From brilliant blossoms and bulbs to boxing hares and brimstone butterflies, there are (finally) signs across the country that spring is here – even if temperatures are proving stubborn.
While the BBC is busy preparing its next Springwatch series, we think it’s time to be out in the great British countryside enjoying your own show.
Here are the best places to see the glories of the changing season…
South West
Finding Flora
Riot of colour: Visit Stourhead Gardens in Wiltshire to see the rhododendrons in bloom
The landscape of Stourhead near Mere in Wiltshire, designed by Capability Brown, is one of Britain’s most sublime.
The lakeside Georgian Temple of Flora, the Roman Goddess of spring, is the perfect spot to admire it. See thousands of shoreline tulips and explore woods of azaleas, magnolias and rhododendrons.
Easter treat: The Easter Trail (until April 16) includes bunnies, bees and chocolate eggs (£3).
Details: Open daily, 9am to 4pm, adults £19/children £9.50. nationaltrust.org.uk.
Bluebells and garlic
Ancient woodland paths around Cornwall’s Fowey Estuary are lined with bluebells and patches of tasty wild garlic to forage under wind-bent, lichen-covered trees.
Easter treat: Join the unique free Easter Sunday morning ‘egg’ hunt at Polkerris — 100 painted rocks hidden on the sandy beach. Each means a chocolate prize (10am to noon). visitcornwall.com/whats-on.
Details: Footpaths wind around the Fowey estuary, Gribbin Head woods and Polkerris. national trust.org.uk.
Hide and seek
Eyes peeled: Spring is a great time of year to spot badgers in the wild in Britain
A spring evening is the best time to see badgers. In these woods on a farm near Dorchester in Dorset families can huddle in hides spotting newborn cubs scurrying round their sett during April. Spot foxes, deer and owls too.
Easter treat: Visit Minterne Gardens three miles down the road for bunny games and hot cross buns on daily Easter Trails among spring bulbs and waterfalls. Adults £8, children £4 (until April 16).
Details: Hides from £80 per family. badgerwatchdorset.co.uk.
South East
Dawn chorus
Sound of spring: Experience the chorus of birdsong at Suffolk’s RSPB Minsmere
Sunrise birdsong hits its peak in April — creating what naturalists say is ‘Britain’s biggest wildlife miracle’. Suffolk’s RSPB Minsmere coastal reserve near Saxmundham is renowned for almost overwhelming birdsong, including nightingales, cuckoos and the weird ‘booming’ noise of bitterns.
Easter treat: Scores of different songs on guided dawn chorus walks at 7.30am every Tuesday in April and May, ending with sausage butties and tea.
Details: Open dawn to dusk daily, adults £9, children £5. rspb.org.uk.
World-class blossom
Wander among scented pinks, white and creams of fruit blossom. Brogdale Collections, near Faversham in Kent, is the world’s biggest fruit tree collection, with 2,200 varieties of apple plus hundreds of plums, cherries, quinces, greengages and pears.
Easter treat: Family treasure hunt for eggs hidden under trees and baby animals in the barn (April 7, 8 and 9)
Details: Opening hours and prices vary, check brogdalecollections.org for details.
Royal flush
Flowering shrubs create walls of colour in Savill Garden, Royal Windsor Great Park. It’s known as Britain’s finest ornamental garden and the Spring Wood is full of scented rhododendrons, azaleas and the National Collection Of Magnolias.
Easter treat: Clotted cream tea in the bright and sunny cafe opened by the late Prince Philip, who was the longest-serving garden ranger here for 69 years.
Details: Open daily 9am to 5pm, adults £7.95, children £3.50. windsorgreatpark.co.uk.
Midlands
Golden wonders
Discover the wild daffodils around the Gloucestershire villages of Dymock, Kempley and Oxenhall. Above are the flowers in bloom near Dymock
Enjoy an Easter egg hunt at The Beauchamp Arms in Gloucestershire (file photo)
The villages of Dymock, Kempley and Oxenhall in Gloucestershire make up the Golden Triangle, known as Britain’s biggest concentration of wild daffodils.
Easter treat: Egg hunts and Sunday roast at The Beauchamp Arms, owned and run by the parish council, on Easter Family Fun Day, April 9.
Details: Follow the footpath dubbed the Daffodil Way. visitdeanwye.co.uk/explore.
Dirty dancing
Birdwatchers eagerly await the courtship rituals of the great crested grebes, which appear to dance on water as they prepare to mate. With more than 25,000 waterbirds, Rutland Water Park has over nine miles of lakeshore and more than 30 hides.
Easter treat: The April arrival of the UK’s newest colony of wild ospreys.
Details: Free and open 9am to 5pm daily, pay-and-display car park. See anglianwaterparks.co.uk.
Tulip fever
Eye-popping colour from tulips and crocuses will lift your spirits. At Clumber Park gardens, Nottinghamshire, hundreds of thousands of bulbs have been planted ready for a spring display.
Easter treat: Egg trails and bunny sports from April 1 to 16 (£3).
Details: Near Worksop, open 8am to 6pm daily, adults £5, children £2.50.
Find the latest news of National Trust blossom displays all over the country at: nationaltrust.org.uk.
Everlasting love
A colourful display at Dorothy Clive Garden in Shropshire, Britain’s ‘most romantic’ garden
Shropshire’s Dorothy Clive Garden near Market Drayton is often called Britain’s most romantic. Colonel Harry Clive built a huge garden to cheer his ailing wife — then enlarged it even more as a memorial after she died. Eighty years later it is now home to gorgeous spring walks among flowering shrubs and sculptures.
