(Image: Saffron Blaze; Durdle Door in the Dorset AONB)
We recently wrote about the great 1950s push to create the spectacular national parks of England and Wales. Born from a belief that wild Britain needed to be preserved for future generations, the parks wound up enclosing 13 irreplaceable rural spaces across the country. But the 1950s also saw the rise of another type of designation: Britain’s Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
Reserved for places that represent the very best of the British countryside, the AONBs have sprouted up across the nation like wild flowers. There are now 46 in total, taking in everything from the rugged Cornish coast and the gentle valleys of the Cotswolds, to the wild moors of the North. Perhaps nowhere are they more numerous than in Britain’s West Country. A region of rolling hills, patchwork farmland, jagged cliffs and storm-lashed seas, the Southwest has long been the nation’s rural heartland. From bucolic villages to blasted moorland, here is our definitive guide to the region’s magnificent AONBs.
Quantock Hills (Est. 1956)
(Image: Adam Cli; Quantock Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty rising from the landscape)
Seen from a distance, the Quantock Hills are strangely deceptive. Rising abruptly out of the flat Somerset landscape, they seem to tower over everything around them, like a forgotten Scafell Pike. Yet this is more to do with the gentleness of Somerset rather than the Quantocks themselves. At only 275m at their highest point, the Quantock Hills are modest by any measure. Yet their true size belies their seductive power. Stood at the top on a clear day, you can see nine counties open up around you, a view unrivalled almost anywhere in Britain.
The first AONB established in the whole of England, the Quantock Hills are like a showcase of everything rural Britain has to offer. There are stunning views of pastoral landscapes abruptly tumbling into the Bristol Channel. Ridges open out, aflame with heather. Bucolic farms mingle with wild woodland. At their best, the Quantocks are like stepping into a painting by Constable.
Cornwall (Est. 1959)
(Image: Tom Corser)
An ancient, windswept kingdom that was once home to pirates, smugglers and grand tin mines, Cornwall is one of the most-storied regions in the whole of the UK. It’s also one of the most-beautiful. From the high-sweep of rugged open moorland that makes up Bodmin to the meandering rivers that flow through Fowey and Falmouth, Cornwall’s landscape is like an assault on the senses. In the 20th Century, the government decided to officially recognize this: nearly one third of the entire county is now a designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Uniquely, the Cornwall AONB is split across 12 different sites, ranging from the granite outcrop of Land’s End to the storm-lashed shores below Tintagel. Every type of Cornish landscape is embraced. There are quaint stone fishing villages, drowned estuaries and tangled hedgerows that have grown in the same spot since medieval times. Walking through Cornwall’s AONB sites is like flipping through a living picture book tracing the outlines and history of this proud Celtic kingdom.
North Devon Coast (Est. 1959)
(Image: MHenbert)
A mere 60 miles to the north of gentle South Devon, North Devon can feel like a world away. Gone are the sandy coves, the charming villages, the traces of Edwardian holidaymakers. In their place is a landscape both wild and rude; a place of tall cliffs, crashing seas and sparsely populated headlands looking out into the forbidding Atlantic wastes.
Not so long ago, these shores were infamous for their shipwrecks. Jagged, razor-sharp headlands, sunken reefs, and vicious currents all combined to make sailing this territory a nightmare. Places like the jutting Hartland Point claimed plenty of souls over the centuries, drawing boats beneath the dark waves. Yet even knowing this sobering history, North Devon remains a place of rare beauty. The rugged sweep of the landscape, combined with the edges of Exmoor National Park (of which the AONB is almost a continuation) combine to create something truly special: a Devon landscape unlike anywhere else in Devon.
Dorset (Est. 1959)
(Image: JimChampion)
No other place in the whole of the West Country has as much of its countryside designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty as Dorset. A staggering 44 percent of the county is officially recognized as being in need of preservation for future generations, equivalent to around 1,170sq km (nearly the size of Greater London). Incredible as it may seem, there’s a good reason for it. Dorset is shockingly beautiful.
From the steep cliffs of the Jurassic Coast and the shingle sweep of Chesil Beach, to the endless, rolling fields of the interior, Dorset is a place that grabs you by the heartstrings and refuses to let go. Tumbledown stone walls stand alongside ancient trees and hedgerows planted centuries ago. Windswept hills overlook tiny villages huddled around meandering streams. Mist envelopes hidden valleys and trails across the surface of reed beds. While it may lack the rugged coastline of Cornwall or the bleak beauty of Devon’s wild interior, Dorset is nature’s way of welcoming you to the beauty of the West Country.
South Devon (Est. 1960)
(Image: c.art)
South Devon is the landscape you picture when you hear the word ‘Devon’. A world of rolling patchwork fields, gentle hills, ancient hedgerows, open beaches and small towns clustered alongside rivers. It’s the place the Edwardians idly dreamed of in their noisy London homes, the landscape that briefly made Torquay one of the most-desirable destinations in the Empire.
The protected area itself is small, running along the coastal path between Plymouth in the west to Torquay in the east, with a small inland section incorporating some farming communities. But what a route it is. Ancient cliffs tumble down into the ocean. Sandy beaches stretch out across the horizon. Shaded rivers bring day-trippers down from inland, while reed beds are alive with rare species of birds. This is Devon at its most-enticing, a place you can almost imagine spending the rest of your life in.
East Devon (Est. 1963)
(Image: Ben Grantham)
It may be a charming, rolling landscape of golden fields and thatched cottages to rival anything else in the county, but there’s one main reason why people visit the East Devon AONB. It’s here, among these red stone cliffs and shingle beaches, that one of Britain’s greatest natural wonders begins: the UNESCO-listed Jurassic Coast.
