Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2026 i Country Walking

Hunting for National Nature Reserves can become addictive; we lost a fair few afternoons to it in the making of this issue. There is a basic county-bycounty list on the gov.uk website at bit/ly/NNRlist. But more fun if you're a map lover is the amusingly named MAGIC Map provided by environment agency Defra. Here you can view a map of the country and ‘toggle on’ different types of landscape designations – not just NNRs but SSSIs, Biosphere Reserves and Ramsar sites as well as National Parks and National Landscapes (formerly known as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty). You'll find the MAGIC Map at magic.defra.gov.uk. Click ‘Get Started’ to open the map. To reveal all the NNR locations, click the Map Layers icon top left, then tick the following boxes: Designations…

The Scots pine, or Pinus sylvestris, can vary dramatically in stature, with the trees higher up the hillside usually significantly smaller. Yet despite the diminutive appearance of these altitude dwelling pines, they can be as old as their lower-slope brethren. In the rain-swept glens, the trees flourish, reaching skywards with tall, straight trunks. Higher up, where the wind bites and the soil is thin, they hug the ground and grow at a slower pace. As a result, a century-old tree may soar to 30 metres in the safety of the glen but scarcely reach three metres on the exposed hillside.…

ATEMPERATE RAINFOREST is a rare environment indeed. Rarer than a tropical one, and just as fragile. In Britain they're found in small pockets out west, where the air is cleaner and – as everyone who has been (or who lives) out west knows – wetter. Rarer still are upland temperate Rarer still are upland temperate rainforests. Dartmoor is lucky enough to have three of these – the best known of which is Wistman's Wood. But just as enchanting, yet far quieter, is Black-aTor Copse, in the north-western corner of the national park. It's an oasis of verdant life among a vast desert of treeless moorland. A narrow strip of oak woodland, roughly a mile long, that clings to a steep valley side and is home to a smorgasbord of mosses…

TWO OF THE inspirations behind this issue's celebration of wildness were literary. One is a book called The Wild Places, in which author Robert Macfarlane explores the last fragments of true wilderness in the British Isles. The other is H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald's account of a year spent training a goshawk named Mabel, which became a refuge while trying to process overwhelming grief following the death of their father. (Helen uses they/them pronouns.) H is for Hawk has become a totemic book for those with a passion for nature. It won Costa Book of the Year in 2014 and invariably crops up in any survey of CW readers’ favourite books. Later this month, a film version of H is for Hawk hits cinema screens. Claire Foy (young Queen…

PRIZE CROSSWORD By Will Adams JANUARY ANSWERS DECEMBER WINNERS John Hopkins, Towcester Tony Newson, Cheshire Jen Fitzstanley, Rugby January issue winners will be published next month. 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: 6 February 2026 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 ▶OBauer Media Group consists of Bauer Consumer Media Ltd, Bauer Radio Ltd and H Bauer Publishing…

Happier Walking increases your ability to make new brain cells and enlarges the volume in the brain where you process memories. It also boosts circulation and increases oxygen supply to every cell in your body, helping you to feel more alert and alive. No wonder a meta-study of research into walking and depression concluded “Walking has a statistically significant, large effect on the symptoms of depression” – at least as effective as medication. Calmer Walking has been shown to reduce activity in the amygdala and subgenual prefrontal cortex – areas of the brain linked to overthinking, anxiety and the processing of negative emotions. It also triggers the release of neurotransmitters like endorphins, serotonin and dopamine, which are linked to reduced stress and improved mood. Less breathless An hour's walk a…

WHEN JULIE RUSSELL and Andy Traviss first joined Walk1000Miles, they had no idea of the impact it would have on their lives. Neither knew the other existed. But what started as a simple congratulatory message after Julie completed her 1000 miles in 2020 (see bottom right) developed into a real-life fairytale that saw them get married under the iconic arch of Sydney Harbour Bridge in September. How did this all happen? Well, after the initial message, they started chatting and realised they both lived on the Isle of Man, and both dreamed of living in Cumbria. “We couldn't believe how much we had in common each time we chatted over the following months,” explains Julie. The two also shared a love of photography, and Andy embraced Julie's passion for Herdwick…

GARLANDED WITH GRAND houses and rolling landscaped parks, the wooded north Nottinghamshire area between Mansfield Gand Worksop is known as The Dukeries. At its heart is the cheerful village of Edwinstowe, which revels in its fabled Robin Hood connections. There's even a bronze statue of Robin and Maid Marian on High Street, not far from St Mary's Church – which is where, legend has it, they got married. Edwinstowe is a gateway to this largely rural region, full of rebel folklore and aristocratic history. Clumber Park, once the country seat of the Dukes of Newcastle, is a short drive or half-hour bus ride north and walkers can follow our first route back to Edwinstowe through Sherwood Forest. On the way, you'll pass a succession of enormous ancient oaks, including the…

