Jane & Ivan, relaxed and happy by Grasmere lake in Cumbria.
We are in a bid to travel to all 48 counties of England and sleep at least one night in all of them. After our epic hike up the highest mountain in England we stayed on in Cumbria, caught up with friends and headed south to Somerset via Sussex. These are some of our photos and stories of our adventures from the top of England to the bottom:
Wast water on a rainy day was the perfect spot to recover from our hike:
The top west of England is very scenic with a beautiful coastline and views across to Scotland:
On this north coast shore stories abound of battles with the Scots. Below is a statue of Edward 1, the ‘Hammer of the Scots’.
Inside the Lake District national park is fantastic scenery that is hard to beat anywhere else in England:
We caught up with friends and had an evening on Ullswater lake:
Photos of Ullswater by James and Sarah
We carried on south to West Yorkshire and visited the original location for the long running TV drama Emmerdale: Esholt, just north of Leeds:
The Woolpack pub was shut for refurbishment so we could not go in. The series is now filmed in a studio copying the original buildings from Esholt village for continuity. The pub used to be called “The Commercial Inn” and when they were filming they placed the name “The Woolpack” over the original pub sign, and then took it down again. Once the public became aware of where the TV series was filmed they started to visit in their hoards. The secret was out and so the landlord changed the name of the pub to The Woolpack permanently as he got fed up with keeping changing the sign. The inside of the pub was never used in the filming of the show and so visitors were always disappointed when visiting. We wonder what the inside will look like once refurbished. We know what we would do....😂.
The next county we visited was Nottingham. We wanted to see Sherwood Forest and be amongst the mighty oaks of the Robin Hood stories:
After a brief visit to our friends Dave and Elaine in Bedfordshire and an overnight stop in Buckinghamshire we got to the Thames river and realised we were close to London and not now far from the south coast:
We can see the sea, and the temperature has plummeted for our stay in Sussex 😨. You can travel from the top to the bottom of England in one day, a journey of approximately 400 miles from Cumbria to Sussex. We like to travel slow and enjoy the luxury of time to explore.
In contrast, a sunny day out at Stourhead in Wiltshire:
As we move into autumn we are enjoying foraging and making our own food. Apart from lots of apple delicacies we have made elderflower cordial, rosehip syrup and we will make something of our little haul from yesterday:
Hawthorn berries for hedgerow ketchup; pears; walnuts and medlars.
In these challenging times it has been fairly easy to travel, staying safe and relatively self contained in our motorhome Daphne. As we travelled south we started to see local lockdowns and stricter Covid 19 regulations come into force in some parts of England. We are staying for a while in the south west and will continue to travel as much as we can slowly and safely. In the meantime, stay safe and keep well.
Thank you for reading 💕