Easter treat: Children’s treasure trail and crafts (April 7 to 16), RHS plant hunters’ fair (April 9 and 10).
Details: Open daily 10am to 5pm, adults £11/child £2. dorothyclivegarden.co.uk.
Wales
Bling it on
The spring flowers at Bodnant Garden in North Wales are ‘unmissable’
Bodnant, near Conwy in North Wales, is a world-famous garden with rare specimens and views of the Carneddau mountains in Snowdonia. Its primroses, daffs, crocuses, irises, bluebells, rhododendrons, azelias and camellias are unmissable.
Easter treat: Family Easter trail with eggs, bunnies and treasure (April 7 to 10).
Details: Open 9.30am to 5pm daily, adults £15/children £7.50. nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/wales.
Tudor splendour
The enthusiastic 25-year restoration of a bishop’s estate at Aberglasney, Carmarthenshire, dating from the reign of Elizabeth I was the star of BBC’s A Garden Lost In Time. It’s now one of Wales’s finest gardens and at its best at Easter. Highlights include bluebells, tulips and magnolias.
Easter treat: Post-walk crumble made from their own apples in the cafe overlooking the pool garden.
Details: Open daily, 10.30am to 5pm, adults £11, children free. aberglasney.org.
Mellow yellow
Look out for the year’s first butterflies at the Gilfach Nature Reserve in Radnorshire
Wildflower meadows in a secluded mid-Wales valley at Gilfach Nature Reserve, near Rhayader in Radnorshire, are perfect for spotting the year’s first butterflies — including the traditional harbinger of spring, yellow brimstones.
Easter treat: Explore oak woodlands to see bluebells and swarms of swooping red kites.
Details: Open daily and free. rwtwales.org/nature-reserves.
Scotland
Moorland miracle
Acid soil and mild sea air encourage colourful azalea and rhododendron flowers. That’s why Glenwhan Gardens, near Stranraer in Dumfries & Galloway, is one of Scotland’s best. Gardener Tessa Knott has spent 40 years transforming reed-filled moorland bogs she bought unseen over the telephone.
Easter treat: Woodland sculpture paths lead through bluebell slopes where rare red squirrels can be spotted.
Details: Open daily, 10am to 5pm, adults £7.50, under-sevens free. glenwhangardens.co.uk.
Grovelling grouse
In April, black grouse perform frenzied grovelling and swaggering courtship rituals. One of the best places to see the grouse ‘lek’, as locals call it, is Britain’s biggest National Nature Reserve, Mar Lodge Estate in the Cairngorms.
Easter treat: Family egg trail at National Trust for Scotland’s Pitmedden Garden nearby (April 7 to 10).
Details: Free entry daily. nts.org.uk/visit.
North West
Cherry fun
You can spot 12 different varieties of mini daffodils at Sizergh park and gardens in the Lake District
Sizergh park and gardens near Kendal in the Lake District are famous for their cherry blossoms. Also spot tulips, frogspawn in waterlily ponds and bees on willow catkins.
Spring visitors are warned, however, not to let Charlie the cat sneak into the warm glasshouses with them – he likes sleeping on the new seedlings, which squashes them.
Easter treat: Sizergh has 12 different varieties of mini daffodils — can you spot them all?
Details: Open dawn to dusk daily, pay and display car park, adult £9, child £4.50. nationaltrust.org.
Boxing hares
Lyme Park near Disley in Cheshire is best known as the fictional home of Mr Darcy in the BBC’s adapation of Pride And Prejudice. On its grassy slopes you will spot the ritual of upright ‘boxing’ hares, females on their hind legs fending off amorous males with their paws.
Easter treat: Hundreds of delicate flowering forget-me-nots.
Details: Open daily 8.30am to 8pm, adult £6, child £3. nationaltrust.org.
North East
Rhody show
This sheltered valley near Ripon in North Yorkshire offers perfect conditions for some of Britain’s finest flowering rhododendrons. Soil and climate have nurtured more than 1,400 different Himalayan rhododendrons, grown from seeds collected in Asia.
Easter treat: Search for dragon eggs among the woodland trails from April 4 to 16.
Details: Open 10am to 4pm, Tuesdays to Sundays (and Easter Monday), must book online, adults £12/children free. himalayangarden.com.
Tea and tulips
Stop for a cream tea after strolling around the gardens of Northumberland’s Howick Hall, set near Alnwick
Walk through swathes of delicate fritillaries and other spring flowers planted 100 years ago by the aristocratic Grey family at Northumberland’s Howick Hall near Alnwick.
Easter treat: End the stroll in the cafe with cream tea and the toff’s most famous creation – a cup of Earl Grey.
Details: Open daily, 10.30am to 6pm, adults £9, child £3, howickhallgardens.com.
Durham delight
Durham’s county flower, the spring gentian, is small but easy to spot
Take a dramatic five-mile walk from Bowlees Visitor Centre via High Force Waterfall to spot a unique flower. Grassy Teesdale moorland is the only place in these isles where spring gentians grow. Durham’s county flower is small but easy to spot — it’s one of the world’s brightest blue flowers. Don’t pick them though — locals say you will be promptly struck by lightning.
Easter treat: Family Easter chick hunt, Durham University Botanic Garden (April 9 and 10), adults £5, children free.
Details: thisisdurham.com/things-to-do.
Source link
CHECK OUT: Top Travel Destinations
READ MORE: Travel News
