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In a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Fountains Abbey is England’s best preserved Cistercian monastery. The abbey has been a ruin since the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII in the 16th century, but 500 years of decay have done nothing to diminish its majesty. Constructed in 1132, Fountains Abbey grew to become one of the country’s wealthiest monasteries, enriched by lead mining, stone quarrying, animal rearing and wool production. The abbey precinct covered 70 acres, and you can delve into its history at the Porter’s Lodge exhibition, in a contemporary building within the original gatehouse. Among the ruins you can investigate big pieces of the abbey church and cloisters, as well as the vestiges of what used to be one of the largest abbot’s houses in England. The great hall alone was more than 50 metres long.

Dating back more than 1,300 years, Ripon claims to be England’s oldest city. Whether or not this is true, you can’t deny the weight of its historical wonders. Ripon Cathedral is an Early English masterpiece concealing the remains of an 7th-century Anglo-Saxon basilica in its crypt. Fountains Abbey, three miles outside the city is the largest monastic ruin in the country. The vestiges of the abbey church and abbot’s house are a UNESCO World Heritage site, along with the magnificent Studley Royal Park that took shape after the abbey was suppressed. Every night on Ripon’s Market Place the city’s hornblower sounds his watch, in a custom dating to 886. Let’s explore the best things to do in Ripon:

The Forestry Commission owns a beautiful parcel of the Chilterns close to Aylesbury. This 800-acre space includes the highest point in the range, at the 267-metre Haddington Hill. Wendover Woods are made up of a mix of broadleaf and softwood trees, and every now and again on the signposted trails you’ll be wowed by unending views over the Aylesbury Vale to the north. Wendover Woods also has a Go Ape high ropes park, with a challenging 685-metre Treetop Adventure course for people over ten, and Treetop Junior for youngsters, with a zip-line 85 metres long.

In March 2018 a monument to David Bowie was unveiled under the arches in the Market Square. The town had a close connection to the star who passed away in 2016, as in the early 70s Bowie debuted his Ziggy Stardust character at Aylesbury’s Friars Club. The bronze sculpture shows an array of Bowie’s personas, with life-sized renditions of the Thin White Duke and Ziggy Stardust. The work is titled “Earthly Messenger” and has speakers that play a different Bowie song on the hour.

On the southeast side of Aylesbury proper there’s a Green Flag park made up of woodland, wildflower meadows and sports pitches. Families can bring younger children to the massive fenced playground, which is landscaped like idyllic countryside with small rolling hills. On a sunny day you could visit for a picnic as there’s a lovely prospect of the Chilterns to the south, while the strange-looking round hall is a community centre hired out to residents on weekends, and used for children’s workshops, a dance school and exercise classes.

The main green space in the centre of Aylesbury, Vale Park is north of Hilda Wharf on the Grand Union Canal. There’s a contemporary design to Vale Park, with colourful flowerbeds, hard paved paths, a playground for children and a skatepark for bigger kids. On the north side is the Aqua Vale Swimming and Fitness Centre, which has a cafe while the tarmac-surfaced tennis courts can be used by anyone for free. Vale Park has plenty going on in the summer, like Play in the Park, a day out for children at the start of August with activities and games to mark National Play Day. At the end of the same month there’s a funfair, children’s entertainment and live music at the Parklife Weekend, Aylesbury’s biggest party of the year.

One of the must-see buildings on the Market Square is this National Trust pub that has elements dating back 800 years. The King’s Head is among the oldest pubs with a coaching yard in the South of England, and was founded as an inn around the middle of the 15th century. It is thought that King Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou stayed here around that time, and there’s a stained glass panel brought here from the dissolved Greyfriars monastery, showing the king and queen’s personal coats of arms. The 15th-century Great Hall still has its wattle and daub walls, while the 13th-century cellars may have belonged to a friary on this site. Check out the Medieval hearth in the Gatehouse Chamber, etched with graffiti that may have been left by Parliamentarian troops in the English Civil War.

