More than half the world’s bluebells grow in the UK. In April and May each year, lakes of indigo flowers flood through the spring woodlands. Here are just a handful of the hundreds of great chances to see them, along with places nearby to eat, sleep and take cover from the April showers.
1. Hodgemoor Wood, Buckinghamshire
The Chiltern Beechwoods are prime bluebell country, with miles of flower-fringed, waymarked paths across the Ashridge Estate or along the Ridgeway National Trail. Hodgemoor, about a ten-minute walk from Chalfont St Giles, is perfect for springtime strolling, with muntjac deer running through the undergrowth and red kites circling overhead. The rosy, vine-twined cottage where the poet John Milton finished writing Paradise Lost is just down the road and a few old cherry trees still blossom in nearby Seer Green, once known as the “cherry pie village”. The White Hart, with good pub grub and comfortable beds, makes a budget-friendly base and is just half a mile by footpath from Hodgemoor.
Details Room-only doubles from £77 (chefandbrewer.com)
2. Kinclaven Bluebell Wood, Perthshire
There are tufty-eared red squirrels and hammering woodpeckers among the mossy oaks and big gnarled beeches of this well-kept woodland 11 miles north of Perth, and in May it’s known for its spectacular carpets of bluebells. There are winding paths in neighbouring Ballathie Wood, with glimpses of the salmon-rich Tay, Scotland’s longest river. If it’s raining, head for nearby Stanley Mills — a well-preserved 18th-century former cotton factory on a sharp bend in the river. Book tea and a room at Ballathie House, a turreted Victorian hotel where gardens are bright with twisting rhododendrons.
Details B&B doubles from £94 (ballathiehousehotel.com)
3. Skelghyll Woods, Ambleside, Cumbria
Azaleas and other spring-flowering shrubs bloom pink, tangerine and crimson in Stagshaw Gardens, with its little stream cascading by the path. Above the garden is a mix of ancient woodland and a Victorian arboretum sporting the Lake District’s tallest tree, the 58m-tall Grand Fir. A map near the garden reveals where the most bluebelly bits of the woods can be found, but you’ll see flowers by the path almost as soon as you leave the road. Head up the footpath signed Jenkin Crag for views across the lake below. From nearby Waterhead Pier take a boat trip around Windermere, stopping off at Wray Castle or the Jetty Museum. Check out the smart YHA Ambleside hostel, where you can book a private room and have a locally brewed pint in the waterside bar.
Details Room-only double bunkrooms from £30 (yha.org.uk/hostel/yha-ambleside)
4. Bluebell Railway, Sussex
The woods around the Bluebell Railway overflow each spring with the flowers that gave the line its name. The rural views along this vintage train ride take in fields of sheep, the distant weald from a viaduct, and bluebells on trackside embankments. Walks between the line’s four stations — each with the distinctive style of a different era, from late Victorian to 1960s — nearly all pass through bluebell woods. Tulips and magnolias are blooming in the pioneering wild garden at the 16th-century Gravetye Manor, where the Michelin-starred Dining Room uses spring produce from the garden for herb salads or rhubarb soufflé.
Details B&B doubles from £385 (gravetyemanor.co.uk)
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5. Cadora Woods, Monmouthshire and Gloucestershire
Some of Britain’s most important ancient woodlands line the steep-sided Wye Valley. Offa’s Dyke path snakes through bracken and bluebells from the village of Redbrook into clifftop Cadora, full of violets, anemones and pungent wild garlic. After an energetic hike in the hills, you can tuck into homemade hotpot by the log fire in Penallt’s Boat Inn. From Redbrook the pub is just over the bridge, one of many local filming locations for the Netflix show Sex Education. A few miles up the valley, rent the Chalet, a five-bedroom riverside holiday home with its own woods and a pizza oven. It’s the house where Otis Milburn (played by Asa Butterfield) and his mum, Dr Jean Milburn (Gillian Anderson) live in the TV series.
Details Four nights’ self-catering for ten from £3,680 (thechaletsymondsyat.co.uk)
6. Crawfordsburn Country Park, Co Down
There’s something particularly magical about coastal bluebells and from Helen’s Bay railway station it’s a pleasant 15-minute stroll down through Crawfordsburn to Belfast Lough, where you’ll find plenty. Along the gorse-fragrant coast path in either direction, bluebells cascade down through waterside woods and the gentle grassy cliffs are sprinkled with sea pinks. The boutique Salty Dog, just down the coast in Bangor, has homemade biscuits, sea views and local produce for breakfast.
Details Room-only doubles from £125 (saltydogbangor.com)
7. Captain’s Wood, Sudbourne, Suffolk
Essex is bursting with bluebell woods, from Hanningfield Reservoir near Billericay to lilac-carpeted Quendon near Saffron Walden. They are slightly thinner on the ground in neighbouring Suffolk, but Captain’s Wood nature reserve has a fine display, along with an island of ancient trees and fallow deer in a wide expanse of farmland and saltmarsh. If it’s tipping it down, head for the Red House — the characterful former home of the composer Benjamin Britten and the tenor Peter Pears. Stay at the seafront Brudenell Hotel, where newly refurbed bedrooms have views of the bronze-shingled beach or misty Aldeburgh marshes.
Details B&B doubles from £138 (brudenellhotel.co.uk)
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