On 39 January 1865, the Reverend Carr spent a night out on the Long Mynd, battling against one of the fiercest snow storms to hit 19th-century Shropshire.

This 21-square mile expanse of windswept heather moorland can be notoriously wild in winter. The Burway, the single-track lane that snakes up to altitudes of 475m, is frequently closed in winter, adding a sense of adventure for hikers out exploring this vast plateau in winter.

Reverend Carr regularly crossed the Long Mynd to deliver Sunday services at Woolstaston and Ratlinghope churches. But one day, on his return journey for Woolstaston’s evening service, the weather worsened. Carr became disoriented by fierce blizzards, got stuck in chest-deep snowdrifts and plummeted down the sides of steep, frozen valleys.

This eight mile route begins in Carding Mill Valley, where Carr was ultimately rescued, 22 hours after setting out and five miles off-course. Blinded by his frozen eyelashes, he heard children’s voices and called for help. In one of the cottages here, he was given warm soup, his first real sustenance for hours.

Today, the National Trust’s Chalet Pavilion offers similar restorative refreshments to weary Long Mynd walkers.

• Long Mynd walking route and map

Winter wildlife

You might think that our wildlife had shut up shop for the winter, but you’d be missing some of Britain’s greatest natural wonders.

Our guide to unmissable winter wildlife spectacles, plus some of the best wilder sounds to listen out for in the darker months.

Stour Valley, Suffolk/Essex

6.8 miles/11km | 4 hours | moderate

Winter can be a magical time for exploring the peaceful river valleys and charming rural churches of Suffolk, and there is much to be said for soaking up the atmosphere of this genteel corner of East Anglia out of high season.

Days get off to a sluggish start, with the countryside swaddled in a lingering shroud of mist, soon shrugged off and replaced by crisp air and milky sunshine, ideal conditions for a winter walk.

The Stour Valley is gentle and undulating, an ever-changing patchwork of woodland trails and farmland fringed with sleeping hedgerows. Sprinkled with small towns and pretty bucolic villages of thatched painted cottages, and complete with a reassuring cluster of cosy tea rooms, this is an area to be savoured.

Starting from the historic wool town of Clare, Suffolk’s smallest town, the route links three of the area’s most charming churches, wending its way along the Stour Valley to Cavendish, before returning  on the Stour Valley Path high above the river.

• Stour Valley walking route and map

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Holkham, Norfolk

4.8 miles/7.7km | 3.5 hours | easy–moderate

It is said that in Norfolk you can tell how far you are from the coast by the roundness of the flint on the outside of the buildings – the rounder the flint, the closer you are to the sea.

The interaction between sea and land is strong along the North Norfolk coast, where mudflats and salt marshes sit alongside miles of beaches. One such beach is Holkham.

Here, a fusion of pinewoods and sand dunes tumble on to the beach and into the sea. The shoreline is part of one of the largest national nature reserves in the country, home to many rare species of flora and fauna and a favoured place for birdwatching. This walk is for both nature-lovers and those looking for the winter harmony offered by seemingly endless beaches, seas and skies.

• Holkham walking route and map

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Cotehele, Cornwall

1.7 miles/2.8km | 1 hour | moderate

On the Cornish side of the River Tamar, the Cotehele estate encompasses 526 hectares of woodland, meadow and riverside countryside. As you enter Cotehele’s house, it is easy to imagine age-old winter celebrations around the huge fireplace.

Our 1.7-mile winter walk offers the option for further exploration around Cotehele’s gardens and up to the Prospect Tower, as well as a diversion to Cotehele Mill. The route is on footpaths and lanes with some hills and one steep downhill section.

• Cotehele walking route and map

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Hawkshead and Latterbarrow, Cumbria

3.1 miles/5km | 2 hours | moderate

Conquer a mini mountain this winter with a trip to the crest of one of the Lake District’s most accessible peaks. Latterbarrow’s 244m-high summit sits less than two miles from the cobbled courtyards and alleyways of Hawkshead village, meaning the short but stiff climb can be done in just a few hours – leaving plenty of time for shopping.