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 Roots of stone on Dartmoor The extract from Laura Pashby's book Chasing Fog [October 2025] brought back memories of walking at the aptlynamed Foggintor while researching my ancestry a few years ago and taking my daughters to pass on some knowledge of their roots. By Born in Tavistock, I discovered that several generations of my family were amongst those that lived and worked at Foggintor Quarry as stonemasons. In 1861, when my great-grandfather lived at West View Cottages, there were 50 adults and 38 children living in six cottages; two families per small cottage. He later married and moved to Hill Cottages opposite the quarry entrance By…

You'll often read that, judged by the purest metrics, Britain has almost no truly wild places left, so widespread is the impact of human activity. And yet: by some other measures, wildness is everywhere around us. Species thrive again that came to the brink of extinction within our living memory. A small wood harbours a tapestry of life worthy of its own episode of Green Planet. And in our comparatively small acreage, we're blessed with a wider range of habitats than many nations twice our size. So we've used one simple metric in our search for wildness this issue: National Nature Reserves. There are 390 of these across the UK, each with a unique story of survival. Not only do they prove that wildness exists; they prove that you're almost…

‘LOOK DOWN THE valley! See the silver Dove, how she sparkles, and then hides herself in the birches; as if she were ashamed of so much beauty.’ The words of Charles Cotton, quoted by Izaak Walton in his 1653 blockbuster The Compleat Angler – not just a book about fishing, but an early travel guide to the beautiful places of England. (One likes to hope that were he with us today, old Izaak would be writing for Country Walking.) And he is spot-on about the Dove and the valley through which it scythes: Dove Dale. Welcome to the Peak District National Park, and specifically to the White Peak; so named because of the prevalence of shiny white limestone which was once the seabed of a primeval ocean. Dove Dale is where…

BOG ISN'T THE most delightful word in the English language. It doesn't imprint the phrase ‘must go here’ in your mind Bwhen you see it scrawled on a map. The Welsh word for it is ‘cors’ – a considerably less unpleasant term and, therefore, a more fitting way to describe a National Nature Reserve that is home to one of Mid Wales’ largest and most valuable sponges. Cors Caron, in Ceredigion, has been 12,000 years in the making. Since the ice retreated, an area of standing water has gradually filled with peat soil to the point where, today, there are three raised bogs holding millions of cubic metres of water-absorbing peat. For hundreds of years, people have been cutting wedges of peat from similar bogs to burn as fuel, often…

ALONG TIME AGO, the coast of South Wales was home to a vast dune system, one that stretched some 35 miles from the Ogmore estuary near Bridgend all the way to the tip of the Gower Peninsula. Fragments of those once restless sand dunes still survive, and one of those fragments is home to the second largest sand dune in Europe. Today it's a National Nature Reserve called Merthyr Mawr Warren – but it's known more colloquially as the Big Dipper. It reaches a calf-burning 200ft (60m) into the air. That may not sound like much, but then remember that it's a hill made of sand. It moves. Climbing it is a constant battle for traction best summed up as ‘one step forward, two steps back’. This thing is big.…

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 CILYCWM, Route 14, July 2009 We walk hundreds of miles a year in West Wales together, and I stash away the Country Walking routes for our adventures. We savoured this vintage route in the Camarthenshire hills which was as deliciously remote as the description promised. The views were so glorious that we extended it slightly to make an 11-mile route, mainly on ridgetop tracks. Mary Galliers & Kate Evans BLACK HEAD & PORTHPEAN, Route 1, July 2025 Although living only a few miles away, we had never explored this section of the coast. The grade is described as moderate – we would say it's strenuous, but maybe because I…

WHOEVER YOU ARE, this challenge is for you. Whether you want to walk for health, happiness or so you can eat more cake; to see new sights, take amazing photos or tone your bum/thighs/tum; to see more of where you live, do some forest bathing or climb a 2000ft mountain; meet new people or make an ex jealous; if you aim to crack 1000 by July or reckon you might barely make it across the line next New Year's Eve; if you don't know the top of a map from the bottom and have no idea what a compass is all about; whatever team you support, however short your legs or long your hair; whether you walk with a dog, a buddy, a Significant Other, your mum, your son or…

1 The Pennines have a new trail The Roof of England Walk is a new 14-day circular walking route across the highest hills of the North Pennines and celebrating the area's unique geology and heritage. Being circular, you can start anywhere along the route, including lovely places like Alston, Stanhope and Middleton-in-Teesdale. It also passes the famous Tan Hill Inn; the highest pub in Britain. Find full details at roofofenglandwalk.org.uk 2 Someone has climbed a tree every day for a year He's a Bristolian called Henrik Dahle, and his tree climbing endeavours spanned 10 European countries. He has written Art of Climbing Trees (£26; waterstones.com) – a large coffee table book that not only documents the experience, but features interviews from the treetops with fellow climbers, and includes thoughts on issues…