On the west shoulder of the town centre in an atmospheric graveyard ringed with historic houses, the parish church is a Grade I-listed building. The site is believed to go back to Anglo-Saxon times, although the present church is rooted in the early 13th century. St Mary’s is a prominent landmark in Aylesbury, with a fine clock tower that you can see from almost anywhere in the town. That spire is thought to be 17th-century and dates from the reign of Charles II. Head in to see the 14th-century Lady Chapel, which is on the north transept and has a remarkable sedilla (stone seat) with a pointed arch. Also in the north transept you’ll find a lovely 17th-century alabaster monument to a Sir Henry Lee, Master of the Armouries under Elizabeth I.

When the Aylesbury arm of the Grand Union Canal opened in 1814 it brought heavy industry to the town for the first time. There had been a plan to extend the Grand Union Canal through to the Kennet & Avon Canal to the south. This would have created an enormous network across the West to Bristol, but this was never realised because of a lack of water. The Grand Union Canal is now the preserve of pleasure boaters and walkers. You can hire a narrowboat for the day in Aylesbury, or use the town as an embarkation point for a self-navigated three or four day cruise. Walkers can take the gentle towpath to Marsworth, passing 16 historic locks on the route. In September 2018 Aylesbury put on its inaugural Waterside Festival, with boat trips, live music and a continental market with more than 30 stalls.

15 Best Things to Do in Aylesbury (Buckinghamshire, England) The county town of Buckinghamshire is on the edge of the Chiltern Hills in the Aylesbury Vale’s verdant farmland. Aylesbury has some strong regional attractions like the County Museum, along with a state-of-the-art theatre that opened in 2010. The children’s author Roald Dahl was a Buckinghamshire resident and is remembered with a wonderful hands-on children’s gallery, attached to the County Museum. Aylesbury has a place in pop history, as the Friars Club here welcomed some of the biggest music acts of the 70s, and was where David Bowie performed as Ziggy Stardust for the first time. There’s a lovingly rendered statue for Bowie under the Corn Exchange on the Market Square. Let’s explore the best things to do in Aylesbury: 1. Buckinghamshire County Museum Buckinghamshire County Museum Source: Nigel Cox / Wikimedia Buckinghamshire County Museum This museum explores many strands of Buckinghamshire’s human and na...

In a handsome former coach house, the Roald Dahl Children’s Gallery harnesses the much-loved author’s books and characters for educational exhibits about literature, history and science. The museum is especially immersive for kids, as the exhibits feature art by Quentin Blake, who produced the illustrations for Roald Dahl’s books. Children can discover Willy Wonka’s inventions, learn about sound with the BFG, crawl through Mr Fox’s tunnel and learn about “minibeasts” inside the Giant Peach. There’s lots of interactivity, allowing kids to appear on TV, freeze their own shadow and magnify fleas. The attraction is run by the Buckinghamshire County Museum, and has a shop, peaceful garden and cafe.

The highest and maybe the best viewpoint in the Chilterns is a few short miles south at Coombe Hill. This patch of “Chilterns Countryside” was once on land owned by Chequers, the country residence for the Prime Minister. You can see the triangular gables of this magnificent Tudor mansion to the southwest of the summit. A popular local walk, Coombe Hill crests at 260 metres and is topped with a monument from 1904 to the Second Boer War. The hill is covered with acid moorland and deciduous woods, and is a habitat for wild orchids and birds like firecrests, yellowhammers and red kites. Take a look at the triangulation point, labelling visible landmarks like Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury Church and even the Cotswolds, 53 miles away to the west.

East and south of Aylesbury is the chalk escarpment of the Chiltern Hills, cutting diagonally across the countryside for almost 50 miles. The range is conserved as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and offers scenic and occasionally stiff bike trails and walking paths. You could head up to hike a section of the Ridgeway, a National Trail following the course of a path along the hilltops that has been walked since Prehistory. A lot of the land has been made public, after estates were donated to the National Trust. The majestic lookout at Coombe Hill is one, while further south the Bradenham Estate has ancient beech woodland bedded with bluebells in spring, around a quaint village of brick and flint cottages.

