Ideas for villages with walking paths

Have you considered the Yorkshire Dales, somewhere like Leyburn? There are some good walking options, not to mention nice places to eat.

https://www.welcometoleyburn.co.uk/leyburn-walks/

https://www.alltrails.com/england/north-yorkshire/leyburn

Also, I know you're looking at England, but given the time you have available, is Scotland an option? Over Christmas we stayed in Tomintoul in the Cairngorms, and loved it. Part of the Glenlivet estate, and lots of walking steps from your front door, cosy little pubs to eat and amazing scenery.

Tomintoul is a small village, so if you prefer a town, Grantown-on-Spey is nearby and also nice.

https://cairngorms.co.uk/discover-explore/things-to-do/walking-trails/tomintoul-community-trails/

Look at www.nationaltrust.org.uk with maps of listings of historic locations, itinerary of country walks, and events. Membership Passes are available online that include admissions and parking. Some of the sites have cafes. There are various ethnic restaurants that feature vegan food. Most of the Countryside outside of the big cities is exactly what you are looking for.

Cotswolds. Stayed in Winchcombe. Hiked to Broadway Tower and back. ( 6 hours ) Also hiked to Bella’s Knap Long Barrow and back. 2.5 hours roundtrip.

Research the Cotswold Way.

You've pretty much narrowed down almost all of England outside of the cities. Almost any village in the countryside will have accessible walking paths and many with neighbouring villages within walking distance. There will be old buildings, pubs, churches etc. Where in the country interests you the most? If you can narrow that down then you'll have a better chance of recommendations.

Hi -

Have to agree with JC - you’re describing the whole country outside of the major cities. The great unsung jewel in the UK’s crown is the footpath network, countless miles of rights of way through the countryside. These are charted on the larger scale Ordnance Survey maps which are invaluable - take a little time to pore over one and learn how to use them before you attempt to navigate in situ.

So, it really all comes down to what sort of countryside you want to see. Rural, agricultural even, with villages sounds like like the Cotswolds. The North and South Downs south of London are grassland walking in the main. The Ridgeway path from around Streatley and Goring, south west to Avebury and environs has a wealth of Neolithic monuments and ancient hill forts. More mountainous, challenging areas sound more like Snowdonia in Wales, the Lake District in England or the Highlands of Scotland. Coastal - try the South West coastal path, the Pembrokeshire coast or the Northumberland coast, even the Isle of Wight. Consult the National Trust for stately homes you can visit, English Heritage for more ruined castles and abbeys (generally speaking). It all boils down to what your priorities are, and how far you want to travel from your London base.

If you can’t find something that floats your boat here, you’re not really trying hard enough. If you manage to tie down an area or two, let’s us know and we can, between us, be more specific!

Ian

England has a vast network of footpaths and bridleways and to explore these you need a decent map.
Ordnance Survey Maps cover the country in a range of scales and the best for walking in the countryside is 1;25,000
If you go onto Bing Maps and click on Road on the top right you can access these for your chosen location

How about the Suffolk coast in or near Southwold? Water, walks, food, beautiful buildings.

You could throw a dart behind your back at a wall map of Britain and be successful. If you hit an urban area, have a second throw.

Thanks everyone for your replies.
I knew England would be great for this kind of vacation of great city and country walks but I didn’t realize the extent of the walks.
I will definitely get an Ordinance Map. Are these paper or virtual?
Also will look at the National Trust website.
We are definitely interested in staying in the Cotswolds for a few days and will check out Winchcombe so thanks Claudia.
Thanks Ian for the general description of types of landscape in different areas of England. This is very helpful!
We are looking for most of the walks to be not too challenging and to be able to get to another village or place of interest in a couple of miles, and to avoid busy roads as much as possible.

We loved walking in Northern England. One of our overnight villages on our Coast to Coast was Patterdale in the Lake District. Our Patterdale section coincided with a weekend walking holiday with groups trekking the many trails radiating from Patterdale. See suggested best trails including Helvellyn via Striding Edge:

https://www.visitlakedistrict.com/things-to-do/ullswater-patterdale-area-guided-walking-days-and-holidays-hiking-highs-p1549401

https://www.alltrails.com/england/cumbria/patterdale/walking

The Yorkshire Dales are also crossed with walking paths. A friend took month long rentals in the Dales for several years joining local walking groups on their outings. https://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/things-to-do/get-outdoors/walking/short-walks/

Ordnance Survey Maps (Ordinance is something quite different!) are available as paper copies or as a download.

Most cafes and restaurants have vegetarian options.

I am currently on holiday in the Norfolk Broads area and have been on some lovely walks amidst old windmills, waterways and pretty thatched cottages. It’s fairly flat here.

