| Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020 | |
Driving through English CountrysideCountry forums / UK & Ireland / England | ||
Hi all, Arundel Castle, Pentworth house Can anyone give some advice on what's doable within 6-7 days and what on my list i can skip or what i should add? | ||
Do you have your own car, or are you hiring one in Ireland and de-hiring in the UK? Cos that would incur penalty fees + carrying a car on the ferry is pricy. Also, it's not really convenient for your needs; it would be better to dehire the car at an Irish airport and rehire one on the UK, because it would save a shed load of boring driving to get to the next area of interest. Dingle Peninsula is one heck of a long drive away from Leeds Castle. What I would do; fly Cork to Gatwick hire a car, hoof it round to Leeds castle (which you've obviously gathered is nowhere near Leeds). Go from Leeds castle to Bodian castle to Arundel Castle to Petworth house (no n in Petworth btw) to Guildford. Allow 3 days for that lot. Spend a day in the Cotswolds (Stow on the Wold is great and has a famous bookfair every year) before spending another day in Stratford Upon Avon before leaving in the evening and hoofing it up to the Peak District. Do that in day 6, and then dehire the car in Manchester airport and fly home from there. This particular itinerary skips Warwick (cos you'll have done several castles by then; for the castle newbie it's quite similar I reckon to Leeds, unless you're REALLY into your castles and can spot the diff's). It also skips Rye (bit of a diversion) and sadly the Lake district (big diversion). You simply have too much to do in too little time, but that's a common problem. For this itinerary, you definitely need a sat nav and until you've got as far as Guildford I'd leave it in "shortest distance" rather than "fastest route", otherwise it's gonna continually shove you up to the M25, which is definitely not the shortest distance and is often not the fastest route either. If the Lake District is a must do, option 2, which is also less punishing and gives you more time to actually see stuff instead of lots of roads:- Fly Cork to Newcastle with Jet 2, hire a car, drive across to the Lakes, specifically Grasmere. Try to avoid it during summer weekends when it gets rammed beyond belief. 1.5 days chalked up. After that, drop down to the Peak District, do that for 2 more days, then to Warwick Castle and Stratford Upon Avon (which are very close to one another). 1.5 days chalked up. From there, head on down to Stow on the Wold and Bath, do those for the remaining time, then trundle along the M4 to Heathrow, hand in the car, fly home. But that would skip Jane Austen country. Alternatively, you could do the whole English itinerary if you completely skip Ireland as a whole - that buys you 4 more days which then makes the above list fully achievable. | 1 | |
Before I start - where are you going to be leaving the UK/flying out of? What time will your ferry be arriving in England and where will it be landing? I haven't been to all of these locations so can only recommend those that I have visited or have heard really good things about. I personally love the Lake District, Stourhead and Bath. I quite enjoyed the Cotswolds, and I'd really like to see Chatsworth. I found Stratford a bit touristy (to be expected) but it's still quite pretty. You could do something like: Day 1: Arrive. Drive to Lake District. Check out Grasmere. (Night: Lake District) I hope this helps. This is probably the most you would want to do in the time you have. If you have an extra day, I would probably give that to the Lake District. Just a note - Stratford-upon-Avon is south of Warwick so you could briefly visit enroute tot he Cotswolds and Bath if you decide to only explore Warwick on Day 3. | 2 | |
A long weekend to see one corner of Ireland is fair enough, so long as you are limiting your ambitions to that corner. Plane would be good, since a road journey from SW Ireland to England will consume a very full day. Over in England Bear in mind that the Lake District is 300+ miles from Kent and British major roads are prone to congestion. Once you've paid the small fortune they extract from you these days to go into major tourist places like Chatsworth, Stourhead, Burghley, Leeds Castle, Warwick Castle you probably want to spend most of the day there to get your money's worth; visiting two of them in the same day would be pretty indigestible to my mind. | 3 | |
Given your reasons for wanting to see the English countryside (places Jane Austen wrote about etc), I think it would be a great pity if you missed out BATH. You will love it. Try not to do too much. Although the Lake District is great, you will exhaust yourself doing everything. On the Jane Austen theme, you could see Bath (need at least one day and good if you spend a night there). and drive South to Lyme Regis (I have done this and the countryside is very pleasant), site of another Jane Austen story (Persuasion, when silly girl jumped down steps there and broke her ankle). Lyme Regis is a really nice little seaside town (also, French Lieutenant's woman - Meryl Streep - was filmed there). Southern England has some very pretty villages and you could drive through lots of them after this, going East to include Arundel (good choice - nice town and has nice walks round a wildlife reserve and the river) and Leeds Castle and Bodiam. Obviously, Chawton happens in the middle somewhere (can't remember exactly where it is but I think it is in Hampshire). I think that should do it for you, especially if you are going to soak up the atmosphere of some of the little villages, have tea in tea shops and all those English pursuits that have been happening since time immemorial. If you do decide to drive from ferry from Cork (comes in at Pembroke Dock?) - you would be driving through South Wales to Bath so could have a little look at that too, though what others have said about car hire may stop you arriving that way. | 4 | |
PS, New Forest is worth a look (before you get to Southampton). | 5 | |
Agree with above re: flying. By the way you can't get a ferry from RoI to England, only to Wales. If you're taking the ferry to England then you'll be driving up to Belfast which is really far! If you are taking the ferry into Wales then consider seeing a bit of Wales on your way - you're just north of the Snowdownia National Park which is stunning. It then makes sense to go up to Lake district and work your way south. | 6 | |
You will definitely need to cut down on that list in 6-7 days. Broadly speaking, it seems to be divided into south-east England, south-west England, midlands and the north. You'd have to cut out at least one of those areas. I'd think about what exactly you want to see, and if you're into Jane Austen, then as mentioned, you really should visit Bath. She's buried in Winchester Cathedral BTW - not that I want to add to your list! | 7 | |
HI, just wanted to thank you all for your help. Yes, i'll be picking up a different car rental in England and will be flying from Ireland over there. Not sure yet where i'm flying into. I'm going to digest all this info and decide what to do! Sadly i think i will be taking out the Lake District for this trip and definitely cut out a bunch of castles. I'm hoping i can get in Bath, Rye, Chawton House and the Cotswolds... | 8 | |
Good luck - Rye is a little gem IMHO. I'll sure you'll enjoy it. Henry James's house is there, and later the person who wrote Mapp and Lucia lived in the same house. | 9 | |
You have a reasonable basic plan. But honestly, put all the places you want to see on a map and see which bits you can reasonably do. All of them is only possible if you drive a lot, every single day! Or use a month. Or plan another trip in the future for the things you can't see this time. | 10 | |
You could be spending a lot of time in the car and not much at the locations. A full study of a map with the locations and roads will help you see how much needs to be eliminated. | 11 | |