My family traveled to England several times when I was a child. I have fond memories of going for walks from the town where we were staying (maybe ending at another town?) where you would be walking along hedgerows, through fields with grazing cows, climbing over and around stiles, etc. I know this must be a relatively common kind of walk in England, but in my visits to the UK countryside as an adult--primarily in Cornwall and Snowdonia--I didn't manage to recreate this experience. I'm not sure where my childhood memories are from; we had home bases in Reading and Cambridge but also did short jaunts around the countryside. We're now thinking of traveling to England next year, and I'd love to stay somewhere where we could do walks like this. I know this is a crazily vague question, but is there a particular region where this type of walk would be most common? Thank you for indulging my lack of specificity!
Posted by
Nashville, TN, USA
3898 posts
The Cotswolds villages come to mind. Maybe walk a section of the Cotswold Way. You may want to stay in one of the villages of the Cotswolds, such as Chipping Campden or Broadway.
Posted by
Maryland, USA
533 posts
I've taken some walks in the Mendip Hills that sound a lot like what you're looking for: http://www.mendiphillsaonb.org.uk/visiting-the-mendip-hills/walks/ But I know the Mendips aren't the only, or the best, region for this kind of thing. The key is to have a good guide to where the public rights-of-way are - you can't just go strolling through any old field of grazing cows! Do a web search for "(region you're looking at) walks" and see what comes up - that's how I found the Mendip page I linked to.
Posted by
Basel, Switzerland
8889 posts
Britain has public footpaths all over the country, probably more Km of footpaths than roads.
Question is, where do you want to go?
If you are going to a specific place, get the local Ordnance Survey map (1:50,000). Footpaths are marked in red.
For example, this map: https://www.bing.com/maps/?mkt=en-gb&v=2&cp=52.19~-1.71&lvl=14&sty=s
Between the roads you will see red dashed lines connecting places. These are all public footpaths. Scroll this map and you will see the same red dashed footpaths everywhere outside cities.
Also there are a number of long distance footpaths, which can be tackled in stages, village to village: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long-distance_footpaths_in_the_United_Kingdom
Posted by
Troy, Oh, USA
2805 posts
The Cotswold National Trail is exactly like your memories. My friend and I walked the trail in September two years ago, we walked through fields with cows, fields with sheep, climbed over a lot of stiles, through a lot of kissing gates and two fields of corn which was taller then us. We started in Chipping Campden down to Bath. You could select a section of the trail to walk. I would be happy to give you names of places in each village/town we stayed in. You will see such beautiful views that no one can see but from the trail.
Posted by
Medford, OR, USA
5837 posts
Walking holidays in England are a joy. We enjoyed multi-day inn to inn self-guided walks in northern England. Our first was the Wainwright Coast to Coast that crossed the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors. Our second was just a multi-day loop around the Lake District.
If you do an Internet web search of walking holidays for various English regions you will find numerous walking suggestions. For example
Lake District walks: http://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/visiting/thingstodo/walking
Yorkshire Dales walks: http://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/visit-the-dales/get-outdoors-dales/walking/shortwalksdales
North York Moors walks: http://www.northyorkmoors.org.uk/visiting/enjoy-outdoors/walking/classic-walks
We used Contours Walking Holidays as our booking agent for our self-guided trips and were highly satisfied with their service. Contours offers point to point walks and loop walks. You will find many other equally reputable walking holiday firms.
I have heard good things about HF Holidays. Many of their walking holidays base camp at one location.
Posted by
Long Beach, California, USA
3398 posts
The Lake District is choc-full of hedgerows, fields of sheep and cows, stiles, brooks, beautiful farms, small villages, etc. Once you get out of the main towns along the A591 it is rural, beautiful, and idyllic!
Posted by
Portsmouth
5555 posts
There's also the South Downs Wayl http://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/south-downs-way, 100 miles of footpaths and bridleways through the South Downs National Park.
Posted by
2599 posts
Your childhood walks were in lowland/farming areas. Snowdonia is a mountainous area and in Cornwall, you were probably walking coastal areas.
Posted by
Yorkshire
1359 posts
Theres more diary in the west than the east generally.
Offas dyke path is lowland and rural.
Theres over 150,000 miles of footpaths in England and Wales, let alone open access land
Posted by
Oxford, United Kingdom
5467 posts
From Reading it could have been somewhere along the Thames Path. Easy to take a train to one place, walk for a while and return from somewhere else.
Posted by
OP
63 posts
Thank you all so much! You've given me lots to research and many lovely links to follow.
Robyn, I'd love to have more details on the towns you visited (though no hurry since we are in the very early stages of planning).
Posted by
2599 posts
The Offa’s Dyke Path is a long distance trail roughly following the Wales/England border. It is not all low lying as some parts cross mountains - such as the Black Mountains. http://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/offas-dyke-path