Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2025 i Country Walking

This month I've been… USUALLY WHEN AN editor spots that two different stories have similar openings, we're supposed to do something about it. But not this issue. Matt's wonderful story about the joy of parks and open spaces begins with a reference to a 90s Britpop song. So does Tom's equally fascinating read about the commons of the Lake District. Blur and Pulp. Parklife, Common People. But the slight case of déjà vu doesn't bother me; in fact it's sort of where we started with this issue, which is a celebration of open spaces where everyone is welcome to walk. Park life for common people. As Matt says, the joy of these spaces is that they are everywhere. Parks, heaths, commons: you don't need to travel hours from home to…

LIFE MUST BE lived forwards but it can only be understood backwards – so observed Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, in a journal entry of 1843. And while we don't want to fall into the abyss of overthinking where poor Søren toiled, he had a point. I don't want to get too Zoolander about this, but we do spend so much of our lives at the coal face of the present moment. What's now? What's next? What's for dinner? What's that noise? What haven't I done that I should have before work tomorrow? And while the answers to all those questions, and the thousands like them crowding our consciousness, are no doubt important, they're not going to add up to much in the great weighing scales of our lives. Sometimes it's…

THERE AREN'T MANY walks – even in the remotest corners of the nation – where you don't pass a church at least once. From simple chapels to vast cathedrals, medieval ruins to modern marvels: these buildings punctuate the landscape and help to tell the story of our islands and the peoples who've dwelt in them. And you don't need to be a person of faith to feel the pull: whether it's the architecture, the moment of calm or even the promise of a cuppa, there is something that draws us into these places to breathe deeply and, occasionally, think a big thought or two. Some, though, are stranger than others, with stories that are especially captivating. Here are eight sacred spaces that defy convention – and the walks that take…

Email your picture, along with a few words about the walk and your contact details to cwroutes@bauermedia.co.uk THIS MONTH'S PRIZE WINNER KETTLEWELL, Route 17, September 2025 A stunning walk – just me, hubby, sheep and amazing views… my kind of heaven. We stopped for some fruit at Capplestone Gate trig point and enjoyed the scenery. I'm blessed to live in the Yorkshire Dales and do a linear walk across the tops from Grassington to Kettlewell on a regular basis – today's walk introduced me to new routes across the tops. Janet Pollock, by email COTSWOLD WATER PARK, Route 3, November 2014 Only an hour's drive from home, this was a delightful walk full of history plus information boards on the local wildlife. Despite it being described as ‘The Lake District of…

WHEN BLUR'S DAMON Albarn decided to document the peculiarities of British life through what is known as… Parklife… he wasn't being overly complimentary. As he sat in London's Hyde Park in 1994 as the ‘habitual voyeur’ depicted in the song, he observed those around him, and mused at the ritual nature of their daily lives. Thirty-something years on and I, too, am sitting in a park, assessing my surroundings. I'm in Dinefwr in Carmarthenshire – a different kind of place to Hyde Park; a rural affair with deer, woodland and a hilltop castle – but a park nonetheless, and I assess its throngs of people through a different pair of eyes. I see teenagers kicking a football to each other; I see a mother helping her toddler to balance on…

AQUESTION: AT WHAT point does a hill become a mountain? Nobody knows. People think they do. You'll find all sorts of funny ideas on the internet, still more from AI. Contrary to these, making a mountain is not just a simple matter of numbers or words. Say ‘hill’ and it conjures a very different image from ‘mountain’, and on all sorts of levels. It's about identity. The perfect case in point is Roseberry Topping. Hill or mountain? Standing at ‘just’ 1050ft above sea level in the Cleveland Hills (perhaps a clue there) at the northern edge of the North York Moors, it might not seem to have much of a claim to mountainhood. Yet here on Country Walking, we think Roseberry Topping is not just a mountain, but perhaps one…