In Yorkshire, there are great walks in the Pennine hills from Holmfirth, where Last of the Summer Wine was filmed.

There are some chocolate box pretty villages in the Midlands near Rutland Water and the nearby towns of Stamford, Oakham and Uppingham are all interesting. It’s generally flat for walking.

The Cotswolds are much busier than the above locations.

Thanks for all the specific ideas of areas to check out! I will be researching these in the next couple of weeks.
There seems to be so many options in England for beautiful country walks and I appreciate ideas of places to research that people on this forum have enjoyed.

What are some ideas for a good base in the Cotswolds that is scenic but does not have too much road traffic, tour buses, etc.

I think Bishops Castle in Shropshire would be ideal
Its a very quiet corner of the world but with accommodation and pubs and superb countryside
If you Google "walks around Bishops Castle" a leaflet with maps of walks of various lengths comes up with full description and with additional tourist information

From memory there's 140,000 miles of public footpaths ,not shabby as there's 98,000 sq miles in the UK.
That excludes all the free to roam areas.
The paid for version of National Survey maps would be a great investment ,maps are at 1/25000 so show individual buildings

Take a look at the website for the Cotswold Way (already mentioned by Claudia) which runs from Chipping Campden to Bath. I'm sure that's a longer walk than you want--102 miles--but you could choose a shorter walk, from village to village each day.
Chipping Campden would be an excellent starting point.
I recommend staying at the Volunteer Inn there.
They have a great breakfast and an excellent in-house Indian restaurant for dinner.
There are vegan and vegetarian options at this Indian restaurant.
Chipping Campden Coffee shop, on Sheep Street, owned by Rebecca, has excellent bakery items and sandwiches.

Broadway is the next village after CC, and a lovely place to have lunch is the Broadway Deli. Sit on the back terrace.
Continue on to Broadway Tower, on a hilltop with views all around.
If you continue on, you will come to Stanway, a tiny village with a magnificent old house to tour--Stanway House.
Next along the trail: Hailes Abbey, Winchcombe, Sudeley Castle.
Visit Sudeley Castle.
Next is Cleeve Hill, the highest point on the Cotswold Way. Good views all around.

I know you are looking for: "Ability to walk to another interesting village, and back, in under 5 miles or so round trip in one or two of these locations."
You could choose two villages to stay in, and do circular walks from each, or do a length of the Cotswold Way and then turn and retrace the trail back to your hotel.
You will need to purchase a good walking map, check distances.

https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/en_GB/trails/cotswold-way/
https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/en_GB/trails/cotswold-way/trail-information/

There are both circular and linear walks detailed here:
https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/en_GB/trails/cotswold-way/circular-linear-walks-2/

"What are some ideas for a good base in the Cotswolds that is scenic but does not have too much road traffic, tour buses, etc."

If it's scenic and in the Cotswolds then you'll have to deal with traffic almost anywhere you go. Chipping Campden, for example, would be an excellent base but it does get crowded once the day trippers start to arrive around mid-morning. As with most popular destinations you can beat the crowds and have places pretty much to yourselves with an early start.
We thought that Broadway was a particularly pretty little village with gentle walking paths radiating out from the town center. The path up to Broadway Tower starts a couple of blocks from the center of the village and is an easy 1.5 mile stroll uphill to the tower itself which features commanding views of escarpment and the valley to the west - good place for a picnic.
Two very pretty little places are the Slaughters - Upper and Lower - that are connect by another gentle path along a meandering stream that connects the two villages ... maybe a mile each way.
Because we too wanted to stay away from the crowds we opted to stay in the tiny little village of Alderton - lots of thatched cottages there and no traffic to speak of. It was a short drive to our daily destinations and made for quiet afternoons and evening once we returned to our home base.
While the OS maps are indeed excellent, for our more casual day hikes we found that maps really weren't needed - just using Google maps on my smart phone worked fine, especially since the signage for virtually every walk is universally excellent - the Brits do know how to do walking paths.
There's an excellent series of videos on YouTube hosted by a local named Robin Shuckburgh called "Hidden Gems in the Cotswolds" that we happened upon while we were prepping for our own visit in June. It's really quite good and, as the title implies, provides an entertaining look at some of the lesser known (and less crowded) Cotswold villages.

Robert is right. The Cotswolds can get very crowded. You said your trip is planned for next May or July. The Cotswolds will have some crowds in May, but will be very crowded in July. The summer months are the most crowded.
Robert was concerned about the traffic on the roads, but hopefully all your walks will be on trails through the woods and countryside; not alongside roads. As far as driving in the Cotswolds, roads will be more crowded in July.
Because it's such a popular area, it's a good idea to make hotel, B&B or AirBnB reservations far in advance for the Cotswolds.

