Wistman's Wood, Dartmoor
A stunted oak wood tangled with moss, easy from Two Bridges car park.
Issue #1 · April 2026
22
Twenty-two quiet places in the UK.
Cafés with no Wi-Fi, woods with no signal, stretches of coast where the only sound is your own boots. A starting list.
The list
Read top-to-bottom, or let the page pick for you. Twenty-two is small enough to skim.
-
-
Rhossili Down at sunset
Three-mile ridge walk above Rhossili Bay, Gower Peninsula.
-
The Reading Room, Strand-on-the-Green
West London riverside; books, tea, no laptops.
-
Holkham beach pines
The pine belt behind Holkham NNR absorbs sound. Go on a weekday.
-
Aber Falls in winter
Short walk, big drop, often frozen in January.
-
Brontë's Top Withens
Ruined farmhouse above Haworth; the setting for Wuthering Heights.
-
The Whispering Knights, Rollright
Five-thousand-year-old burial chamber, Oxfordshire.
-
Kilchurn Castle at dawn
Reflected in Loch Awe when the water is still.
-
Dungeness nuclear shingle
Britain's only desert, with Derek Jarman's garden.
-
Bempton Cliffs, June
Puffins, gannets, and a wind that won't let you speak.
-
St Nectan's Glen
Waterfall chapel in a Cornish wood; £8 to enter, worth it.
-
The Silent Pool, Surrey
A chalk-bed pool so clear it looks posed.
-
Spurn Point at low tide
A sandspit drifting into the Humber; tidal, timed walks only.
-
Daymer Bay after six
Camel estuary empties out in the evening.
-
Stanage Edge on a Tuesday
Gritstone, heather, sky. Weekends are busy; Tuesday isn't.
-
Orford Ness
Former MoD shingle spit with Cold-War pagodas. National Trust ferry.
-
The Fan Bay Deep Shelter
Second-World-War tunnels under the South Foreland cliffs.
-
The Fairy Pools
Glen Brittle, Skye — less fairy in October, still worth it.
-
Allen Banks & Staward Gorge
Northumberland ravine; wild garlic in May, empty most days.
-
Fingal's Cave, Staffa
Basalt cathedral reachable from Iona on a good-sea day.
-
Cley Marshes hide #3
North Norfolk coast; bring a thermos, wait.
-
Your nearest 5am church
Any parish church, unlocked, empty, before the kettle boils at home.