IN THE PAGES to come, you're going to see beautiful places. We're going on a journey around some of Britain's 390 National Nature Reserves, and most of our stops are in locations that will make your heart leap. But we make no apologies at all for starting with an NNR that covers a medium-sized wood a few miles west of the M25. Near Slough. That might sound unpromising. Slough has famously been dissed by both Sir John Betjeman (in the poem Slough) and Ricky Gervais (in the archetypal TV cringe-comedy, The Office). But despite that – actually, perhaps because of that – the fact that there's a National Nature Reserve on Slough's doorstep is a wonderful thing. It proves just how rich, varied, accessible and relevant these reserves are. So,…

THE WORLD LOOKS different in Torridon. Roads are rarer. Humans fewer. The skyline several degrees higher. For mountain lovers, the name alone is enough to conjure big dreams and a fluttering of the heart. This volcanic bulge in the fabric of north-west Scotland is home to some of the nation's most dramatically hewn uplands; peaks that easily reach and breach the 3000ft contour line which qualifies them as Munros, and which just look… different. An Teallach. Slioch. Liathach. Beinn Eighe. This latter one, a sprawling ridge rising between Loch Torridon and Loch Maree, is the star of our story. Beinn Eighe (say ‘ben A’, as in the letter) is 3310ft tall at its highest point, but that's not our objective today. The Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve is vast, covering…

THE BRITISH LOVE of understatement doesn't do us any favours. I'm standing in the middle of a huge delta that is one of Europe's most important areas for birds, and what do we call it? The Wash. Is that mundane name the reason why so many people pass by without realising that just a mile or two from the main road, some of the most astonishing spectacles in British wildlife could be unfolding before their eyes? The Wash is the vast, square-sided bay that bites into England's east coast, where Lincolnshire and Norfolk meet. Four major rivers – Great Ouse, Nene, Welland and Witham – empty into it, and historically they also flooded huge areas inland, meaning that major roads sit well away from the shoreline. Annoying for motorists, but…

LIKE THE BOG earlier, ‘the pavement’ might not sound like the most inspiring destination for your next walk. But when it's limestone pavement, that's a different story. This is one of our rarest and most curious habitats, where you can literally delve deep into the lifestyles of some Britain's hardiest species. Limestone pavement is common across the Yorkshire Dales National Park and it's what happens when a retreating glacier scrapes over the landscape, exposing the underlying rock, which is then fissured into tiny chasms and channels by rainwater over the millennia. This creates clints (the rocky chunks) and grykes (the gaps). There are famous examples on the flanks of two esteemed Yorkshire mountains, Ingleborough and Whernside, and also at the top edge of the remarkable limestone curtain of Malham Cove.…

1 I love a hawthorn. Gnarly, twisted and characterful, on isolated hillsides like this, they always make a great foreground subject. In our folklore they are both feared and celebrated. This one has been stripped of its berries (haws) by flocks of winter visitors: hungry fieldfares and redwings. I always thank trees like this one after I've incorporated them in a photo. It seems the respectful thing to do. 2 The close-cropped, grassy hillside is typical of the many sheep-grazed upland areas you find in the UK (although at this time of year the sheep will have been moved to the valley below). The hawthorn's trunk is polished after decades of being used as a scratching post. The presence of ant hills in the sward tells us that the land…

THE ONLY WAY out is through. Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. Reaching the destination is less important than the direction of travel. I know all the stirring aphorisms and I believe them to be true. But what they don't acknowledge is the stillness that a really big setback imposes on you – the windless doldrums that make any kind of galvanising advice seem remote and unrealistic. I'd been working in magazines for 15 years, all focused on things that hinged around physical activity – mountains and motorcycling, mostly – and had a professional momentum I felt would carry me as far as I wanted to go. I knew where I was heading, and there was A Plan. It all came to an abrupt halt one…

Country walking Walk 1000 miles MENTAL HEALTH ‘I like being me’ ‘PTSD is my dark passenger – I know he (or she) is always there, but I have adapted and learned to manage the triggers. My mental wellbeing is intrinsically linked to fitness. Doing Walk1000Miles with my hound is my therapeutic drug of choice. I'm fitter, a lot lighter and my PTSD is well controlled. And amazingly, I kind of like being me. I also get to share some of my adventures with a supportive, inclusive and active Facebook group. Brilliant – simply brilliant!’ Richard Rick Bate CONNECTION ‘Hands down the best thing I've done this year’ ‘2025 was my first year taking part in this challenge and I can see why so many people return to it. I have…

YOU'LL NO DOUBT have seen evocative images of hikers in a mountain range somewhere. The surroundings are mouthwatering, it's always sunny (where is this place?!), and the hikers themselves are kitted out like millionaires. Jackets as warm as sleeping bags, boots with monstertruck grip, streamlined backpacks, poles, crampons, flash sunglasses… It can feel a little removed from the realities of day-to-day walking. But Walk1000Miles keeps things grounded. Most people start this challenge from their front door. And if your typical three-mile daily stroll is through parks, fields, woods and along riverbanks, then crampons and £200 sunglasses aren't really a necessity. One of the great things about walking – and this challenge – is that you're already kitted out for it. Yes, even as you read this. Trainers, jeans, cardigans –…