You could stay in Broadway, and walk the first day to Chipping Campden; then either turn and walk back to Broadway, or take a bus back. The next day that you want a walk, you could walk to Broadway Tower and to Stanway, see Stanway House, walk back to Broadway. The Broadway Hotel is a fine place to stay, and again, as in my other post, I recommend the Broadway Deli.

You could then move hotels to Winchcombe, stay at one of the pubs there. Do a walk to Cleeve Hill and back; seeing Sudeley Castle on your way. The trail passes through the grounds. The Lion Inn, The Plaisterers Arms, The White Hart Inn all have rooms.
https://thelionwinchcombe.co.uk/
https://www.theplaisterersarms.com/
https://whitehartwinchcombe.co.uk/
https://www.winchcombewelcomeswalkers.com/winchcombe/places-to-eat/pubs/

If you want to go somewhere less foreign tourist focused, and less obvious than the Cotswolds, maybe look into the North Downs Way. Possibility of lots of rolling hills, orchards, hops, villages, pubs, lanes, oast houses and close to lots of interesting gardens, affluent homes etc.. Around Wye is lovely and close to Canterbury/Dover/Rye.

Thank you all so much for these very specific suggestions of places, walks and sources of further info like the you tube videos. This is so helpful and getting us very excited about our trip.
Also we are thinking we should try for May and not July so that it is somewhat less crowded.

Also we are thinking we should try for May and not July so that it is somewhat less crowded.

If you are considering the South Downs way then crowd wise there's no difference between May and July. It's a large area and plenty of routes so lots of options. The most crowded part of the route would be the Seven Sisters and surrounding area.

For info : we were there in mid-June this year and didn't find it to be terribly crowded at all, and we never had a problem finding parking even in the most popular villages, including Bourton-on-the-Water (a favorite), Chipping Campden and Castle Combe.
Just know that you'll need to pay for parking virtually everywhere you go - even in some of the smallest villages. I never had a problem with my American credit card in the machines- a Capital One Visa in this case.

May is our perfered UK walking holiday month. May weather is mild (temperature and precipitation) and day light hours long. That said, there is no dry month in the UK.

Our walking tours were inn to inn with luggage transfer service avoiding the need for a car and parking the car. We have used Contours Walking Holidays for point to point walking tours and for circle route tours. Contours books B&B lodging, luggage transfers and route (including maps) advice.

We have heard good things about HF Holidays. HF Holidays has overnight lodging facilities and offers guided walks from their facilities. HF Holidays explains:

In the UK we operate 17 of our own country houses, all in National
Parks or Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. You’ll find them well
equipped for outdoor holidays with a boot and drying room, en-suite
bedrooms, and a sociable lounge and bar. Enjoy delicious home-cooked
food – breakfast, picnic lunch and evening meal – using local,
seasonal, ingredients wherever possible.

Thank you everyone. All the info you have shared is very helpful to us and our trip is now beginning to take form. I am slowly going over all suggestions and ideas.

FYI UK Met office regianal climate statistics (temp, sunlight, precip etc min/max etc) resource:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/regional-climates/index

UK regional climates

Summaries of the climate characteristics of 11 regions of the UK

Their focus is on the latest 30 year averaging period of 1981-2010 and
much of the commentary refers to events during this period. However,
the effects of climate change, both natural and man-made, may need to
be borne in mind for any data applications. Analyses are provided of
the main weather elements - temperature, sunshine, rainfall, snowfall
and wind.

You could visit anywhere in the UK and be close to walking paths in stunning countryside. A couple of examples would be the New Forest and the Lake District, although the latter is hilly.
Don't rule out using public transport to get you a few miles from your hotel. It is safe and reliable.
Even staying in one of our larger cities, it is possible to get a train or bus for half an hour to be in a different world.

Hi, American here. We’ve traveled to Southwest England 3 times and really love it. I haven’t been to many other parts of England, so can’t compare, but we have also visited the Cotswolds on every trip because that’s where my husbands’ family is from. The Cotswolds are beautiful and the walking is fabulous but you are going to see a ton of tourists from outside of Britain. Of course, most places that attract tourists attract them for a reason, and the Cotswolds are really something to see. However, I will say that in Southwest England (Cornwall, Devon, and Sommerset) we hardly saw any Americans. In fact, it seemed like sometimes people were surprised to see an American. Plenty of British tourists of course. Given you have three weeks and will have a car, you will have the ability to get to these far flung places that don’t get as much American visitors because it’s so far and a pain to get to. North Dorest coast was fabulous (but weather can be iffy). The walk through the “Valley of the Rocks” was maybe one of the most interesting and photogenic walk I’ve ever taken. Personally if I had 3 weeks and a car, I’d go more remote than the Cotswolds