Eat a Devon cream tea the Devon way, with clotted cream spread first and the jam on top, in Tavistock

Browse Tavistock's Pannier Market, the market hall of 1860

Walk the canal and the mining remains at Morwellham on the Tamar

Tavistock grew rich on tin and copper — its stannary town and mining landscape are part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining World Heritage Site — and the Pannier Market of 1860 still fills the hall in the middle of town. A Devon cream tea is served the Devon way here, with the clotted cream spread first and the jam on top.

Tavistock: The Pannier Market and the Devon Cream Tea

Climb High Willhays (621m), the highest point on Dartmoor and in southern England, and neighbouring Yes Tor (619m), from Okehampton Camp; check the MoD firing notices first

Walk to the Merrivale stone rows, the two Bronze Age double rows of standing stones on the western moor

Walk into Wistman's Wood, the stunted ancient oakwood in the West Dart valley

See the Dartmoor ponies roaming free on the open moor

High Willhays, 621m, is the highest point on Dartmoor and in southern England, climbed with Yes Tor from Okehampton Camp on the edge of the military ranges. On the western moor, Merrivale has two Bronze Age double rows of standing stones running side by side, with a stone circle and a tall standing stone nearby, and in the West Dart valley Wistman's Wood is a stunted ancient oakwood among the boulders. Dartmoor ponies roam free across the open moor.

Dartmoor: High Willhays, Merrivale and Wistman's Wood

See the Black Friars Distillery building of 1431 on Southside Street

Try the 57% navy strength, the traditional strength the Royal Navy demanded

Find the Black Friars name embossed on the bottles, from the friary the building is said to have been

Walk the cobbled streets of the Barbican around it and find the Elizabethan House

Plymouth Gin has been distilled on one site on the Barbican since 1793, in a building put up in 1431 that is said to have been a Dominican friary — which is why it has always been the Black Friars Distillery, a name embossed on the bottles. The Navy took its gin from here, and the distillery still makes a navy strength at 57% ABV, the traditional proof the Royal Navy demanded.

Black Friars: Gin Distilled on the Same Spot Since 1793

See Smeaton's Tower, the upper part of the third Eddystone lighthouse, on the Hoe

Stand at the Mayflower Steps on the Barbican, near where the Pilgrims left in 1620

Walk the Hoe promenade below the walls of the Royal Citadel

Take the boat trip round the naval dockyard from the Barbican

Smeaton's Tower, the upper part of the third Eddystone lighthouse, stood on its rock from 1759 until 1882, when it was taken down and rebuilt on Plymouth Hoe as a memorial to its engineer, John Smeaton — a major step forward in lighthouse design. Below the Hoe, the Barbican keeps its Elizabethan streets, and the Mayflower Steps commemorate the Pilgrims' departure nearby in 1620.

Plymouth: The Hoe, Smeaton's Tower and the Mayflower Steps

Photograph the night sky above the Hurlers, three Bronze Age stone circles by Minions

Climb Stowe's Hill to the Cheesewring, the stack of weathered granite slabs

Look into the Cheesewring Quarry, which supplied the granite for Tower Bridge

Climb Brown Willy (420m), the highest point on Bodmin Moor

Bodmin Moor's east side, around the old mining village of Minions, holds the Hurlers, three Bronze Age stone circles, and on Stowe's Hill above them the Cheesewring, a natural stack of weathered granite slabs beside the quarry that supplied the granite for Tower Bridge. The moor has dark-sky status, and Brown Willy, the highest point in Cornwall, rises to the north-west.

Bodmin Moor Dark Sky Landscape

Walk up to High Willhays and Yes Tor, the highest ground in southern England

Walk the ruins of Okehampton Castle above the river

Walk or cycle the Granite Way along the old railway

Check the firing times before crossing the military ranges

Okehampton sits under the northern edge of Dartmoor, where High Willhays rises to 621m, the highest point on Dartmoor and in southern England, with Yes Tor beside it. The Norman castle ruins stand above the West Okement, and regular year-round trains returned to the town in 2021, almost fifty years after they were withdrawn, so you can arrive by train and walk onto the moor.

Okehampton and the Dartmoor North Moor

Walk the abbey church the monks built themselves

See Dom Charles Norris's 1968 slab-glass window in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel

Walk the lavender, sensory and physic gardens

Book a honeybee experience day or a beekeeping course at the abbey apiary, where Brother Adam bred his bees

Benedictines returned to the ruined site at Buckfast in 1882 and rebuilt the abbey church between 1907 and 1938 on the medieval foundations, mostly with their own hands — four monks at a time, one of them a trained mason, working with a horse and a winch. The community still makes tonic wine and keeps bees, and Brother Adam's bee breeding here was known worldwide.

Buckfast Abbey: A Church Built by a Handful of Monks

Go aboard the SS Great Britain, Brunel's iron steamship of 1843, in the dry dock where she was built, and walk under the hull below the glass 'sea'

Visit the M Shed museum on Prince's Wharf, in a 1950s dock transit shed

See Banksy's The Mild Mild West mural in Stokes Croft

Cross the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the Avon Gorge, begun to Brunel's design and opened in 1864

Isambard Kingdom Brunel's iron steamship SS Great Britain of 1843 is back in the dry dock where she was built, and you can walk under her hull below a glass sea. The Clifton Suspension Bridge, begun to Brunel's design and finished after his death to a revised design, opened in 1864 over the Avon Gorge. The M Shed museum is in a 1950s transit shed on Prince's Wharf, and in Stokes Croft Banksy's The Mild Mild West is still on its wall.

Bristol: The SS Great Britain, Stokes Croft and the Clifton Bridge

Visit Stonehenge, the Neolithic stone circle whose bluestones were brought from the Preseli Hills in Wales, and its visitor centre

Walk the Avenue and the Cursus in the wider landscape

See the Neolithic houses and the collection at the visitor centre

Walk out to the barrow cemetery on King Barrow Ridge

Stonehenge was built and rebuilt over 1,500 years from about 3000 BC, and most of its smaller bluestones were brought from the Preseli hills in west Wales, some 240km away, by means still argued over. The sarsens came from much nearer, and the whole monument sits in a landscape of barrows, avenues and the Cursus.