A few miles into the rolling countryside at Quanton Road Railway Station, the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre is a steam locomotive museum that opens for Steaming and Static Days. Steaming Days are Sundays and also Wednesdays during school holidays, when you can take a ride on full-sized steam train along 500 metres of track. There are also miniature trains operating on these days. On Static Days (Mondays and Tuesdays, as well as Wednesdays outside school holidays) you can still enter the museum’s railway shed to see an impressive variety of steam locomotives, like a LSWR 0298 Class from 1874 and an operational Metropolitan Railway E Class built in 1898. Take a look at the calendar, as there are regular special events, displaying vintage diesel engines, mail vehicles, tractors and fire engines.

A miniature Château de Chambord in the Aylesbury Vale, Waddesdon Manor is a neo-Renaissance mansion built for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild between 1874 and 1889. In 1957 the estate was bequeathed to the National Trust by his great-nephew James de Rothschild and was named Large Visitor Attraction of the Year by “Visit England” in 2017. Baron Ferdinand used the house to show off his invaluable collections of 18th-century French furniture, Beauvais and Gobelins tapestries, Sèvres ceramics, exquisite panelling, Savonnerie carpets and paintings by Reynolds, Gainsborough and 17th-century Dutch masters. That collection has grown with family donations, including sublime Renaissance maiolica, Limoges enamel and ceremonial weapons and armour. Visit the gardens, designed by French landscape architect Elie Lainé and intended to make an impact on soiree guests, with an extravagant parterre, statuary and fountains.

This long, rectangular square in the heart of Aylesbury has fine buildings and interesting pockets of history all around. On the southeast end, beside the striking Corn Exchange is the Aylesbury Crown Court, which shut its doors for the last time in 2018. This Palladian building was completed in 1740, and in 1963 was where the culprits of the Great Train Robbery were sentenced. In front of the court is a statue for the soldier and politician Charles Cavendish, 3rd Baron Chesham, who served in the Second Boer War. The bronze lions beside his statue come from the Rothschild estate at Waddesdon Manor and have been here since 1888. At the opposite end of the square there’s a narrow passageway through to the King’s Head Inn, one of the oldest pubs in the South of England. Aylesbury’s market trades on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and there’s a Vintage & Craft Bazaar on Tuesdays.

This museum explores many strands of Buckinghamshire’s human and natural history, and is housed in a row of beautiful flat-fronted buildings on Church Street. The oldest portion of the complex is a timber-framed guildhall from the 16th-century, with rare murals intact. The museum has exhibitions for archaeology, industrial history, textiles, agriculture and geology. One of the key pieces is a Cubitt car, manufactured in Aylesbury in the 1920s and one of only six surviving models in the world. There’s also a small but valuable collection of Egyptology, as well as Prehistoric stone tools, Roman coins and Medieval pottery. The costume collection is vast, spanning 500 years, and there’s an ever-changing exhibition of British painting and sculpture in the Buckinghamshire Art Gallery. In the coach house behind the museum is the Roald Dahl Children’s Gallery, which we’ll cover later.

The county town of Buckinghamshire is on the edge of the Chiltern Hills in the Aylesbury Vale’s verdant farmland. Aylesbury has some strong regional attractions like the County Museum, along with a state-of-the-art theatre that opened in 2010. The children’s author Roald Dahl was a Buckinghamshire resident and is remembered with a wonderful hands-on children’s gallery, attached to the County Museum. Aylesbury has a place in pop history, as the Friars Club here welcomed some of the biggest music acts of the 70s, and was where David Bowie performed as Ziggy Stardust for the first time. There’s a lovingly rendered statue for Bowie under the Corn Exchange on the Market Square. Let’s explore the best things to do in Aylesbury:

On the last weekend in February the city centre’s streets are packed with street food stands and colourful market stalls for speciality food and drink. This is all in honour of the vegetable, forced rhubarb. Wakefield is the capital of a tranche of West Yorkshire countryside known as the Rhubarb Triangle. The farmers producing early forced rhubarb here even have European Union PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) status. Head to the marquee tent, which holds cooking demonstrations showing what can be done with rhubarb, while during the event local cafes put rhubarb pie, cake and pudding on their menus.

