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

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

Mountain bike the Follow the Dog trail at Birches Valley on Cannock Chase

Visit the German Military Cemetery on Cannock Chase, where nearly 5,000 German and Austrian dead of both world wars are buried

See the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery on the Chase

Look for fallow deer on the open heath of Cannock Chase, the smallest Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in mainland Britain

Cannock Chase National Landscape is the smallest Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in mainland Britain, open heath where fallow deer graze. Mountain bikers ride the Follow the Dog trail from Birches Valley, and on the Chase are two war cemeteries: the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery and the German Military Cemetery, where nearly 5,000 German and Austrian dead of both world wars were brought together after 1959.

Cannock Chase: Deer, the Follow the Dog Trail and the War Cemeteries

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

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 towpaths from Gas Street Basin around the Birmingham Canal Navigations, which have more miles of canal than Venice

Visit the National Sea Life Centre at Brindleyplace, beside the canal

Tour the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, in the preserved Smith and Pepper jewellery factory

Book a guided tour of the Birmingham Back to Backs, the city's last surviving court of back-to-back houses, now cared for by the National Trust

Birmingham's canals, the Birmingham Canal Navigations, run to more miles than Venice's, and the towpaths lead out from Gas Street Basin; the National Sea Life Centre stands beside the water at Brindleyplace. In the Jewellery Quarter, the Smith and Pepper factory is preserved as it was left as the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, and in the city centre the National Trust keeps Birmingham's last surviving court of back-to-back houses.

Birmingham: Gas Street Basin, the Jewellery Quarter and the Back to Backs

Walk the streets of the Black Country Living Museum, the open-air museum of the Black Country industrial village opened in 1978

Take a narrowboat trip into the Dudley Canal Tunnel from the museum

See the Tecton buildings at Dudley Zoo, the listed modernist enclosures by Berthold Lubetkin of the 1930s

Climb the ruins of Dudley Castle above the zoo

The Black Country Living Museum, opened in 1978, is an open-air museum of the industrial villages of the Black Country, with narrowboat trips into the Dudley Canal Tunnel. Beside it, Dudley Zoo keeps Berthold Lubetkin's Tecton buildings of the 1930s, listed modernist animal houses, below the ruins of Dudley Castle.

The Black Country Living Museum and Dudley

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

Eat oysters on the beach or at the harbour market

Walk the alleys between the high street and the sea

Cycle the Crab and Winkle Way towards Canterbury

Watch the sunset from the Old Neptune on the shingle

Whitstable's native oysters were dredged from beds beyond the low water mark from Roman times until the mid-20th century; oysters are still farmed on the foreshore, and the town holds an oyster festival every September. The town runs in weatherboarded alleys between the beach and the high street, the Crab and Winkle Way follows parts of the old railway line to Canterbury, and the harbour the railway company built in 1832 is still working.