Proof that you don’t need a passport to visit the jungle!

from I'd Rather Be In Deeping July 23

Afternoon tea with Nancy

Venture through banana plantations, soak up panoramic mountain views from an ancient stone circle, step inside a Neolithic settlement. Experience all this and more, closer to home than you might think...

Adventure through tunnels of towering bamboo and banana plantations in the UK’s only outdoor jungle! Cornwall’s Lost Gardens of Heligan were taken over by brambles at the outbreak of WWI but in 1990 this secret valley garden was reawakened and transformed into an explorer’s paradise – with an exotic microclimate that’s almost five degrees hotter than the surrounding gardens! Dare you cross the 100ft Burmese Rope Bridge above the jungle floor?

Absorb 360° panoramic mountain views from a 4000-year-old stone circle during an off-the-beaten-track adventure in the Lake District. Take unique guided routes through exhilarating scenery as you head high up on the fells to the atmospheric Castlerigg Stone Circle – one of the earliest to be found in Britain! Travel over passes, through valleys, past waterfalls and no fewer than ten famous lakes on a not-to-be-missed tour through Lakeland.

Discover how 19th-century soap factory workers’ houses went on to become a one-of-a-kind village featuring over 900 Grade II listed residential buildings! Port Sunlight, on the Wirral Peninsula, is considered to be one of the UK’s finest examples of early urban planning. Imagine waking up here every day,

Lost Gardens of Heligan

in a village with a thriving community spirit, bound by its unique history –today’s residents must feel very lucky.

Picture an 18th-century landscaped garden that’s also home to the largest outdoor art gallery in Europe! Yorkshire Sculpture Park is the only place on the continent that you can see Barbara Hepworth’s The Family Man in its entirety, alongside hundreds more thought-provoking pieces including four major sculptures by Damien Hirst. This 500-acre gem, bursting with winding trails, will spark your imagination and leave you in awe.

A 15 minute stroll (or a very short ride) through glorious Norfolk parkland brings you to a huge six-acre, 18thcentury, walled garden that’s undergoing an exciting rejuvenation. The Ornamental Garden and Samuel Wyatt Vinery have just been restored, creating beautiful formal beds and an elegant Victorian glasshouse. This historical, horticultural, hidden gem is just delightful in the summer months.

Take an exciting Highland adventure through Britain’s largest mountain range – the Cairngorms – and Scotland’s northernmost wilderness, to uncover 5000 years of history at Skara Brae, where a thunderous storm in 1850 exposed the best-preserved Neolithic settlement in Western Europe! This see-it-to-believe-it site allows you to imagine daily life 5000 years ago – think stone chairs, stone beds, stone everything!

Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown landscapes are all around us – the Sculpture Garden and Lake at Burghley, for example – but his most southerly work took place at Ugbrooke, in Devon, where the areas surrounding the main house remain just as his drawings intended. Brown’s original draft drawings now hang proudly inside the house, allowing you to visualise his ideas coming to life, from paper to parkland. Step inside the mind of this celebrated landscape artist whilst also exploring a site that dates back to the Domesday Book of 1086, when you visit the private home at Ugbrooke House and Gardens.

Rolling green hills dotted with sleepy, honey-coloured hamlets make the Cotswolds one of the most scenic spots in the UK. The view gets even better when seen from the window of a heritage rail carriage. Riding through unspoilt, quintessentially English countryside on a restored rail line is an experience like no other. To think that this line was almost lost in the 1970s when a derailment caused seemingly irreparable track damage. Thanks to committed local volunteers, trains continue to steam through the Cotswolds, and this rather refined style of travel lives to see another day.

So, forget the passport and security queues and make the most of a British summer at these UK hidden gems.

Return travel from Deeping is always included when you book through Shaws

Visit Port Sunlight during a 4* stay in Chester, 23-27 Jul from £650