Rugby League, as opposed to Rugby Union, is the second most popular sport in the North of England. Nearly all the teams playing in the Super League, Rugby League’s top competition, are based in this part of the country. In terms of style, Rugby League has a couple of things in common with American Football, one being that after a certain amount of tackles without scoring (six in Rugby League), the ball has to be handed over to the opposition. The local team, Wakefield Trinity are nicknamed the Dreadnoughts and play at the 9,333-capacity Belle Vue stadium. Trinity were big in Don Fox’s day in the 60s when they won most their league and Challenge Cup titles. But without spending big money, they have a reputation for over-achievement and finished 5th in the Super League in 2017.

Four miles southeast of Wakefield city centre is a Green Flag country park around an large lake. Waterton is the former site of the country’s deepest open cast coalmine, descending 76 metres. On the lake’s banks you can venture through woodland, meadows and a wetland zone. The Discovery Centre offers bike hire, information about the area and tea, coffee and light meals at the cafe. The trails are set up with bird hides to spot the goldeneyes and widgeons that visit the lake in autumn.

The decayed vestiges of this Medieval castle dominate the east flank of Pugney’s Country Park. Sandal Castle was founded at the start of the 12th century as a Norman motte and bailey. The surviving stonework is from the 15th century when the castle had its most eventful years, during the Wars of the Roses. In 1460 the pretender to the English throne Richard Plantagenet was killed close by at the Battle of Wakefield. Shakespeare’s play, Henry VI part 3 is set at Sandal Castle during this period. Richard Plantagenet’ son Richard III chose Sandal Castle as his northern base not long before he was famously killed at Bosworth Field in 1485. After Richard III’s death the castle fell into decline and its stone was quarried. The ruins are very picturesque and have all-encompassing panoramas of the West Yorkshire countryside.

In 1985 the 300-acre site of an open cast coalmine and quarry in the south of Wakefield was renewed as a country park. There are two lakes here, the larger of which is a watersports centre, and somewhere to come for canoeing, windsurfing or sailing, with equipment for hire. The smaller lake is a 24-acre nature reserve, loved for its enormous flock of swans, with as many as 100 to be found at any time. You can hire bikes by the hour, and there are barbecue pits and picnic areas for the summer. For youngsters, Pugneys also has a miniature railway running around the banks of the larger lake on weekends.

Some way east but still within Wakefield’s city limits, Pontefract Castle had a fearsome reputation in Medieval times. The castle was laid low in the Civil War in 1649 as it had been a Royalist stronghold and withstood a series of sieges. But large pieces of the curtain wall are still standing, as well as the lower portions of the multi-lobed keep and the basement of the tower where Richard II was imprisoned at the end of the 14th century after being captured by his successor Henry Bollingbroke. Richard is believed to have died at this place in 1400, most likely through starvation.

A calm spot for lakeside walks, Newmillerdam Country Park is a little way south of Wakefield city centre. For centuries Newmillerdam was a noble estate owned by the Pilkington Family. Their residence was eventually demolished because of subsidence in the 1960s, but a few buildings around the park are still here. There are two lodges constructed for gamekeepers in the 19th century to deter poachers, as well as a fanciful Gothic Revival boathouse on the lake. Spring is a fabulous time to visit the lake, when if you’re quiet and lucky you may see great crested grebes performing their courtship dance.

