Add some wonder to your wanders with literary trails for bookish walkers
Book-based routes are a chance to not only stretch your legs but expand your mind, with the option to discover literature that’s new to you, or experience a familiar work in the context of nature. Stover Country Park, near Newton Abbot in Devon, is host to a two-mile Ted Hughes Poetry Trail, following 16 posts, showing his poems about the natural world – there’s a children’s version, too. Meanwhile, the Rye Harbour Poetry Trail was created by a group of writers who meet at the harbour’s nature reserve, and a collection of 13 poems that take visitors on a wheelchair-accessible two-mile circuit. You can listen to the verse recited by the authors via a QR code at each post. Another collaboration includes the Norwich Bestiary Trail, a project in which a writer has worked with young people aged 14-18 to write a dozen poems about animals – most associated with the medieval city, and some ‘imagined into its past’, that are featured in different locations around its streets.
If you’ve a thirst for ginger beer and an appetite for adventure, try the Enid Blyton Trail in Dorset – the county was the inspiration for much of her Famous Five series (Kirrin Island was based on Corfe Castle).
Having trouble appealing to a wide range of tastes? The Jane Eyre Hathersage Trail in the Peak District may be the answer as it combines places that featured in Charlotte Brontë’s famous novel, as well as locations used in Robin Hood as well as the 1995 TV version of Pride And Prejudice.
The above extract is taken from our feature ‘On The Trail’ from our March issue, which explores organised trails you can follow all over the country on various themes.
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