Perched on a bleak rise of moorland 8 miles east of Tavistock, Princetown is England’s highest town, but it’s best known as the location of one of Britain’s most infamous high-security prisons. The gloomy granite form of Dartmoor Prison, built in 1809 to house French and American prisoners of war, looms ominously over the northern edge of town. It’s far from the most beautiful spot on Dartmoor, but Princetown’s central location makes it a good base for walking.
Cornwall’s capital city has been at the centre of the county’s fortunes for over eight centuries. Truro grew up around a hilltop castle (no longer standing) built by Richard Lucy, a minister of Henry II’s, but it was the town’s position at the confluence of the Rivers Allen, Kenwyn and Truro that sealed its fortunes (the town’s name is thought to derive from the Cornish word tri-veru, meaning three rivers). Throughout the Middle Ages, Truro was one of five Stannary towns in Cornwall, where the county’s tin and copper was assayed and stamped. During the 18th and 19th centuries, it became one of the southwest’s most important industrial towns, attracting an influx of wealthy merchants and the construction of a swathe of elegant townhouses, best seen along Lemon St and Falmouth Rd. Truro was granted its own bishop in 1877, and the city’s three-spired cathedral followed soon after – finally completed in 1910, it was the first new cathedral in England since St Paul’s. Today, little evidence remains of Truro’s industrial heyday, but the city still makes a good base, with a selection of shops, galleries and restaurants and Cornwall’s main museum.
Croyde Bay and the nearby beach at Saunton Sands are Devon’s most popular surfing spots, with a clutch of good camp sites, B&Bs and pubs. Check out the Croyde Surf Club website (www.croydesurfclub.com) for webcam shots from all the area’s main breaks.
It’s not quite true to say that Land’s End is the most westerly point of the British Isles; that claim truly belongs to the tiny Isles of Scilly, 28 miles southwest of mainland Cornwall. Over 140 islands make up this min-iature archipelago, but only five are inhabited; St Mary’s is the largest and busiest island, closely followed by Tresco, while only a few hardy souls remain on Bryher, St Martin’s and St Agnes. Nurtured by the Gulf Stream and blessed with a balmy subtropical climate, the Scillys have long survived on the traditional industries of farming, fishing and flower-growing, but these days tourism is by far the biggest money-spinner. With a laid-back island lifestyle, a strong community spirit and some of the most glorious beaches anywhere in England, it’s hardly surprising that many visitors find themselves drawn back to the Scillys year after year. While life moves on at breakneck speed in the outside world, time in the Scillys just seems happy to stand still.
Centred around a majestic cathedral topped by a soaring central spire – the tallest in England – the gracious city of Salisbury makes a charming place from which to explore the rest of Wiltshire. It’s been an important provincial city for more than a thousand years, and its streets are dusted with buildings from almost every period in Britain’s architectural history – medieval walls, half-timbered Tudor townhouses, Georgian mansions and Victorian villas – but Salisbury is a modern, lively place, with plenty of bars, restaurants and terraced cafés, as well as a concentrated cluster of excellent museums.
Saxons established the sturdy settlement of Wareham on the banks of the River Frome in around the 10th century, and the remains of their defensive walls can still be seen encircling the town. St Martin’s Church dates from around the same period, and is one of the last remaining Saxon churches in Dorset. The town is also well known for its connections to the enigmatic figure of TE Lawrence, immortalised in David Lean’s epic Lawrence of Arabia.
For years gritty, grimy old Bristol has been the ugly sister of Britain’s cities, outclassed by Bath, outsmarted by London and upstaged by the rejuvenated cities of Newcastle and Manchester to the north. But the fortunes of this old industrial city have changed dramatically in recent years, and the transformation that’s taken place over the last decade is pretty astonishing. There’s a new sense of swagger and self-belief around Bristol these days; while the once-great trades of shipbuilding, manufacturing and the railways have long since sailed upriver, the city has steadily reclaimed its rightful place as an economic powerhouse, gastronomic centre and a cultural force to be reckoned with. The crumbling docks have been prettified and polished up; the streets are packed with cutting-edge restaurants, designer bars and world-class museums; and the city’s music, media and nightlife scenes are all showing the rest of the country how things should be done. It’s real, raw and just a little rough around the edges, but if you really want to know exactly where Britain’s at right now, then Bristol is hard to beat.
With its geranium-covered cottages, higgledy-piggledy rooftops and idyllic location next to a rushing brook, the medieval village of Lacock seems to have been preserved in aspic since the mid-19th century. The village has been in the hands of the National Trust since 1944, and is almost entirely untouched by modern development – there are no telephone poles or electric streetlights, and it’s kept largely free of traffic thanks to the main visitor car park on the outskirts of the village. Unsurprisingly, it’s also a popular location for costume dramas and feature films – parts of the Harry Potter films, as well as BBC adaptations of Moll Flanders and Pride and Prejudice, were all filmed here.
All streets in the honey-stoned town of Sherborne lead to its majestic abbey, set at the centre of a grassy green and once the most important church in Wessex; both of Alfred the Great’s elder brothers, Ethelred and Ethelbert, are buried beneath the abbey’s flagstones. Sherborne was the capital of Wessex until the end of the 11th century, when the bishopric moved to Old Sarum, but continued to be a town of strategic and religious importance throughout the Middle Ages. These days it’s a quiet and attractive market town, filled with antique shops, haberdashers and estate agents; reminders of its former status remain in its twin castles, which stand on either side of the silvery sheen of Sherborne Lake.
Tiny Wells is England’s smallest city, and only qualifies for the title of ‘city’ thanks to its magnificent medieval cathedral, which sits in the heart of town beside the grand Bishop’s Palace – the main seat of ecclesiastical power in this part of Britain since the 12th century, and still the official residence of the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Medieval buildings and cobbled streets radiate out from the cathedral green to the main marketplace, which has been the bustling heart of Wells for some nine centuries. These days Wells is a quiet provincial city, with some good restaurants and busy shops, and makes a good launch pad for exploring the Mendips and northern Somerset.