In this ancient corner of England near Abbotsbury, stone circles punctuate the open downland. Our writer picks a misty but atmospheric day to explore

With Stonehenge, Avebury and Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire is the English county most associated with Neolithic stone circles and barrows. Dorset, its southerly neighbour, has nothing on this scale, but there is an ancient quarry – the Valley of the Stones – and a number of smaller, but equally atmospheric archaeological sites surrounding it and snaking footpaths connecting them.

Our day out has maximum atmosphere. We park in the village of Portesham, a former quarrying community where boulders can still be seen along the main street: the land above us is shrouded in mist, which blurs the lines of the winter scene.

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Witch hazel and snowdrops, hellebores and daffodils – with the country set to burst into bloom, we find the best of the season’s first offerings

The gardening team of this estate near Totnes takes the first few months of the year seriously: spidery yellow witch hazel flowers and snowdrops are the precursor to daffodils and bluebells. Trails allow everyone to explore the 800 acres ( Tramper mobility scooters can be arranged). There’s accommodation at different price levels, too, including hostel rooms and those in the original 14th-century building. Dartington does things a bit differently. When most gardens do light shows in winter, Dartington has one based on Alice in Wonderland , running from 8 March to 3 April. Food choices range from pub grub to bagels baked on the estate.
B&B doubles from £129; dartington.org

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Learn the skills to unearth our ancient history – from excavations for children in York to guided walks along the Thames and residential courses in Wales

As the north-west frontier of the Roman empire, Northumberland is scattered with Roman sites, including numerous forts that housed the soldiers who guarded these unruly borderlands. Many are still being excavated, including Vindolanda and Magna forts just south of Hadrian’s Wall. The first modern excavation kicked off at Magna last spring, and the dig season at both runs from April to September – visitors can watch the archaeologists at work Monday to Friday (they take volunteers too, although 2024 is fully booked). One of Vindolanda’s most important treasures is the Vindolanda writing tablets (thin hand-written wooden notes of life there 2,000 years ago), which will be on display as part of the new Legion: Life in the Roman Army exhibition at the British Museum in London (until 23 June).
£12.50 adult, £6 child , vindolanda.com

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With millennia of history hidden beneath our feet, connecting with the ancient past offers endless fascination, and many ways to get involved

When I was a teenager, I watched a TV documentary about a frozen human body that had been discovered at the summit of Mount Ampato in Peru. Dubbed “Juanita” or the Incan ice mummy, this girl had been a human sacrifice, killed in about 1450 at the age of 14 or so – the same age I was. Her body had mummified, preserved in the permafrost, which meant her clothes, her hair, even her stomach, containing her last meal, were all still intact.

Using a battery of scientific techniques, as well as historical and anthropological knowledge, the anthropologist-archaeologist-mountaineers who discovered Juanita were able to unpick the story of her final months, weeks and hours. I was astounded to learn that discovering and explaining such mysteries could be an actual job. Anthropology and archaeology, and the challenge of making the strange familiar, and the familiar strange, had a hold on me.

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Our tipsters celebrate our distant ancestors at mystical and atmospheric sites from County Fermanagh to Cornwall

Cratcliffe and Robin Hood’s Stride are a collection of gritstone crags and boulders nestled against a Derbyshire hillside not far from Bakewell. It’s a beautiful place with a magical feel. Carved into the base of the cliff is a small chapel – the “hermit’s cave” – and in the next field, the Nine Stones Close stone circle is over two metres high and 3,000 years old. Only four stones remain. Rowtor Rocks , a nearby jumble of boulders, has a plethora of little dwellings carved into the rocks that you can explore. No wonder the local pub is called The Druid Inn ...
Frances

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Port Talbot, Rochdale, Wick, Croydon and Kettering – we continue our series on places the guidebook writers skip
Where tourists seldom tread, parts 1-7

Port Talbot recently returned to the spotlight, when Tata Steel announced electrification and layoffs last month and the BBC broadcast Michael Sheen’s television series The Way this week. Politicians and foreign companies can shut down entire towns with impressive equanimity when the factories they are mothballing and the lives they are destroying are invisible. Port Talbot, however, would seem hard to ignore. As you approach on the M4, which undulates gamely on stilts across the skyline, the view of the vast Tata Steel plant is bracing. The hills on the inland side are squat, solid-looking lumps but greenish and pleasant enough. The sea glints on the far side of the works. You may catch sight of beautiful Aberavon Beach. Whitish steam – and a 50th of the UK’s CO ₂ emissions – curls up into grey estuarial cloud.

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The Covid boom in pet ownership has led to operators offering plenty of pet-friendly accommodation. But is it really such a good idea?

Go on holiday without your best friend? For growing numbers of dog owners, it’s unthinkable.

Holiday operators have seen a big jump in guests booking accommodation that accepts dogs in recent months, and the trend is set to accelerate this year.

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I arrived feeling soul sick and lost, but the simple acts of putting away my phone and sitting in the woods for a few days turned into something profoundly transformational

It is November and I am on a train, halfway through my journey towards Danny Shmulevitch’s Walking Your Promise retreat in Gloucester, when I realise that I am having a panic attack.

I had booked the retreat a few months earlier when I was struggling to recover from Covid, crawling through my days in a fog of anxiety and exhaustion, then spending my nights in the claws of insomnia.

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Boats, trains and buses lead to a hauntingly beautiful side of the Lake District, bursting with wildlife, culture and relics of the past. While dark-sky canoeing makes for a magical night

The ripples are deep gold in the sunset light as we paddle across Coniston Water towards Wild Cat Island. Officially known as Peel Island, this is where the children camp in Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons. The canoe glides between rocks into the hidden harbour with its pebbly beach, and we climb, excited as kids, up through bronze-leaved oaks and tall pines to explore the clifftop clearings.

This morning, I took several trains and a bus, each journey more lovely than the one before, to reach Coniston in the Lake District. Tomorrow I’ll catch a boat to visit Brantwood , once home to the Victorian writer and artist John Ruskin. A champion of art and nature and an early observer of the damage that human activities were doing to the environment, Ruskin might not have approved of all my transport choices. He loved boats, but saw railways as part of industrialisation’s “frenzy of avarice” and complained, with characteristic paternalism, about the “stupid herds of modern tourists” who “let themselves be emptied, like coals from a sack, at Windermere …” Ruskin, writing before cars swarmed across the landscape, recommends hiring “a chaise and pony for a day”.

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