Opened in 1894, Theatre Royal is Wakefield’s prime performing arts centre. The building was designed by Frank Matcham, who conceived dozens of theatres across the country in this period. Theatre Royal has the smallest auditorium of Matcham’s theatres still standing, and incorporates of an earlier theatre building. The venue is both a producing and receiving theatre, putting on its own pantomimes in the Advent season, and with a creative director, John Godber, who has several awards under his belt. There’s an diverse line-up of visiting musicals, plays, comedians and live music acts, so it’s a good idea to check the calendar before you come to Wakefield.

In 2013 the town museum moved into the new development at Wakefield One, and was officially opened by Sir David Attenborough. The exhibitions here deal with different strands of the city’s past, like the War of the Roses in the 15th century, the local Rugby League club Wakefield Trinity and the 420-year story of Wakefield Prison. There’s also a display for the Victorian naturalist Charles Waterton, including his collection of taxidermied animals, like a caiman he supposedly rode ashore in South America. Some other obligatory pieces are the oldest post box in the country, dating to 1805, a 15th-century posy ring from Sandal Castle and the boots of Don Fox, the star player for Wakefield Trinity during the club’s most successful period on the 1960s.

The oldest and finest example of just four surviving bridge chapels in England, this stunning monument dates to 1356. The chapel is built from sandstone on a small island on the Calder, along a nine-arched bridge completed in the same year. The main facade is made up of five exuberantly carved panels, representing the Annunciation, Nativity, Resurrection, Ascension and the Descent of the Holy Ghost. You can only get inside on special open days, but if you’re one of the lucky few you’ll get to admire the stained glass windows, restored in 1847, and take the spiral stairway down to the sacristy and crypt.

At 75 metres Wakefield Cathedral’s spire is the highest in Yorkshire. Constructed on top of a Saxon church, the cathedral has lots of original Medieval design, from Norman to Perpendicular Gothic. Between 1858 and 1874 the Victorian master restorer George Gilbert Scott and his son John Oldrid Scott regenerated the building after more than a hundred years of disuse. It’s not hard to find the oldest parts: the wall of the north aisle goes back to the mid 12th century, the same period as the piers in the nave, which support Gothic arches from the 13th century. Overhead, cast your gaze up to the wooden coffered 15th-century ceiling, adorned with ornately carved bosses. The choir stalls are also 15th-century and have 11 misericords with outlandish mythical beasts and a Green Man.

On the site of a dissolved Medieval priory, this lavish Palladian house was designed by James Paine and Robert Adam as a statement of wealth for the Winn family. The house was begun in 1733 and enhanced by successive generations of the family, each keen to project a message about their power and social status. This has left us with an amazing National Trust property, with jaw-dropping Rococo and Neoclassical plasterwork, Chippendale furniture and art by Pieter Breughel the Younger, Hans Holbein the Younger and Hugh Douglas Hamilton. There’s also a precious longcase clock by the era-defining 18th-century inventor John Harrison. Outsider are 300 acres of parkland, woven with lakeside and meadow trails, and dotted with monuments like the Obelisk Lodge and Druid’s Bridge. In Robert Adam’s stable block are the estate’s visitor centre and Courtyard Cafe.

In the grounds of Bretton Hall is a world-class and ever changing exhibition of modern and contemporary sculpture. Billed as the UK’s leading outdoor gallery, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s collection is partly made up of works that featured at temporary exhibitions in London parks from the 40s to the 70s. Among them are several pieces by Henry Moore, forming one of the largest collections of his bronzes in Europe. There are also sculptures by the likes of Barbara Hepworth, Ai Weiwei, Jaume Plensa, Joan Miró and short-term exhibitions that tend to focus on individual 20th-century sculptors like Eduardo Paolozzi Lynn Chadwick and Phillip King. Fine 18th-century monuments from the estate are scattered around the park and there are also indoor exhibitions at the modern Longside Gallery and the restored St Bartholomew’s Chapel from 1744.

