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

Dartmoor

From the South Hams to Exmoor: Dartmouth Castle and Burgh Island's sea tractor, the high moor and stone rows of Dartmoor, the surf beaches of north Devon, then Lynmouth's water-powered railway and Dunkery Beacon.

Devon: Dartmoor, the South Hams and Exmoor

Climb the keep of Totnes Castle on its Norman motte

Walk the Butterwalk and the Elizabethan high street

Walk into the roofless mansion at Berry Pomeroy Castle

Walk the riverside path along the Dart from Totnes

Totnes climbs from the Dart to a Norman motte-and-bailey castle, built for Juhel of Totnes in William I's reign, and its main street has the covered Butterwalk and the East Gate arch, rebuilt after a fire in 1990. Two and a half miles east, Berry Pomeroy is a Tudor mansion inside the walls of an earlier castle, sold to Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, in 1547, abandoned in the late 17th century and famous since the 19th both as a picturesque ruin and as a haunted one.

Totnes and Berry Pomeroy: A Norman Motte and a Haunted Shell

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

Walk the gun platforms of Dartmouth Castle above the harbour mouth

Find where the harbour chain was anchored

Cross on the ferry and ride the steam train from Kingswear

Walk the Embankment and the Butterwalk in the town

In 1388 Richard II authorised John Hawley, mayor of Dartmouth and privateer, to raise money for a fortalice by the sea. By the end of the 15th century it had an artillery tower and an iron chain that could be winched across the harbour mouth to a tower at Godmerock — the oldest known purpose-built coast artillery fort in Britain. Steam trains run along the far bank from Kingswear to Paignton, and the higher and lower ferries still cross the Dart.

Dartmouth: Britain's Oldest Known Coast Artillery Fort and the Steam Railway

Stand at the Sherman tank memorial at Torcross

Walk the shingle bar between the sea and Slapton Ley

Look for wildfowl on the freshwater ley behind the beach

Find the obelisk the US Army gave to the evacuated villages

Slapton Sands is a shingle bar with Slapton Ley behind it, the largest natural freshwater lake in south-west England and a national nature reserve. In 1943 the whole area was evacuated so American troops could rehearse the Normandy landings here, and during Exercise Tiger in April 1944 German E-boats attacked a convoy preparing for the landings, killing at least 749 American servicemen. A Sherman tank recovered from the sea stands at Torcross as their memorial.

Slapton Sands: The Rehearsal for D-Day That Went Wrong

Walk across the sand bar to Burgh Island at low tide

Ride the sea tractor back when the tide covers the bar

Walk up to the ruined huer's hut on the island's summit

Have a drink at the Pilchard Inn on the island

Burgh Island lies a few hundred metres off Bigbury-on-Sea and is cut off at high tide; when the sand goes under, a sea tractor on tall wheels carries people across the water. The Art Deco hotel on the island drew Agatha Christie, who used the place in And Then There Were None and Evil Under the Sun, and the Pilchard Inn on the island has parts dating from the 14th century.

Burgh Island and Bigbury: The Sea Tractor

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

Walk the boardwalk out over the undrained fen

Look for the Konik ponies and Highland cattle grazing the reserve

See the wooden windpump, built in 1908 to drain peat workings and now run in reverse to keep the reedbeds wet

Watch hen harriers or marsh harriers from the hides

Wicken Fen is one of Britain's oldest nature reserves and the first piece of land the National Trust took on for nature, starting in 1899 — a surviving fragment of undrained fen in a landscape that was otherwise pumped dry centuries ago. Konik ponies and Highland cattle graze it now, and the boardwalk runs out over sedge and open water.

Wicken Fen: The National Trust's First Reserve

Walk down the street from the market cross to the bridge

Stand on the bridge over the By Brook in the village that played Puddleby-on-the-Marsh in Doctor Dolittle

Castle Combe drops down a wooded Cotswold valley to a bridge over the By Brook, with a 14th-century market cross, Cotswold stone cottages and almost nothing built in the old centre since about 1600. It played the little port of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh in the 1967 film Doctor Dolittle, when the production dammed the stream, and there is a racing circuit on the old airfield above it.