There are dozens of independent stores open throughout the winter – including Honeypot Deli and Hawkshead Relish – and the Hawkshead Christmas Fair takes place in early December. For an extra dose of charm, why not drop into the Beatrix Potter Gallery?

• Hawkshead walking route and map

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Dunster, Somerset

3.9 miles/6.4km | 2.5 hours | moderate

Every winter, the village of Dunster pays tribute to its medieval past by lighting up its streets with candles. Choirs sing, lanterns glow and the smell of chimney fire diffuses through the crisp winter air.

Before the night’s festivities begin, spend the day exploring the village on foot – 11th-century Dunster Castle, the old market place and a host of thatched cottages – then step into the countryside on a four-mile stroll over rumbling rivers to the ramparts of an Iron Age hill fort.

• Dunster walking route and map

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Goring-on-Thames to Pangbourne, Oxfordshire

4.5 miles/7.2km | 3 hours | easy-moderate

Those with a keen eye may spot red kites circling overhead and teals and wigeons on the half-frozen water as they follow the Thames Path from picturesque Goring-on-Thames in Oxfordshire to Pangbourne in Berkshire.

The waymarked and almost entirely flat trail runs alongside the river for five glorious miles between the two villages. Those with the energy can return the same way – otherwise, catch the bus back to Goring for a well-earned pint at a cosy inn.

• Goring-on-Thames to Pangbourne walking route and map

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Marlpit Hill, Kent

3.3 miles/5.4km | 1.5 hours | easy-moderate

In the winter months, the pastureland and labyrinthine waterways surrounding Marlpit Hill in Kent crystallise with frost. A quilt of mist hangs low around copses of oak, hazel and birch, and winter wildfowl flock in the meadows.

Low, golden light makes this time of year perfect for photography – take your camera and explore the area with a 3.3-mile walk.

• Marlpit Hill walking route and map

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Best winter walks in Wales

Three Cliffs Bay, Swansea

10km/6.2 miles | 4 hours | moderate

It’s not as if the south Gower coast is otherwise unremarkable – maritime grassland atop limestone rock, which has been scoured into beaches and bone caves, yielding to an expansive sea with Devon fizzing on the horizon – but Three Cliffs Bay is a truly special place. 

The cliffs are triangles of a single promontory, swimming out like a dragon to guard a bay brightly ringed by Pennard Pill river, which has squirmed through the saltmarsh to reach it. 

At high tide, Great Tor in the west grants seclusion. But at the tide’s ebb, Three Cliffs Bay merges with Tor Bay, Oxwich Bay and Pobbles Bay – with its dramatic cliffs and caves – to create one vast dazzling magnitude of sand.

• Three Cliffs Bay walking route and map.

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Dinefwr Park and Newton House, Carmarthenshire

2.4 miles/3.9km | 1.5 hours | easy

A flurry of white flakes, a crunch underfoot. As winters warm, the white-spotted fallow deer and sound of trampled beechnuts might be the closest you get to snow at Dinefwr near the town of Llandeilo in Wales. Nevertheless, winter will be dark and Newton House in the grounds will be cosy.

In fact, it’s cosy all year. Light glances off gilt frames. Staff and volunteers are cheerful. And you’re allowed, nay encouraged, to sit on the sofas. It’s a cosiness made all the more rewarding with a pre-house walk around the frozen grounds.

• Dinefwr Park and Newton House walking route and map

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Waterfall Country, Powys

2.5 miles/4km | 1.5 hours | easy-moderate

Rain or shine, sleet or snow, Waterfall Country in the Brecon Beacons National Park evokes a sense of magic no matter what the weather brings.

Walk among deep pools, veil-like cascades, moss-topped rocks and contorted trees, before arriving at one of the valley’s most impressive falls, Sgwd yr Eira, known locally as‘fall of snow’.

