This short, circular, flat, 4-mile route goes mostly through ancient woodland, starting in the medieval hunting grounds of Writtle Forest. There are plenty of opportunities for wildlife spotting along the way; we saw deer, rabbits, squirrels, birds, and a rat. For the most part it was easy to navigate but as always, having a map never hurts. If you do this walk after lockdown, there’s a pub at the end.
The Sugar Loaf mountain stands 596m high in the Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales, near Abergavenny. It is the southernmost of the summit peaks of the Black Mountains. This walk offers many vantage points of (and on) the Sugar Loaf.
The route starts at a Cibi valley farm before ascending through a medieval deer park then ancient moorland. The climb to the summit is short but steep with rewarding views. The meandering descent passes grazing sheep and crosses a spring before a near vertical climb, then back onto Sugar Loaf common. The final decline is through woodland and pasture to the start.
This North Essex walk is one for the nature lovers, taking in four nature reserves. The walk can (and should!) be extended by rambling along the trails within these reserves before re-joining the main route. There’s a variety of terrain; farmland, woodland, meadows, and River Stour estuary and salt marsh. It’s an undulating walk with …
The quiet, flat 12 mile route offers both farmland and coastal terrain. At roughly halfway you reach the main points of interest; Bradwell Shell Bank and Chapel of St. Peter on the Wall. There are other elements preventing this route feeling like too much a trek; three pubs, Church of St. Nicholas, Bradwell Waterside Marina, Bradwell Power Station, and of course, the coastal views. The seawall section is easy to follow, but over-zealous sowing and poor signage makes some of the inland route hard to follow, even with a map.
Yet another great walking route we found on essexwalks.com, which we followed to the letter. The possibility of finishing at The Three Hills pub tempted us to start the route in Bartlow. However, the highlight of this walk for most will be Barlow Hills, ancient roman burial mounds, so we’d advise not crossing that off right at the start. There’s quite a lot of farmland mileage between Ashdon and Bartlow and it’s best to have this at the start of the walk, rather than the end.
This popular route, an OS premium route and also mapped by essexwalks.com, underwhelmed us. While the ample water en-route makes for plenty of wildlife, the route is still a little urban for our liking – it passes a huge tesco! The main problem is that the highlight of the walk is at the start, or the end if you prefer. Or both, as we did.