A 95 mile stretch of coast that leads all the way from Devon into deepest Dorset, the coast is like a journey through Britain’s ancient, pre-human past. Along these exposed and blasted cliffs, 185 million years of history can be seen unfolding. Fossils from the Jurassic period are squashed together with sediments from the Cretaceous and Triassic. There’s evidence here of a time when Britain was a burning desert, when it was a dense swampland, and when it lay at the bottom of an ancient, sunless sea.
This is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty defined not just as somewhere aesthetically-pleasing, but as a place that touches on the sublime. Standing before the crumbling cliffs, you can feel the history of the world opening up; of unimaginable sweeps of time cascading past, leading to this very moment.
Mendip Hills (Est. 1972)
(Image: Andrew Johnson; Wookey Hole in the Mendip Hills AONB)
South of Bristol, the Mendip Hills rise like a hallucinatory vision out of the gentle landscape around them. A grand limestone ridge that tops out at 300m, the Hills AONB are a world of silver crags, deep gorges, and dizzying clifftops overlooking the plains of Somerset.
Although the views are wonderful, it’s what’s beneath them that many people come here for. The Mendip Hills are home to Wookey Hole, a dazzling series of limestone caves that stretch on seemingly-forever and take in many surreal and twisted formations. Stepping into them is like entering a separate underground world, the sort of place you might expect to find Morlocks lurking in the shadows. Yet that’s not to imply the surface of the Mendip Hills is lacking in any way. Home to ancient fairs that have run annually since the 14th century (although the last two were perplexingly cancelled), the Mendip Hills remain an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty where past and present co-exist spectacularly.
The Isles of Scilly (Est. 1975)
(Image: Tom Corser)
The Isles of Scilly are as far west as you can get and still be in England. A tiny collection of atolls adrift in the vast Atlantic off the Cornish coast, they seem almost like a dream, their white sand beaches, clear blue waters and palm trees seemingly too tropical to be part of rainy old Blighty. Stood on one of the islands’ gentle hills, looking out towards the endless ocean, you could easily be in the middle of the Mediterranean.
Unsurprisingly for such a unique British landscape, the whole of the Isles have been declared an AONB. Despite this, they remain the smallest such protected landscape, clocking in at a mere 16 sq km. Yet they pack in wonders at almost unprecedented density. There are granite cliffs, shifting sand dunes, inland lagoons and populations of seals, dolphins and extremely rare birds. Located almost 45 km from mainland Britain, the Isles of Scilly are like a lost paradise.
Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs (Est. 1981)
(Image: Joimson)
The last Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty as you head out of the West Country, Cranborne Chase is also one of its largest. Stretching over nearly 1,000 sq km, it is second only to Dorset in terms of sheer size. It’s also one of the most-gentle: a place of flat patchwork fields, curving hills and quaint little villages alive with ancient meadows.
This is the point where the Southwest begins to merge with the South proper, and it certainly shows. While the Southwest is a land of wilderness, dramatic coasts and rugged plateaus, the South is one of tended woodland, gentle hills, iron farm gates and wild flowers. Closer to the Greenbelt in its appearance than Cornwall, Cranborne Chase nonetheless still retains a hint of West Country about it. To the west, a grand scarp suddenly rises up, as if to remind visitors that they’re not in London anymore. It’s tiny villages still feel pleasingly rural. This AONB is a true borderland, a place where one vision of England begins to flow into another, like a river opening out into the sea.
Blackdown Hills AONB (Est. 1991)
(Image: Sealman)
A stretch of unspoiled farming landscape unfurling across the Devon and Somerset border, the Blackdown Hills are an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty remarkable mainly for being so unremarked-upon. Designated an AONB in 1991, they sprawl over an area larger than The Broads National Park in Norfolk. Yet they remain almost entirely unknown. While the Quantocks or the Isles of Scilly are widely known, the Blackdown Hills remain an enigma: A forgotten landscape in the heart of one of England’s most-visited regions.
This is a shame in some ways, as the Blackdown Hills are an almost-perfect example of an English farming landscape unchanged for centuries. The gnarled old hedgerows still grow along boundaries set out hundreds of years ago, while tiny fields speak to a time when smallholders could still stake out a viable farming career. A living fragment of the past, the Blackdown Hills are a reminder of a vanishing vision of England. One in which agriculture held preeminence and livelihoods were eked out amid winding hedgerows instead of on the fringes of some vast urban sprawl.
Tamar Valley (Est. 1995)
(Image: Tamar Valley Wine Route)
The newest AONB in the whole of Britain, the Tamar Valley was only designated in 1995 – nearly 40 years after the first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty had appeared in Wales. The only surprise is that it took this long. A narrow strip of land separating Cornwall from Devon, the Tamar is pastoral and wild, remote and intimate, modern and ancient all at once.
The focus of the valley is the winding Tamar River, “one of the last unspoiled drowned valley river systems in the whole of England.” Unfurling deep into the heart of Devon, it floods through steep gorges, over small plateaus and through dense woodland. This is the West Country at its most-pristine, a world away from the urban chaos of nearby Plymouth.
Yet venture a little further upstream, and you’ll find yourself walking through fields and villages that have been worked for centuries. Wild and remote it may sometimes seem, but the Tamar is also a living valley, where man has worked alongside nature since time immemorial.
Related – Train Travel: 10 Great Railway Journeys of Britain
The post A Guide to the West Country’s Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty appeared first on Urban Ghosts Media.