British Travel Journal | Spring 2021

Ah, the sweet smell of spring is finally here. Flowers are beginning to bloom, the sun has started to shine and there is hope on the horizon for a great British summer! I’m sure you’ll agree that spending so many months at home has only made our adventurous, curious hearts grow fonder with a passion for travel and exploration. I will appreciate my upcoming travel trips so much more, and it has only made my job as travel Editor, and the content in our latest issue, seem even more special than usual! Lockdown might have put a stop to many things, but it certainly hasn’t stopped the travel industry preparing to ensure a super fun and warm welcome once it is safe for visitors to return. From new hotels and luxury spas, exciting holiday resorts full of adventure and off-grid activities, luxury boutique stays in acres of unspoilt countryside and coastline, brand new attractions to immersive one-of-a-kind experiences – it seems there has perhaps never been a better time to explore the British Isles! With so much ‘British staycation’ wanderlust flying about we couldn’t resist compiling our Ultimate British Bucket List. Deep in the West Dorset countryside we Meet the Makers behind the world’s only vodka made from cows’ milk. We uncover 10 of the most wonderful places to visit in Yorkshire and discover that there’s much more than just Cheddar Cheese and ancient apple orchards to Somerset’s epicurean offering in The Rise of Food and Drink. In search of beautiful destinations where social distancing is made easy, you won’t find better than a remote Sea Garden Cottage on the white sandy shores of Tresco island, a luxury family stay in the heart of Suffolk’s rolling countryside at The Ickworth or a whisky tour around the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, Islay - the Lord of the Isles. Wherever, and whenever, you next plan to take a holiday in the British Isles, we hope British Travel Journal continues to deliver as your indispensable travel magazine, and wish you a safe and seamless journey full of wonderful memories.

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3 ©VISITBRITAIN/MATTCANT/ANDREW PICKETT BEST TRAIL THE LYKE WAKE WALK This 40-mile crossing of the remote North York Moors starts near Osmotherley and finishes near Ravenscar on the East Sea coast. It is possible to do the entire route on heather, hardly ever stepping onto a roadway. Although the walk was only designated in 1955, it took its name from the old Scandinavian word for a corpse (Lyke) because when the Vikings ruled Yorkshire the people who inhabited this area would carry their dead across these moors to their ancestral burial grounds. There is a powerful ancient hymn (set by Benjamin Britten, amongst others) called The Lyke-Wake Dirge which conjures up the terrors of crossing these moors by night. When farmer/broadcaster Bill Cowley created the Lyke Wake Challenge in 1955 he proposed that all 40 miles be completed in 24 hours. Undertaking the route today in a less spartan manner, the Lyke Wake Walk offers the chance to see a landscape crossed by few other travellers and no signs of modern development. It feels like stepping into history. lykewakewalk.co.uk BEST CITY YORK York is one of the most beautiful cities in Britain. Its encircling medieval walls remain almost complete and where they had to be blasted apart to let the railways in, it has one of the most graceful late nineteenth-century train stations. When, opened in 1877 this was the biggest station in the world with 13 broad platforms. In the twentieth century the station’s interior featured in the Harry Potter films as part of King Cross. Another Potter connection is the medieval shopping street known as “Shambles”. Its overhanging upper floors were the inspiration for the design of Diagon Alley. York has a history of occupation going back to Roman and Viking times but its absolute glory is York Minster, a sublime construction from the fourteenth and fifteenth-centuries whose east window is the largest stained glass in Britain. visityork.org Pictured above left-right: Two people walking in the North Yorkshire landscape; The Shambles is an old street in York, England, with overhanging timber-framed buildings, some dating back as far as the fourteenth century. 66 BritishTravelJournal.com

4 Pictured: The centre of York, surrounded by walls whose foundations date back to medieval times. There is a wall walk around the city. York Minster at sunset. à BritishTravelJournal.com 67 VISTBRITAIN/ANDREW PICKETT