STYHEAD TARN*, Lake District

STY HEAD IS THE crossroads of some of the greatest hillwalking routes in Britain. Around its sweeping bowl hunker some of England’s loftiest peaks: Great Gable, Great End, Lingmell, and the king of them all, Scafell Pike (which, if you’ve hiked up to Sty Head from Seathwaite, appears for the first time and looks impossibly far away). So it’s only right that this Clapham Junction of Adventure should have a lake at the heart of it, and so it does: Styhead Tarn, a diamond-shaped sheen that is wonderful to walk past, sit beside, swim in or camp next to. And then just gets prettier and prettier as you climb away from it on your way to the high fell of your choice. Just as lovely on the way down, too.