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Buttertubs and Hardraw Force -
Situated in one of the loveliest parts of the Yorkshire Dales,
the Buttertubs are a series of very deep potholes near the summit
of Buttertubs pass.
Hardraw Force near the village of Hardraw ('force' is a Scandinavian
word meaning 'waterfall') is the highest unbroken waterfalls in Great Britain.
The Cheesewring on Bodmin Moor in
Cornwall near the Hurlers Stone Circles is a granite balancing
act that has the appearance of having been placed there by hand.
Dover - the white cliffs of Dover
- the symbolic gateways to England.
Flamborough Head on the Yorkshire
coast - one of the most beautiful walks in Yorkshire
and exactly 362 miles from Lands End and 362 miles
from John O'Groats. White cliffs full of coves, caves
and promontories.
Gordale Scar in the Yorkshire Dales
- A desolate place which appealed to the Romantic
poets. Wordsworth wrote a sonnet about this vast
chasm with its impressive waterfalls.
Henhole - one of the most dramatic parts of the Cheviot Hills - the Henhole
is an unexpected chasm in the granite hills of the Cheviots. A stream flowing
through the cliffs creates a number of waterfalls which are worth seeing not
for their size but for the diversity of their cascades - the only life and
movement in the dark valley.
High Force, despite its name ('force' meaning waterfall is a word of Scandinavian
origin) is by no means the highest waterfall. It falls about 70 feet down a
series of granite steps but has an appearance as impressive as any waterfall
you will find in Britain.
Lands End - the most westerly cliffs
of England are a national institution. Tourists flock to look
over the edge. Beyond the sea once lay the land of Atlantis after
which
that sea was named. Later histories also record the Cornish
Atlantis, the sea-covered land between Lands End and the Scillies.
This fabled Atlantis, also known as Lyonesse has been seen by many
a Cornish fisherman who claim that the tolling of bells from submerged
churches can still be heard in the sea off Lands End.
Lindisfarne -
Holy Island has a magical atmosphere and was once the cradle
of Christianity in Britain. Lindisfarne's
most distinctive feature is a volcanic rock called the Beblowe
on which the castle is built. Lindisfarne is a part-time island
because at low tide it is possible to reach the island by road.
The Logan Stone - one of the most
famous rocks in Cornwall, the so-called 'rocking stone' (the
Logan Stone has not been easily rocked since it was dislodged
from and then returned to its precarious perch in 1824). The
Logan Stone in its romantic setting is especially mysterious
in the mist.
Lydford Gorge is
a vast fissure in the earth at the edge of Dartmoor. The swirling
savagery of the black waters of the Devil's Cauldron can be
watched from specially placed planks (but be careful - the
spray can make these precarious planks quite wet) while a more
delicate fall at the western edge of Lydford Gorge is the white
water of the White Lady waterfall which appears to freefall
for about 30 metres.
Malham Cove is a natural amphitheatre
in the green of the Yorkshire Moors with a spring of water which
gurgles out at the foot of the Cove. At the top of Malham Cove
is a series of white limestone 'pavements' - the famous 'clints'
Between these are depressions a few metres deep called 'grykes'
which will eventually become vertical caves. Wordsworth was inspired
to write a sonnet about Malham Cove.
The Norber Erratics on Norber Moor
in Yorkshire are slate and sandstone boulders sat on natural
white limestone clints. While most of the limestone surface has
been eroded by the wind and rain, the area beneath each of the
Norber Erratics has remained protected by the rocks themselves
leaving each of the Erratics sitting on a little platform raising
them 30-40cm above the level of the surrounding landscape. The
Norber clints separated by deep grykes are even better than the
clints at Malham Cove. They are brilliant white and those on
the western side merge seamlessly with the man-made walls giving
the impression that you are on a petrified sea. Another reason
to visit Norber Moor is that the moor is a great place to escape
the tourist crowds.
Old Harry Rock - in ancient times
the chalk ridge from Purbeck Downs stretched right across to
the Isle of Wight. The sea gradually eroded the ridge created
the Isle of Wight and the Needles - the remaining stumps of the
ridge which stretch out from the island to the sea. Old Harry
Rocks are the mainland equivalent of the Needles. The tallest
of these is Old Harry Rock itself ('Old Harry' is a polite name
for the Devil). Thomas Hardy gave a romantic description of this
coastline in The Hand of Ethelberta. On the same stretch
of coastline as Old Harry Rock is the magnificent Lulworth Cove
where Keats wrote his last sonnet and about 1 mile up the coast
from Lulworth Cove is the Durdle Door ('Durdle' and 'Door' are
derived from archaic words meaning 'water') a fantastic natural
arch over the sea. From the sea, the Durdle Door leads to Dorset
(another word with the same root) Near Lulworth Cove is a petrified
forest with hollow fossilised stumps big enough to fit about
5 people inside.
