YOUR AUTUMN CALENDAR
Tossing the caber, putting the stone, massed pipe bands, Highland dancing, Tug o War it’s all happening at the world’s most famous Highland games, the Braemar Gathering. Braemar is also a cracking spot for exploring the Cairngorms with walks to Glen Lui* and mighty Lochnagar* just down the way.
25 years since the first episode of the BBC’s beloved adaptation of Pride and Prejudice aired. Walk at Lyme Park* in Cheshire, aka Pemberley, where Jennifer Ehle’s Elizabeth Bennet came across Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy wet from a dip in the lake.
Happy 66th birthday to Exmoor National Park. This is the one to come to if you want to get away from it all – it sees fewer visitors than any other of the nation’s parks, despite being utterly gorgeous. It’s particularly spectacular in autumn as its wooded combes turn to gold, as you’ll see for yourself on a walk to Watersmeet.*
As the closest Sunday to Armistice Day, Remembrance Sunday honours the men and women of the two world wars and later conflicts. Many walkers climb to a service on the top of Great Gable*, one of 12 Lakeland fells gifted to the nation by the Fell & Rock Climbing Club. 130 years since the world’s best-selling novelist was born. Agatha Christie sold two billion books – only Shakespeare and The Bible have sold more – and you can visit her holiday home at Greenway by the River Dart in Devon, which she called ‘the loveliest place in the world’ on a walk from Churston to Dartmouth.*
This would have been John Lennon’s 80th birthday and while he, and his fellow Beatles, are forever associated with Liverpool, Lennon had a lifelong love of Durness on the north coast of Scotland. He played in the hills as a child, and returned with
Yoko Ono and his own children, and you can walk the wild shore and visit his memorial garden.
Spook yourself on a Halloween walk at Britain’s most haunted village. The parish of Pluckley*, Kent, is home to 12 phantoms including a screaming brickmaker, a ghostly schoolmaster and the Watercress Woman. The village played a sweeter role as a location in The Darling Buds of May.
The clocks go back and British Summer Time ends, but if you don’t like all this mucking with time then walk at Sandringham* in Norfolk, where King Edward VII kept the clocks set to the same zone all year. Confusingly, it was Greenwich Mean Time plus half an hour, and he did it to ‘create’ more evening daylight for winter hunting. 400 years ago a ship set sail from Plymouth and landed 66 stormy days later at Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts. 30 million people can trace their ancestry back to the 30 crew and 102 passengers of the Mayflower, and the Pilgrims who founded modern-day America. Walk to Rame Head*, one of the last bits of Blighty they saw, and see mayflower400uk.org
Seeds of the horse chestnut at the ready for the World Conker Championships! Held in the Northamptonshire village of Southwick it draws competitors from around the globe but the local Ashton Conker Club supplies the conkers and laces, so you can’t bake, varnish or otherwise toughen your conker first!
Nowhere remembers Guy Fawkes and his Gunpowder Plot like Lewes in Sussex: flaming tar barrels, fiery torches and six sets of fireworks courtesy of six Bonfire Societies. It’s now so popular that getting into town is tricky, but there are top views across the glowing streets from the local downs, like Itford Hill above Southease.
Honour Scotland’s patron saint on a walk from his city on St Andrew’s Day: the Fife Coastal Path runs right through. It’s also 20 years since the Countryside and Rights of Way Act became law, letting us roam 3.4 millions acres of access land in England and Wales. Parkhouse and Chrome Hills* in the Peaks were particular prizes.