Visit England’s Ambitious Woodland Restoration Project

Plan a woodland escape in this lush and little-visited corner of the Midlands — a riot of red, yellow and orange leaves come autumn.

Official response and confirmed impact

Over the past 35 years, an ambitious environmental project has been doing something remarkable in Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire— transforming an industry-scarred patch of the landscape into a forest that covers some 200 square miles.

Linking what remains of the ancient woodlands of Needwood and Charnwood, the area is home to 10 million trees, from stately hazels and hornbeams to the fast-growing silver birch.

But saplings aren’t the only examples of regrowth here, with cafes, pubs and microbreweries popping up all over this now green and pleasant land.

Affectionately referred to as an ‘un-stately home’, 18th-century Calke Abbey in Derbyshire has been left largely as the National Trust found it.

Rooms and corridors in various states of elegant decrepitude chart the slow decline of the Harpur Crewe family through the objects they left behind, including an unusual collection of taxidermy.

Outside are 600 acres of historic parkland and wooded pasture to explore. Be sure to pay a visit to the Old Man of Calke.

Thought to be around 1,200 years of age, he’s one of the UK’s oldest surviving oak trees.