Discovering Britain

Előszó

Exploring Britain's Countryside
Even in these overcrowded islands there still remain vast tracts of countryside, of extraordinary variety and great beauty, open to us all. Much of this magnificent scenery lies within the boundaries of National Parks, Forest Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Heritage Coasts; it is from these places that the 35 areas in this book have been selected. Within each area the reader will find a selection of locations, all accessible to the motorist and walker, which have been chosen to show the diversity and unspoiled nature of our countryside.
The location may be a viewpoint surrounded by magnificent scenery; a battlefield or a rounded hill scarred with fortifications of long ago; a spot associated with local legend or a famous person; or an area where animals and plants are of special interest. In the Lake District, for example, the reader, according to his mood and energy, can plan a walk through gentle woodland beside one of the lakes — or make a bracing 2,000 ft climb to a magnificent mountain viewpoint. He can tread an
ancient trackway across the fells used by pedlars and shepherds centuries ago — or drive along a winding,switchback, scenic route poised high above a beautiful valley.
Many landscapes that seem to us eternal and unchanging were in fact created by our forbears, sometimes quite recently, sometimes in the distant past. The smooth green turf of the South Downs, for example, and the windy, heather-clad expanses of the Yorkshire moors are both the result of ancient clearances and grazing. The Brecklands in Norfolk are a dustbowl created by over-grazing in the Middle Ages, and the Broads in the same county were born out of
the removal of millions of tons of peat during the Middle Ages. Much of the bare, wild Highlands was once a great forest, while the English chequerboard of fields and hedgerows grew out of the enclosures that took place from the Tudor age to the 19th century.
Other places change so slowly as to have hardly altered at all since man has been on the planet. These are the old, old mountains of the west and north, the peaks that legends declare to be the homes of giants and heroes, just as they fill the deep, still waters in their shadows with monsters.
Some areas, such as the Peak District, Loch Lomond, Gower and the North Downs, can be reached comparatively easily. Others require a certain spirit of adventure and exploration - the Highland hills, for instance, or the distant Shetland Islands and Hebrides, or the wilder parts of Snowdonia or the Lake District. The book is truly 'Discovering Britain'; a practical guide that will lead the reader to these beautiful places and provide him with a deeper insight into the land around him. Vissza