Secret Britain

Looking to travel a little closer to home? See Britain with a fresh set of eyes, aided by the experts from Bradt Travel Guides, who’ve personally curated these 30 little-known delights...

From cycling in the Cotswolds to touring little-known vineyards on the Isles of Scilly, we look at Britain with a fresh set of eyes

Ross Back Sands, Northumberland

This gloriously deserted sandy spit extends for 5km from Budle Bay to Lindisfarne. Access is via a 1.5km-long footpath through Ross Farm and across the dunes, which puts off the few travellers who venture here. Your reward, however, is an unbeatable panorama: all sky, sea and white sands with Lindisfarne Castle (pictured) at one end and, at the other, Bamburgh Castle and the Farne Islands. A pair of binoculars will come in handy, not only to check out the seals lazing on Lindisfarne’s bay (best viewed from Guile Point) but also to scan the sea for divers, grebes and scoters in winter, and terns in summer. GH

Walberswick, Suffolk

Walberswick was formerly a small trading port before its harbour silted up. Long adopted as a bohemian retreat by artists like Philip Wilson Steer and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the former fishing village has long-since morphed into a enclave for media-types. These days it is popular with walkers and birdwatchers, and young families who come here to relax and go crabbing in the creek. The most atmospheric way to reach Walberswick, though, is by way of the rowing-boat ferry across the River Blyth from Southwold, an enterprise that’s been in the same family for five generations. LM www.explorewalberswick.co.uk

3 Carn Euny, Cornwall

Although this ancient hut settlement is managed by English Heritage, the sense of private discovery is overwhelming. To get here, it’s an easy walk from Chapel Carn Brea car park north-east over Tredinney Common past a very natural, gurgling holy well that marks the site of St Euny’s Chapel. The low stone walls of the roundhouses are clearly visible, beneath a soft blanket of turf and wildflowers and the entrance to a mysterious fogou (underground structure) is also apparent. This remote and beautiful acre lies on a south-facing slope; it’s a place to linger, maybe with a picnic and a jug of local cider. KF www.english-heritage.org.uk

4 Hunstanton, Norfolk

Standing a short walk along the beach from the Victorian resort of Hunstanton (‘Sunny Hunny’) are the magnificent banded cliffs of Old Hunstanton. The cliffs, which are comprised of layers of rusty ginger sandstone (‘carrstone’), red limestone (‘red chalk’) topped with chalk, are framed by a foreground of chalky sand and green, seaweed-covered rocks. Unusually – actually, uniquely – for East Anglia, they face west. With the setting sun lighting up the cliffs as it lowers across The Wash, and a painterly combination of red, white, green and blue, this is the sort of place that holds great appeal for romantics and landscape photographers alike. LM www.visitwestnorfolk.com

5 Sunbiggin Tarn, Cumbria

Lakes of any size are very thin on the ground in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Sunbiggin Tarn’s rarity makes it popular with wildlife and visiting humans alike. Interesting birds can be seen here all year around but this place’s greatest claim to fame is probably its starling murmurations. One of the country’s largest and most spectacular, it involves tens of thousands of birds and occurs here at dusk on most autumn and winter evenings. MB www.visitcumbria.com

6 Yoesden Nature Reserve, Buckinghamshire

Six miles north of High Wycombe, Yoesden has changed little since medieval times. Descending from ‘beech hanger’ woods, its sunsoaked chalk grassland provides a haven for less common flora and fauna. In late June, it’s a pink and purple picture with chalk fragrant, pyramidal and common spotted orchids. By August, blue is the colour with devil’s bit scabious, nettle-leaved bellflower and lots of Chiltern gentian attracting butterflies – keep an eye out for the azure Adonis blues and the powdery chalk hill blues as well as the common blue and small blue varieties. NM open daily, free; bbowt.org.uk/ nature-reserves/yoesden

7 The Grey Mare’s Tail Nature Reserve, Dumfries & Galloway

The wild and rugged landscape of this National Trust for Scotland reserve in Dumfries & Galloway is a taste of the highlands in the lowlands. The 60m Grey Mare’s Tail waterfall is the UK’S fifth highest; a walk up alongside it will eventually bring you to isolated Loch Skeen and Britain’s rarest native freshwater fish, the vendace. Continue climbing to the top of White Coomb (821m), Dumfriesshire’s highest peak for inspirational views to the Scottish Borders and even beyond if the weather goes in your favour. Look out for peregrine falcons, osprey and, if you’re lucky, golden eagle, which have been reintroduced in recent years. DG goldeneaglessouthofscotland.co.uk

8 Solar Heritage boat tours, West Sussex

The catamaran was powered by nothing else but the sun, gliding across through the marshy waterscape of Chichester Harbour in West Sussex’s south-west corner. ‘She’s quiet, doesn’t scare wildlife, uses no oil or lubricants and doesn’t cause wake,’ explained our guide, as binoculars were passed around to my fellow passengers to spot the abundant birdlife and wait for a glimpse of its couple of dozen resident seals. The craft is one of only three, built to ferry people to an exhibition of alternative energy sources held in Switzerland and now-recycled here to spectacular effect. Surely the ultimate form of Slow Travel? TL

£10 (adult); www.conservancy.co.uk

Birkenhead Park, Wirral

The port of Birkenhead on Wirral was a town of firsts in the 19th century, including being home to the world’s first publicly funded park. But Birkenhead Park, a naturalistic 100 acres of meadows, fields, gardens, woodland, lakes and structures, has another boast. It inspired the American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted in his design of New York’s Central Park. Birkenhead Park isn’t the only Victorian joy of this peninsula. Wirral’s other secrets include the industrial garden village of Port Sunlight, Ness Botanic Gardens (which introduced the rhododendron to Britain’s borders) and pretty Parkgate village, with its now landlocked seafront promenade. KS