IT WILL NEVER cease to be a moment of delight when we hear from a reader who's enjoyed something we recommended, whether that's a walk, a pub, a book, a café… or an item of gear. The latter is especially soul-nourishing, because a gear purchase is a big moment – and increasingly, alas, an expensive one. So when we hear from someone who has gone with one of our recommendations, and that they've enjoyed 5, 10, 100, 1000 walks in that jacket or those boots, it brings an unquantifiable joy. So there is a degree of self-interest in play as we proudly present Gear of the Year 2025 and its two components: the Top 3 of Everything, curated and updated from the findings of the CW team over the past…

1 It has been a big year for little terns They fly from west Africa each year to lay their eggs on our beaches, and when a male tries to woo a female he'll present her with a fish. But since the 1980s, the little tern has been a bird in decline, with numbers here dropping by 39%. However, the tide now seems to be turning. This year has seen impressive numbers of fledged chicks across the country, with some reserves reporting the most they have seen in decades. Various partnerships have formed to try and save our smallest tern, including the Little Tern LIFE Recovery Project and the Solent Seascape Project, by improving habitats and managing predators and disturbance. It seems to be working – numbers of little tern…

WITH WOODED HILLS and pretty ironstone villages, the underappreciated Lincolnshire Wolds are rich in wildlife and history. The invading Viking army settled here in the ninth century and placenames ending in -by come from the Danish word for village. One of those, Tealby, is regarded as one of Lincolnshire's prettiest villages. With its cluster of stone cottages, gentle fords and 14th-century thatched pub (the Kings Head) it has plenty to please the eye. Prettier still are its surroundings of the steep (for Lincolnshire) western edge of the Wolds – any height gain here offers miles of views west across the plains with Lincoln Cathedral poking its towers up over the horizon some 16 miles away. The first walk follows one of the best stretches of the Viking Way – a…

WRITE TO US AT: Country Walking, Media House, Lynch Wood, Peterborough PE2 6EA EMAIL: editorial@countrywalking.co.uk FACEBOOK: facebook.com/countrywalking TWITTER/X: x.com/countrywalking LETTER OF THE MONTH Out of the bin, back to life The copy of Country Walking went flying across my hospital room. I was aiming for the bin. It was a well-meant gift sent by a friend, which arrived moments after the consultant had told me I was in heart failure. At 60 years old, with a lifetime's passion for walking, it felt like a death sentence. I was so breathless I could hardly walk up the short path to my home on discharge from hospital. Day after day I struggled to manage just the basics. My hubby gently encouraged me to walk very slowly each day, but it all felt…

THIRTY YEARS AGO, Pulp released a single called Common People. It got to number two in the charts. I know it's not a song about ancient land use, but where do you think the term ‘common people’ originated? Yep, from people who were too poor to own their own land, people who eked a living in areas of communal use: the welfare state of its time. The way common land works is quite simple and perhaps contrary to the image the name portrays. All common land is actually private land. It has an owner, either an individual or an organisation. Historically, this was more than likely the Church or the Crown. Certain named people – the commoners – then have rights to use the land in question. These days, it's…

PRIZE CROSSWORD NOVEMBER ANSWERS OCTOBER WINNERS Richard Green, Nuthall Kevin Barrett, Hartlepool Nicola Roach, Solihull November issue winners will be published next month. Full terms and conditions can be found at greatcompetitions.co.uk WIN! Win Cicerone guidebooks Three lucky winners will each get to select two guidebooks from Cicerone's range, which includes The National Trails of England, Scotland and Wales and Walking in Arran. For more details, Tel. 01539 562069 or visit www.cicerone.co.uk EMAIL COMPLETED PUZZLES TO: cwcrossword@bauermedia.co.uk Closing date: 5 December 2025 Bauer Media Group (the publishers of Country Walking) have other great offers and promotions that we think you'll like, but if you'd rather not hear about these offers, please tick this box □ For our privacy policy visit bauerdatapromise.co.uk Bauer Media Group consists of Bauer Consumer Media Ltd,…