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

Walk the rooms left unrestored, including the shut-up chambers

Find the cases of stuffed birds among the rooms left almost as they were found

The Harpur family held Calke for more than 350 years and let it fill up: rooms shut and never reopened, cases of stuffed birds, the clutter of generations. When it passed to the National Trust in 1985 in lieu of inheritance tax, the Trust repaired it but chose not to restore it, and many rooms are shown almost as they were found, peeling paint and all.

Calke Abbey: The House Left As It Was Found

Taste an India Pale Ale in the town whose water made it famous

Find a Burton-brewed ale in one of the town's pubs

Walk the old brewery buildings and the Trent bridges

Burton's well water is full of dissolved gypsum, and when the town's brewers copied London's pale ale their water gave them the edge; pale-ale brewers elsewhere still add gypsum to imitate it, a process called Burtonisation. That advantage built Burton's India Pale Ale trade, and at its height a quarter of all the beer sold in Britain came from this one town. More than thirty breweries were recorded here in 1880.

Burton upon Trent: The Water That Made India Pale Ale

Walk to the Armed Forces Memorial and read the walls

Find the Shot at Dawn memorial in the trees

Walk the riverside paths between the memorials

The Royal British Legion National Remembrance Gardens at Alrewas, known until September 2026 as the National Memorial Arboretum, were planted on old gravel workings between the Tame and the Trent and now hold hundreds of memorials among tens of thousands of trees. At the centre the Armed Forces Memorial carries the names of everyone killed on duty since the end of the Second World War, and at 11am on 11 November, if the sun is out, a shaft of light passes through slits in its walls onto the wreath at the centre.

The National Remembrance Gardens: 25,000 Trees and the Armed Forces Memorial

Look up at the three spires from Stowe Pool

See the Lichfield Angel and the St Chad Gospels in the cathedral

Walk the close and find the Civil War damage

Visit Samuel Johnson's birthplace on the market square

Lichfield Cathedral is the only medieval English cathedral with three spires — the Ladies of the Vale — built in sandstone around the shrine of St Chad, whose relics were kept here until 1538. The close was besieged three times in the Civil War and the cathedral lost all its medieval glass; Samuel Johnson was born in the town and his house on the market square is a museum.

Lichfield: Britain's Only Three-Spired Medieval Cathedral

Go through the Museum of Making, on the site of Lombe's silk mill of 1721, probably the first fully mechanised factory in the world

Find out why the Silk Mill is the southern end of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site

Look up at Derby Cathedral's tower of 1510–32 and find the twelve grotesque animals on top

Look inside the nave James Gibbs rebuilt in 1725

Lombe's silk mill of 1721 on the Derwent in Derby was probably the first fully mechanised factory in the world, and its site marks the southern end of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site. Little of the original mill survives, but the museum on its site reopened after a £17 million redevelopment on 21 May 2021 as the Museum of Making. A few steps away, the tower of Derby Cathedral was built in 1510–32 in the Perpendicular style, 212 feet high, with twelve grotesque animals round its top; James Gibbs rebuilt the rest of the church in 1725.

Derby: The Silk Mill and the Cathedral Tower

Climb Beacon Hill, the Charnwood Forest summit above Woodhouse Eaves, in the forest where a schoolboy found the fossil Charnia masoni in 1957, among the oldest complex organisms at some 560 million years old

Walk the Outwoods at Loughborough, where ancient rocks are exposed

Walk Bradgate Park, the Grey family's estate and traditionally Lady Jane Grey's birthplace, with its Old John tower folly and herds of deer

Charnwood Forest's rocks are among the oldest in England: in 1957 a schoolboy, Roger Mason, brought to science the fossil Charnia masoni, first spotted by a schoolgirl, Tina Negus, the year before — one of the oldest complex organisms known, some 560 million years old. Beacon Hill above Woodhouse Eaves and the Outwoods at Loughborough show the old rock, and Bradgate Park, traditionally the birthplace of Lady Jane Grey, has deer and the Old John tower on its hill.

Charnwood Forest: Beacon Hill, Bradgate and Charnia

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.