After the Caphouse Colliery closed in 1985 it found a new lease of life as a museum about the history of mining in England. This mine was sunk in the 1770s and was the last deep coalmine in the country when it shut down. Building and machinery like the coal screening plant, boiler house, steam winding house and pit head baths are all in situ. Guided by an ex-miner with fascinating anecdotes, you’ll put on a hardhat and go 140 metres underground, and get to ride on a paddy train and see the ponies that were bred to work in the mines. Being a national museum, there are exhibitions about the industrial and social history of coalmining across England at the visitor centre.

Opened on the River Calder in 2011 this acclaimed art gallery was designed by David Chipperfield and won UK Museum of the Year in 2017. The Hepworth showcases Wakefield’s first-class art collection. Central to that are masterpieces by Henry Moore and of course, Barbara Hepworth whose family donated 44 aluminium and plaster working models to the gallery. Other luminaries of British art are also represented like Paul Nash, Walter Sickert, Anthony Caro and Ben Nicholson. At any time there are up to seven temporary exhibitions at the Hepworth, and they’re almost always free. In 2018 the must-sees were the surrealist photography of Lee Miller, and a show for the contemporary Dutch artist Viviane Sassen.

Up to the 1980s coalmining was the backbone of this city in West Yorkshire. The landscape had been mined since the 15th century, around the time Wakefield witnessed a decisive battle during the Wars of the Roses. The open cast collieries that used to scar the countryside have been flooded and turned into nature reserves and parks, while the Caphouse Colliery is now England’s National Coal Mining Museum. It just so happened that two of England’s greatest artists, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore were born around Wakefield within a few years of each other. You can appreciate their Modernist sculptures at the fabulous Hepworth gallery and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

This pocket-sized artist’s garden is in just 1.5 acres around a fairytale 18th-century cottage. Pinsla Garden draws on Bodmin’s mysterious prehistory with a decorative stone circle enclosing bulbs, a variety of grasses and wildflowers. A mix of perennials and annual means that there’s a constantly evolving display of colour and texture, while the shaded edge of the neighbouring woodland is planted with golden yews, small-leaved rhododendrons, bamboos, ferns and acers. The accompanying nursery is free to enter and has succulents, perennials, acers, scented geraniums and a host of shade plants for sale.

Near the village of Lostwithiel there’s a Medieval castle with a perfectly circular layout. Restormel Castle is on a spur over the River Fowey. Although it has been a ruin since the 16th century the castle’s 13th-century circular shell keep still encloses the remains of its principal rooms. In the 14th century this was a luxurious property and was twice visited by the Black Prince, the son of Edward III. One of the best things about Restormel Castle is the Wall Walk. This takes you around the battlements for a guard’s perspective of the Fowey Valley, as you ponder what castle life might have been like in the in courtyard below. The castle mound is a joy in spring when the daffodils and primroses in flower.

There’s lots to get stuck into at the Town Museum. Set on the lower ground floor of the handsome Public Rooms, these galleries take you back to the town’s origins. You’ll see artefacts recovered from what is thought to be the 6th-century Monastery of St Petroc, together with earlier Neolithic and Bronze Age finds. There’s an exhibition on Bodmin’s very own spy school, the Joint Services School for Linguists, which trained its students to become fluent in Russian. In the 18th and 19th century Cornwall had a high reputation for its clock-making, and there’s a fine example by the local brand, Belling of Bodmin. You can enter a recreation of a traditional Cornish kitchen and a blacksmith forge, and learn the story of Private James Henry Finn, who earned the Victoria Cross in the First World War.

At the southwestern gateway to Bodmin Moor, Cardinham is a blissful mixed woodland, much loved by walkers, cyclists and people on horseback. There are four main waymarked trails, ushering you deep into the woods and up to viewpoints. The Lidcutt Valley Walk has a climb that will work your calves but reward you with vistas of the Lady Vale. The 1.5 mile Lady Vale Walk is less of a challenge, and brings you to the Lady Vale Bridge on the site of a 12th-century chapel. Finally, you can follow the Wheal Glynn Walk to find the ruins of an old lead and silver mine, where the engine house and chimney stack are still standing.

