countryside Day

Date: 6 September

Time: 10am – 4pm

Location: Seven Sisters Visitors Centre Exceat, Seaford, BN25 4AD

Register here

CPRE Hampshire, Winchester – ‘On the Edge’ Story Walk

Date: 12 September

Time: 10am – 3pm

Location: East Winchester Park and Ride, Winchester, SO239NP

Register here

 

CPRE Kent – Countryside Day

Date: 20 September

Time: 10am – 1pm (event finishes at 2pm)

Location: Leybourne Lakes Country Park, Snodland, ME20 6JA

More information

 

CPRE Herts – Countryside Day

Date: 3 October

Time: 12.30 – 5.30pm

Location: Riding Stables, Hatfield House Park and Gardens Hatfield AL9 5HX

Register here

 

 

South West

CPRE Gloucestershire – From Ebworth to Saltridge and St George’s Field: a walk with stories from local history

Date: 19 September

Time: TBC

Location: National Trust’s Ebworth Centre near Stroud in Gloucestershire

Registration details coming soon.

Stories from the extraordinary ordinary

From a Yorkshire hedgerow to a Sunday walk in the Chilterns, these are some of the places and moments that mean the most to the people who shared them.

Longridge Fell, Lancashire

Open moorland and forest, used by local people rather than kept for occasional visits. Its value was never clearer than during the COVID lockdowns, when it kept sanity saved and health maintained

Breydon Marshes, Norfolk

Marshland, farmland and open land, right on someone's doorstep. A track lined with oak and hawthorn leads to marshes where barn owls nest and birds gather along the rivers to Great Yarmouth.

West Wirral, Cheshire

A stretch of coastline where woodland, heathland and marshland all sit within reach of the same walk. Owls call after dark, and across the Dee estuary you can glimpse the hills of north Wales.

Diseworth, Derbyshire

An ancient village ringed by fields still showing the ridge and furrow of centuries of farming. A busy airport sits close by, but the land carries its history regardless. Old, working, and well loved.

Haigh Wood, Leeds - West Yorkshire

A pocket of woodland at the end of an old street, easy to miss. Bird calls and hawthorn blossom greet the few who use it as a morning retreat, cared for by a local Friends group with Leeds Council.

The countryside around Tonwell, Hertfordshire

Not the sort of landscape that ends up on a postcard. Mostly farmland, unremarkable at first glance, and beautiful anyway in every season for the person who walks it year round.

Winkton Fields, Dorset

An early morning dog walk through open fields, where familiar faces turn up most days. The fields form a green gap between village and hamlet, beside a protected site and the River Avon.

Milton Common, Portsmouth

A common reached by bus, bike or on foot, where birds, blackberries and the salt smell of the sea share the same short walk. A slice of countryside that lives inside a city.

Minster Marshes, Pegwell Bay, Kent

A nature reserve in the Stour Valley, home to a colony of seals and a wide range of native flora and fauna. The salt marsh provides essential feeding grounds for migrating birds passing through.

Want to go further?

Join CPRE

Love what the countryside gives you? Help us protect it. From membership to local alerts, there are lots of ways to stay connected with CPRE and the work we do all year round.

Find out more

Share what you love

Tag us using #LoveYourCountryside to add your voice to the celebration.

Add your favourite countryside spot to our interactive map.

Explore the map

Why we’re doing it

The countryside shapes all our lives. As CPRE marks 100 years of championing it, this is an opportunity to show why that matters.

Love Your Countryside is about recognising the value of the places that are already part of our daily lives and celebrating the many ways people connect with them. Because the best way to protect something is to help more people love it.