Walk the nave and transepts of the ruined abbey church

Find the carved seats of the sedilia and the chapter house arches

Walk the valley path from the abbey towards Barrow

Furness Abbey was founded in 1123 by Stephen, Count of Boulogne, for the Order of Savigny, and passed to the Cistercians in 1147; by the 15th century it was the second richest and most powerful Cistercian house in England, behind Fountains. Its sandstone arches stand in the wooded Vale of Nightshade south of Dalton-in-Furness.

Furness Abbey: The Red Sandstone Ruin in the Vale of Nightshade

Strike the Eric Morecambe pose beside his statue on the prom

Walk the Stone Jetty and find the Time and Tide Bell beside it, which rings around high tide

See the Winter Gardens, the old Victoria Pavilion

Morecambe grew out of the fishing village of Poulton-le-Sands after the Morecambe Harbour and Railway Company was formed in 1846 to build a harbour and railway there, and the seafront still has the shape of a Victorian resort with the whole Lakeland skyline across the water. Graham Ibbeson's bronze of Eric Morecambe, born here in 1926, was unveiled by the Queen in July 1999 and stands looking out over the bay. Beside the Stone Jetty, a Time and Tide Bell by Marcus Vergette was installed in 2019 and is rung by the sea itself.

Morecambe: Eric, the Winter Gardens and the Time and Tide Bell

Walk across Morecambe Bay from Arnside to Kents Bank with the King's Guide to the Sands

Watch the tide come in at the Arnside Viaduct, where the bore runs up the Kent

Crossing the sands of Morecambe Bay is an ancient and dangerous route, and a royally appointed guide leads people over: the King's Guide to the Sands, Queen's Guide in a queen's reign. Cedric Robinson held the post from 1963 to 2019, and Michael Wilson, a local fisherman, succeeded him; the guide is paid £20 a year and has the use of the Guide's Cottage at Kents Bank. Walks go about once a fortnight from spring to autumn, usually from Arnside over to Kents Bank, fording the River Kent on the way. At Arnside the railway crosses the Kent on its viaduct of 1857, where the tidal bore comes up the estuary.

Morecambe Bay: Walking the Sands With the King's Guide

Tour Brantwood and look out over the lake from Ruskin's study window

Ride the steam yacht Gondola on Coniston Water

See the Bluebird story and Ruskin's collection at the Ruskin Museum in Coniston

John Ruskin bought Brantwood above Coniston Water in 1871, reportedly without having seen it, and lived there for the rest of his life; the house is now a museum to him. On the lake below, the steam yacht Gondola, launched in 1859 for the Furness Railway's passengers and rebuilt by the National Trust, still runs under steam.

Coniston: Ruskin's Brantwood and the Steam Yacht Gondola

Listen for booming bitterns from the reedbed hides in spring

Look for bearded tits on the grit trays in autumn

Watch marsh harriers quartering the reeds

Walk over to the saltmarsh hides on the bay side

Leighton Moss, behind Morecambe Bay, is an RSPB reserve known for its breeding bitterns, marsh harriers and bearded tits, with otters and red deer in the reeds; six booming male bitterns were counted in 2021. The RSPB also protects a stretch of Morecambe Bay saltmarsh here where avocets feed. In spring the booming carries across the reedbed, a sound like blowing over the top of a bottle.

Leighton Moss: Bitterns in the Biggest Reedbed in the North-West

Walk up past the old copper and slate workings on the north-east slopes

Reach the summit cairn above Coniston Water

Look down into the Coppermines valley behind the fell

The Old Man rises straight out of Coniston village to 802 metres, with well-marked paths that make it a popular climb. Its north-east slopes are a working record of eight hundred years of copper and slate mining, and the abandoned levels, quarries and spoil tips are as much the point of the walk as the summit. The rock changes as you go: volcanic tuffs across the top, sandstones on the southern slopes.

The Old Man of Coniston: Copper, Slate and a Summit Over the Lake

Tour Lancaster Castle, where the Pendle witches were tried in 1612, and its Georgian Crown Court

Climb to the Ashton Memorial in Williamson Park

Walk Morecambe promenade and find the Eric Morecambe statue

Look across Morecambe Bay to the Lakeland fells

Lancaster Castle was first used as a prison in 1196 and was a prison again as recently as 2011, which is why so little of it has ever been dug: the Pendle witches were tried here in 1612 and hanged on the moor above. On the hill behind, the Ashton Memorial stands over Williamson Park, and Morecambe looks out across the bay to the Lakeland fells with Eric Morecambe in bronze on the promenade.

Lancaster and Morecambe: The Witch Trials and the Bay

Find the 15th-century carvings in the keep, long called the prisoners' carvings but now thought to be the work of bored guards

Go into Carlisle Cathedral, founded as an Augustinian priory

Visit Tullie, formerly Tullie House, for Hadrian's Wall and the Border Reivers

Carlisle Castle was begun under William Rufus and its keep dates from between 1122 and 1135 — one of only about a hundred tower keeps in the country. Mary, Queen of Scots was held here for a few months in 1568, in the Warden's Tower. The city began as the Roman settlement of Luguvalium on Hadrian's Wall and became the stronghold of the western border, and its cathedral began as an Augustinian priory church.

Carlisle: The Border Castle and Mary's Prison

Go through Hill Top at Near Sawrey, kept as Beatrix Potter left it

Browse Tabitha Twitchit's Bookshop in William Heelis's old solicitor's office in Hawkshead

Walk the alleys of Hawkshead and see the grammar school Wordsworth attended

Walk round Esthwaite Water between the two villages

Beatrix Potter owned the 17th-century farmhouse of Hill Top at Near Sawrey and left it to the National Trust; it is shown as she herself would have known it, with the garden kept in the style of her illustrations. Two miles north, Hawkshead is a village of whitewashed alleys where Wordsworth went to grammar school, and her husband William Heelis's old solicitor's office, the Beatrix Potter Gallery until 2022, is now Tabitha Twitchit's Bookshop.