Britain's finest autumn weekends

The Lake District in Autumn: Golden beeches, blazing oaks and a harvest feast to stoke your fire. Enjoy the best of the season’s colours with October breaks

What a fantastic summer it’s been for weather. Fantastic, that is, if you’re a fan of the fall. Yes, seriously. Seasoned tree-watchers from the Forestry Commission predict that our soggy August, coupled with a sunny September, will produce a spectacular of seasonal colours : oak trees resplendent in yellow then scarlet, beech trees orange and golden larches striking out towards the heavens.

Here are some areas to see the autumn treats, or even just to have a quiet relaxing break away from it all and catch the last of the sun.

THE LAKE DISTRICT

Dig out your waterproofs, head for the Lake District and make sure you’ve got somewhere nice to stay at night. That way, you can really revel in the wetness of the place: because, right now, the lakes are loaded and the becks are thrashing down the fells with a fury you don’t normally expect to see in England.

The whole national park has seemed to be desperately trying to stay above water during early autumn but after all this is what the Lakes are about, and the added bonus is you’ll have the place more or less to yourself as long as you don’t mind the odd heavy downfall.

Where to go: Hallin Fell, on the southern shores of Ullswater, is the best short walk in the national park. It will take you only a couple of hours, but there are several extensions if you’re feeling extra energetic. This is where the ancient broadleaf woodland that tumbles down its northern flanks hide out a type of forest rare and precious and there are the views of Helvellyn through the odd gaps in the woods. Watch out for the toadstools, too: it’s been a good season for all forms of fungi. Visit the waterfalls at Aira Force on Ullswater’s northern shore. If the rain keeps falling, it’s going to be in full spate over the coming weeks, roaring between slabs of blackened rock and making you feel very glad you’ve got somewhere warm and dry to go afterwards.

THE CHILTERNS

Autumn in the Chilterns bare a wind that will take your breath away, and the views that certainly will make you gasp. On the tree line slopes coming of the hills a display of autumn colour that even the famed New England cannot compete with, why travel halfway round the world when it is here on the doorstep, and watch out for the wildlife, birds of prey regularly hunt the slopes.

Where to go: Leave Tring station car and enter hawthorn, beech and oak woods, up the slope and you’re out onto bare Pitstone Hill following Britain’s oldest road, the Ridgeway, just as traders did over 5,000 years ago. Buckinghamshire to the left, the Hanging Isley woods to the right.

The area is dotted with old pubs to eat your fill of steak and ale pie, or roast local produced lamb, or if you intend to take a weekend break b&b can be had for as little as £70 for a double room. Then wander into the heart of red-kite country around Ibstone and Stokenchurch and watch the UK biggest bird of prey, mid-morning and late afternoon are the best times to see the kite’s flocking. Chilterns AONB runs red-kite walks about twice a week in October and November.

www.chilternsaonb.org

THE WYE VALLEY

If you’re after the authentic British autumn uneffected by progress, this is the place completely unspoilt with woodlands that stretch back to the ice-age. From Ross to Chepstow, the brown river tunnels between limestone cliffs, with antique copses cascading down the hillsides, copper and yellow and green, small farms with grand gatehouses.

Where to go: Visit to 12th-century Tintern Abbey in autumn, the heaven-high windows of its immense gothic church don’t need stained glass, woodland reflections fill the frame on every side.

A seven-mile circuit leads across the river, south through Caswell Wood, and steeply up onto the ramparts of Offa’s Dyke with its hazel, beech and oak, and the Devil’s Pulpit, a spectacular overlook just above the abbey.

Stay at one of Wales’s best pubs where a double room with breakfast will cost around £120 a night or stay at one of of the many farmhouses that also cater for weekend visitors either way it will be idyllic.