{"id":21924,"date":"2026-04-25T16:02:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T16:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/21924\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T16:02:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T16:02:28","slug":"britains-most-enchanting-woodland-according-to-10-writers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/21924\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s most enchanting woodland \u2013 according to 10 writers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I first came to the Cairngorms in the early 1980s (camping on Loch Morlich, a dog-eared family photo album confirms), and the largest of the UK\u2019s national parks keeps me going back out of curiosity. I\u2019ve hiked its hills, swum its lochs, drunk its Speyside single malts, and, a decade ago, I was married overlooking the River Dee on the fringes of the Balmoral Estate outside Braemar.<\/p>\n<p>Its ancient woodland is, without doubt, an unsung Scottish landmark. Though the King\u2019s Highland home is one of the most visited and photographed buildings in Scotland, its characterful swathes of Scots pine, Douglas fir and Sitka spruce are often overlooked, yet overwhelming.<\/p>\n<p>Certainly, it\u2019s an embarrassment of protected habitats, with 50,000 acres to explore and full of secret places. Such as Queen Victoria\u2019s \u201cbridge to nowhere\u201d crossing the Garbh Allt Falls. And better still, the estate\u2019s secret \u201cpyramids\u201d: memorial cairns erected to commemorate weighty events in Victoria\u2019s life. Found atop Craig an Lurachain hill, this last granite totem looks like the Great Pyramid of Giza transported to Royal Deeside.<\/p>\n<p>How to do it<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"ck-custom-link\" href=\"https:\/\/balmoralcastle.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Balmoral Castle<\/a> is open to the public from late March to early August. Tickets to the castle grounds and gardens cost \u00a318.50, but the wider estate, including the hiking paths to the memorial cairns, can be explored free.<\/p>\n<p>Mike MacEacheran<\/p>\n<p>Wychwood Forest, Oxfordshire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I first came to the Cairngorms in the early 1980s (camping on Loch Morlich, a dog-eared family photo&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,252,10011,9794,10012,330,1797,104,4684,6,38],"class_list":{"0":"post-21924","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-hiking","11":"tag-lake-district","12":"tag-loch-lomond","13":"tag-standard","14":"tag-top-story","15":"tag-travel","16":"tag-travel-destination-guide-hubs","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116466191100885808","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}