• Waterfall Country walking route and map

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Foel Benddin and Y Gribin, Gwynedd

8.7 miles/14km | 5–6 hours | challenging

Brave the wild hills of south-east Snowdonia in Wales, an unforgiving landscape once roved by a band of cattle-rustling, bow-wielding robbers.

Experience all that the hills have to offer with a challenging 9-mile hike from Dinas Mawddwy over the high hills of Foel Benddin and Y Gribin in Snowdonia National Park.

• Foel Benddin and Y Gribin walking route and map.

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Cribyn, Powys

11.5 miles/18.5km | 7 hours | moderate-challenging

Amid the lumps, bumps and rounded humps that form the ridgelines of the Brecon Beacons, sits Cribyn.

It’s the kind of peak a child may draw; pyramidal and stacked with brawn. Yet in spite of its mountain status, its summit is neither as high nor as insurmountable as you may imagine

Cribyn, at 795m, sits 101m below the tallest peak in southern Britain, Pen y Fan. But far from inferior, the angular mount affords spectacular views over the surrounding countryside, making it well worth the climb.

• Cribyn walking route and map.

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Snowdon, Gwynedd

7.5 miles/12km | 5-6 hours | challenging

Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa in Welsh) is the highest mountain in England and Wales at 1,085m (3,560ft). The Snowdon range covers 16 square miles and gave birth to Welsh rock climbing in the 19th century.

Today the tracks are bustling all year round – though extra care should be taken in winter – and there are plenty of varied routes to the top.

• Snowdon walking route and map.

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Best winter walks in Northern Ireland

Slieve Binnian, County Down

6 miles/9.7km | 4.5 hours | challenging

Winter is the most evocative season to scale Northern Ireland’s Mourne Mountains, because winter is when this landscape was created. The entire range owes its form to the scouring movements of vast ice sheets, which only began to melt some 13,000 years ago. 

Yet not all the peaks were covered by ice; the very highest summits protruded above the frozen wasteland. Slieve Binnian was one such landmark, and the massive, frost-shattered tors that erupt from its tip were once nunataks, lonely towers of rock that withstood the elements above the icy expanse.

• Slieve Binnian walking route and map

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Glenariff Forest Park, Country Antrim

2.4km/1.5 miles | 1 hour | moderate

This luxuriant, water-carved gorge in County Antrim’s east is known in Northern Ireland as the ‘Queen of the Glens’. It’s easy to see why. On a fine winter’s day, sunlight breaks through the woodland’s skeletal canopy, shining like stardust as it hits and refracts on the waters below. Liverworts, mosses and outstretched ferns flourish and birdsong cheerfully resounds.

A short and well-marked path leads through the forest – an ideal winter wander for the whole family.

Glenariff Forest Park walking route and map

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Dundrum Bay, County Down

6.2 miles/10km | 3 hours | easy

Dundrum Bay is a nature lover’s haven in the colder months of the year when the Inner Bay teems with overwintering birds.

This coastal walk begins on the edge of the Inner Bay at Dundrum, one of the county’s loveliest villages, set below a magnificent Norman castle ruin. 

• Dundrum Bay walking route and map

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Cove Cave, County Down

5.6 miles/9km | moderate | 3 hours (return)

Caves conjure mystical, murky thoughts of bats and boggarts, dragons and trolls. But step inside and your blood remembers.

These doors into the earth – or out of it, depending on your aspect – can be found across the UK. Some are well-known, revered for their great atriums, jousting stalactites and archaeological remains; others are more elusive, secreted among quiet hills like dozing shadows wanting none of the fame.

One such hollow sits high within a rocky escarpment on the western slopes of the Annalong River valley in the Mourne Mountains.

This six-mile, there-and-back-again walk takes you right to it, an exhilarating winter quest for friends and families with adventure in their veins.

Cove Cave walking route and map

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