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

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

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 down into Polperro past the Shell House to the harbour

Visit the Polperro Heritage Museum of Smuggling and Fishing

Polperro is a fishing village packed into a cleft with a harbour that can be shut against the sea by a gate, and smuggling reached its height here in the late 18th century, financed by a local merchant, Zephaniah Job, known as the Smugglers' Banker. The Heritage Museum on the quay tells that story, and Looe, four miles east, is a working fishing port either side of a seven-arched bridge.

Polperro and Looe: The Smuggling Harbours

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

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

Eat a proper crimped Cornish pasty in the tin-mining country

Check it is the real thing: beef, potato, swede and onion with salt and pepper, in a D shape crimped along the side

Find the engine houses of the mining landscape around Redruth

Try it both ways: held by the crimp, as the story says, and end to end from the bag, 'the true Cornish way' according to the first Cornish recipe book

A real Cornish pasty is beef, potato, swede and onion with a light seasoning of salt and pepper, in a D-shaped pastry crimped along the side and made in Cornwall, and since 20 July 2011 the name has been protected in law — the result of a nine-year campaign by the Cornish Pasty Association, about fifty makers based in Cornwall. It became the working food of the tin miners of Cornwall and west Devon in the 17th and 18th centuries because the shape made a whole meal you could carry, and the story goes that the thick crimped edge was the handle a miner held and then threw away, so that fingers carrying traces of arsenic never touched the food.