This vineyard on the tall south-facing slopes of the Camel Valley was first planted in 1989 and has gradually caught the world’s attention. In 2005 one of its wines won an International Wine Challenge Gold Medal, and in 2009 Camel Valley won best Traditional Method Sparkling Wine ahead of Bollinger and Roederer in Verona in 2010. On a sunny afternoon you can visit the terrace to sip Camel Valley’s wines, but there’s also a choice of two tours in summer. Monday to Friday you can take the “Guided Tour”, which explains the life of the vines in a year and how their grapes are turned into award-winning wines. The “Grand Tour” takes place on Wednesday evenings and is led by a winemaker, answering in-depth questions and leading a wine-tasting session. You’ll get to try at least five of Camel Valley’s wines, including its signature Cornwall Brut.

The seat of the Molesworth family since the 16th century, Pencarrow is a splendid Palladian mansion in formal gardens on the cusp of Bodmin Moor. The approach to Pencarrow is pretty dramatic, along a mile-long drive leading you through an Iron Age hillfort. Tours are given of the house from Sunday to Thursday between March and September. There are lots of precious things to savour as you go, like paintings by Joshua Reynolds and Samuel Scott, Meissen, Worcester, Sèvres and Kangxi period porcelain. The finest piece of porcelain though has to be the Qianlong-era famille rose bowl. On top of all this there’s a set of glass pens from the Great Exhibition (1851), invaluable 18th-century furniture and displays of antique toys, costumes and a rare portable shower from 1840. The grounds are open seven days a week and have a sunken Italian garden, palm house, ice house, deep woodland and an early Medieval Cornish cross.

Bodmin is on an 18-mile cycle route between Wenford Bridge to the north and the coastal town of Padstow to the west. The Camel Line is on the former North Cornwall Railway (1899) between Padstow and Wadebridge, and the Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway from Wadebridge to Wenford Bridge (1834). The very nature of these railway lines, which were devised to avoid tight turns or steep inclines, makes them perfect for gentle family bike rides. Practically the whole route is on the disused line so you won’t have to contend with much road traffic. If you don’t have a set of wheels there are hire centres in Bodmin, like Bodmin Bikes & Cycle Hire, only 400 metres from the trail. The trail encapsulates the best of the North Cornwall countryside, inland on the edge of Bodmin Moor, and in the wooded, ravine-like Camel Valley on the way to Padstow.

Jury duty may not be something you’d look forward to on holiday, but that’s exactly what awaits you at Bodmin’s early-Victorian Shire Hall. You’ll be met by a court usher, who will start by giving you the history of this solemn monument. He or she will also tell you about the Victorian-era case of Matthew Weeks, who in real life was accused of the murder of his girlfriend Charlotte Dymond and was soon executed at Bodmin Jail. You’ll then attend the trial, which uses bit of audiovisual trickery and animatronics to present the ins and out of the case. At the end you’ll get to decide if Matthew Weeks was guilty of murder, before descending to the Shire Hall’s dingy holding cells.

Towering over Bodmin’s southern reaches there’s a 162-metre granite hill at the heart of a nature reserve. Presiding over the town from the top is the Beacon (1856), an obelisk 44 metres tall, commemorating the British Army officer Sir Walter Gilbert who spent nearly all of his career in India. After scaling the hill and gazing over Bodmin, you can ramble through the reserve’s meadows and newly planted community woodland.