Peak Cavern in Derbyshire's Peak District
is fronted by the Devil's Hole said to be the biggest cave entrance
in the world at 20 metres high, 60 metres wide and 100 metres
deep. It is set in limestone cliffs topped by the ruins of Peveril
Castle. The poet Byron and Queen Victoria visited the system
of caves which leads for about a mile into the hill through the
Devil's Hole. The link with the Devil is followed in many of
the names of formations in the caves (the Devil's Cellar, the
Styx, Pluto's Dining Room, etc.) and older names for the cave
include Old Horny's Cave and even the Devil's Arse!
Roche, north of St. Austell. The miniature
granite mountains of Roche form a strange lunar landscape in
contrast to the man-made hills (a byproduct of clay-mining) in
the south. The ruins of a granite chapel dedicated to St Michael
cling chameleon-like to the rocks. From the chapel there are
some impressive views of the dark rock outcroppings and clay
mine deposits of Roche.
St Michael's Mount, one of the most
beautiful and mysterious places in Cornwall. From the hill to
the east St Michael's Mount seems like a castle surrounded by
a moat from a tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round
Table. From the relative closeness of Mount Bay however, it is
a natural fortress upon which a cluster of buildings have been
perched. St Michael's Mount may perhaps have come into being
as a result of the same catastrophe that sunk the land of Lyonesse,
the Cornish
Atlantis.
The Seven Sisters of the chalk headland of
Beachy Head near Eastbourne stretch from Birling Gap in the east
to Cuckmere Haven in the west. These sheer white cliffs drop
to a depth of 200 metres while their tops undulate softly up
and down. Starting in the west the Seven Sisters are Raven Brow,
Short Brow, Rough Brow, Bran Point, Flagstaff Point, Bail's Hill
and Went Hill Brow. Until they were worn away by the sea (the
last one disappeared in 1854) the Seven Sisters had seven brothers
known as the Seven Charles.
Treak Cavern and Winnats Pass in the
Peak District. Winnats Pass is one of the most beautiful natural
passes in Britain and appears to have been deliberately modeled
from the limestone hills by a giant sculptor. Winnats Pass however
hides an even more impressive wonder in Treak Cavern famed for
the veins of Blue John stone unique to the Peak District. Within
the show-caves of Treak Cavern are the Dream Cave and Aladdin's
Cave which have some of the best displays of stalactites in Britain.
White Scar Caves. These showcaves on the
Yorkshire Moors accompany Ingleborough Cave with its quarter-mile
chambers of stalagmites and stalactites and Gaping Gill, a chamber
said to be big enough to fit York Minster inside. White Scar Caves
contains almost all the possibilities for underground formations
including stalagmites and stalactites, an underground stream and
2 fantastic waterfalls where you will end up wet with the spray.
Some of the stalactites have numerous arms reaching out in different
directions. It is believed that the system extends all the way
to Gaping Gill (about 5 miles) but much of this is still unexplored
and is not open to the public.
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Cader Idris
There are 3 peaks of Cader Idris - Pen y
Gadair, Cyfrwy (the Saddle) and Tyrau Mawr which together form
a giant's chair. At the foot of the Cader peak is a vast chasm
filled with water that is the reputedly bottomless lake Llyn
Cau. It is worth spending some time at Cader Idris to watch the
mists swirl in (even on a sunny day) although it is said that
anyone who spends the night there will wake up either a lunatic
or poet!
Dan-yr-Ogof and Cathedral
Cave
Dan-yr-Ogof meaning below the
cave is a vast cave system partly open to the public as showcaves.
It is one of the finest series of caves in the UK. The cave it
is actually below is called Ogof-yr-Esgryn. The showcaves themselves
contain a number of interesting features including the 'Flitch
of Bacon' - a hanging sheet of calcite, the 'Alabaster Pillar'
(a stactite and stalagmite which have joined together over the
years to form a 2 metres high pillar). The Cauldron Chamber has
a 6 meters long sheet of calcite hanging from the roof. The Cathedral
Cave is the largest chamber in any illuminated showcave in Britain.
Apart from its sheer cathedral-like size, the flowing calcite
has created formations within the Cathedral Cave known as the
'Organ Pipes'. It contains its own waterfalls, lake, columns
and multi-coloured stalactites and the 'Dome of St Pauls where
it becomes as high as the cathedral after which it has been named.
Devil's Bridge
Elegug Stacks, The Green Bridge of Wales,
and St Govan's Head
Pistyll Rhaedr
Snowdonia
Swallow Falls
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Arbroath Cliffs
The Cairngorms and Glenmore
Duncansby Stacks
Dunnottar Fiddlehead
Glencoe
Loch Lomond
Mull
The Old Man of Hoy
Staffa
Yesnaby Castle
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Achill Islands
Bridges of Ross
The Burren
Cliffs of Moher
Donegal
Giant's Causeway
Loop Head
Rock Close, Blarney
The Skelligs
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