Walk Stamford, the limestone town that became England's first conservation area in 1967

Tour Burghley House, the Elizabethan house built between 1555 and 1587 by William Cecil, Lord Burghley

Walk the Burghley parkland landscaped by Capability Brown

Walk Stamford Meadows beside the River Welland

Stamford is a limestone town that in 1967 became England's first conservation area, with meadows running down to the Welland. Just outside it, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, built Burghley House between 1555 and 1587, and Capability Brown later landscaped its park.

Stamford and Burghley

Cycle the 23-mile circuit around Rutland Water, England's largest reservoir by surface area, first filled in 1976

Birdwatch from the hides at the Rutland Water Nature Reserve, where ospreys were reintroduced in 1996

See Normanton Church on the reservoir shore, its lower half filled with stone and ringed by an embankment when the valley was flooded

Rutland Water, built in 1971–75 and first filled in 1976, is England's largest reservoir by surface area, with a 23-mile cycle path round it. Ospreys were reintroduced here in 1996, and the first chick hatched in 2001; they are watched from the hides of the nature reserve. On the shore, Normanton Church was saved from the rising water by filling its lower half with stone and rubble and ringing it with an embankment, and it is now used for weddings and concerts.

Rutland Water: Ospreys and the Drowned Church

Stand in front of the three great arches of the west front

Look up at the painted nave ceiling of 1230–1250

Peterborough Cathedral was begun on 8 March 1118 and its Early English west front — three enormous arches side by side — has no precedent in architecture and no direct successor. The painted wooden nave ceiling, finished between 1230 and 1250, is the only one of its kind left in Britain, and Catherine of Aragon is buried here under the gold letters 'Katharine Queen of England'.

Peterborough: The West Front Without Precedent

Walk through the 13th-century gatehouse between its twin round towers

Tour the Tudor house inside the castle walls

Look out over the Welland valley from the terrace

See the Long Gallery, converted in the 1840s, when Dickens was a visitor

William the Conqueror built Rockingham on a spur above the Welland valley, and it was a royal castle for 450 years before Henry VIII leased it in 1544 to Edward Watson, whose family bought it outright in 1619 and are still there. The round gatehouse towers of the 13th century survive, the Tudor house sits inside the walls, and Charles Dickens, who stayed five times, is thought to have had it in mind for Chesney Wold in Bleak House.

Rockingham Castle: A Royal Castle Over the Welland

Find the Holme Fen Posts and see how far the peat has sunk since 1851

Stand on the lowest land in Britain, 2.75m below sea level

Walk the open north and south sections of Holme Fen's birch woodland

Find out how Whittlesey Mere was drained in 1850–51

Holme Fen was once part of Whittlesey Mere, the largest lake in southern England, about three miles across, until landowners drained it with steam pumps in 1850–51. To measure how far the land would sink, a timber post was driven through the peat into the clay with its top level with the ground; in 1851 it was replaced by a cast-iron column said to come from the Crystal Palace, and that column and a second iron post of 1957 now stand high above the surface, marking the lowest land in the country at 2.75m below sea level. Around them grows what Natural England calls the finest birch woodland in lowland Britain, though part of it burned in the wildfires of summer 2026. It is part of the Great Fen project to put 3,700 hectares back to wetland.

Holme Fen: The Lowest Land in Britain

Buy a hand-raised pork pie where they still make them

Taste Stilton from one of the six licensed dairies

See the medieval church of St Mary above the Eye

Melton Mowbray calls itself the rural capital of food, and it has the two things to back it: the Melton Mowbray pork pie, raised by hand around a wooden dolly with uncured meat that greys as it cooks, and Stilton, still made in the town at one of only six dairies licensed to make it anywhere.

Melton Mowbray: Pork Pies and Stilton

Tour Belvoir Castle, the Duke of Rutland's Gothic Revival castle above the vale, rebuilt in 1801–1832 to designs by James Wyatt

See the state rooms, among them the Elizabeth Saloon, the Regent's Gallery and the State Dining Room

Browse the shops and cafés of the Engine Yard retail village on the estate

Belvoir Castle, the Duke of Rutland's seat above the vale, was rebuilt in 1801–32 in the Gothic Revival style to designs by James Wyatt. Its state rooms include the Elizabeth Saloon, the Regent's Gallery and the Roman-inspired State Dining Room, and the Engine Yard on the estate is now a village of shops and cafés.

Belvoir Castle

See Moira Furnace, the blast furnace of 1804 beside the Ashby Canal

Walk or cycle the Ashby Woulds Heritage Trail from the furnace

Walk one of the new plantations of the National Forest

The National Forest is being planted across 200 square miles of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire, much of it old coal and clay workings, turning spoil and worked-out ground back into woodland — millions of trees since 1991. At Moira, the blast furnace of 1804 stands beside the Ashby Canal as a reminder of what the ground was used for before.

The National Forest: Moira Furnace and the New Woods

Take the cave tour beneath Nottingham Castle, which goes into Mortimer's Hole, where Edward III's men seized Roger Mortimer in 1330, or King David's Dungeon, depending on the day

Explore the National Justice Museum in the Shire Hall and its caves in the Lace Market

Walk the Lace Market, the district of the 19th-century lace warehouses

Under Nottingham Castle, Mortimer's Hole is the tunnel through which Edward III's men came to seize Roger Mortimer in 1330. The National Justice Museum is in the old Shire Hall, with its caves, and around it the Lace Market is the district of 19th-century lace warehouses.