At Bodmin Parkway station you can board the Bodmin and Wenford Railway for an evocative 6.5-mile ride on a train pulled by a steam locomotive. The railway uses sections of the Great Western Railway branch line (1887) and a junction line that opened a year later to link with the Bodmin And Wadebridge Railway (1834). The principal station is further down the line at Bodmin General, and there are services from February to December, with train rides available every day of the week from May to October. When the trains are running you can go inside the old workshops at Bodmin General to check out the engines and carriages. The railway organises themed rides for children and grown-ups, and for something special you could board the luxury Cornish Belle coaches for one of the regular Cornish High Tea or dining services.

You can’t talk about Bodmin without bringing up the 80-square-mile granite moorland in the town’s back garden. Bodmin Moor contains Cornwall’s two highest peaks, Brown Willy (420m) and Rough Tor (400m), looming above moody sweeps of heather and marshes. This stark, rugged environment has been used as a shooting location for BBC’s Poldark TV series and is peppered with prehistoric moments like standing stones and the remnants of Iron Age settlements. King Arthur’s Hall is a Neolithic or Bronze Age ceremonial site made up of 56 stones in a rectangle bordered by an earthwork bank. Some sites around the moor have UNESCO World Heritage status as they relate to a mining industry that goes back 4,000 years, while the absence of light pollution makes for crystal clear night skies.

Cornwall’s largest parish church is also one of its oldest. St Petroc’s dates from the turn of the 1470s, but includes architecture from an older Norman building like the tower on the north side. Inside, the highly decorative baptismal font was fashioned in the 12th century. There’s also a tremendous degree of workmanship visible in the 15th-century woodwork found at the pulpit, reredos, wall panelling and chancel screen. At some point, the misericords from the same period were removed from the choir stalls and fixed to the lectern. In one of the images there’s a man with five fingers and a thumb!

The Keep (1827) at Bodmin’s old Victoria Barracks has hosted the Cornwall Regimental Museum since 1929. This charts the 300-year history of The Light Infantry, the Duke of Cornwall’s light infantry (separate concepts) and volunteer militia. One member of the regiment was Harry Patch (d. 2009), the longest-surviving combat soldier of World War I, who has a small exhibition in his honour. There’s an exciting collection of weapons and more than 80 uniforms, all going back to the Napoleonic Wars. Sir John Moore (d. 1809), Founder of the Light Infantry and known for his innovative training methods, is remembered with an exhibition that features his ceremonial Order of the Bath silk mantle and a collection of personal memorabilia. One piece of special interest at the museum is the Washington Bible, printed in 1712 and used by George Washington at a Masonic ceremony.

Still a menacing sight nearly a century after it closed, Bodmin Jail throws you into the life of a Victorian prisoner. The jail was built in 1779 during the reign of King George III, using 20,000 tons of granite from the Cuckoo Quarry on Bodmin Moor. And although the building looks forbidding from the outside, it came with a sophisticated heating and cooling system, while the wood-panelled Old Chapel (now a restaurant) feels very refined. Bodmin Jail was secure enough to safeguard state papers, the Domesday Book and the Crown Jewels during the First World War. You can make your way across six levels, entering the desolate cells and imagining the grim life of a prisoner in the 1800s. It gets even grislier in the Execution Shed and hanging pit. There’s no spookier place than Bodmin Jail to watch a scary movie, which you can do on Thursday nights, combined with a late-night tour of the passageways with a “medium”.

An awe-inspiring Victorian country house, Lanhydrock was mostly reconstructed following a fire in 1881. There are elements from the building that had stood here since the 1620s, like the 35-metre Long Gallery (see the Steinway piano and plasterwork on the ceiling), the front porch and the gatehouse. One of many reasons to fall in love with Lanhydrock is in the contrast between “Upstairs and Downstairs”, where you can browse the preserved kitchens and servants’ quarters, as well as well as the grander family home and its tasteful dining room and bedrooms. The estate covers 1,000 acres, with landscaped parkland, woods and paths beside streams and the River Fowey. You may be caught off guard by the heartrending views of the valley landscape. In spring the garden is awash with the blooms of cream and white magnolias, numbering 120 different species.