AND SOME GEMS FROM THE REST OF THE UK

THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY, COUNTY ANTRIM, NORTHERN IRELAND

The stupendous landscape of the Giant’s Causeway, with its polygonal columns, was formed after a convulsion of the earth’s core 60 million years ago. The heaving and tearing of tectonic plates has brought them to rest in County Antrim, where they are one of the wonders of Britain. Each of the columns – there are reckoned to be 40,000 – appears to have been beautifully cut and polished, so that it fits exactly into the gap left by its neighbours.

SKARA BRAE, ORKNEY

When a great storm swept across Orkney in the 19th century, it tore the blanket of soil and sand from the remains of Skara Brae, a kind of Stone Age village. Built around 5,000 years ago, the earliest huts – made from stone on the windswept, treeless island – predate the Pyramids of Giza and Stonehenge. You can still see stone boxes that were used to soak limpets for fishing bait, and it seems the huts had indoor lavatories millennia before the rest of Britain.

THE RIVER USK

The Welsh Marches are some of the most beautiful border lands in Britain. Those who live around the neighbouring River Usk talk of Uskany. It is a good coinage. The Welsh Marches are more lush than Tuscany, though the sun is more shy about coming out from behind the clouds and they don’t make wine. But the beauty is of a similar order; in the golden light of a summer afternoon, it is as idyllic as the Italian landscapes painted by Claude Lorrain.