Month in pictures – December in the countryside

Built 335 metres above sea level on the remains of an ancient volcano in Devon is St Michael de Rupe (St Michael of the Rock).

The views across the surrounding Dartmoor countryside from the summit of Brentor are breathtaking, but perhaps what’s most captivating about this small church is its ability to command attention from both land and sea.

• Visit the Pepperpot on the Isle of Wight
• Dartmoor’s best walks
• Climb to the summit of Brentor

Whitby’s pretty quayside and welcoming shops make it worth a winter visit; elegant Beggar’s Bridge arches over the River Esk in Glaisdale and the surrounding national park is ideal for a seasonal walk.

A dawn walk in the depths of winter offers so much beauty and mystery. You see the countryside in a completely new light, such as here along the River Stour in Dedham Vale on the Essex-Suffolk border, which is famously green and lush in summer. Creeping frost transforms the sullen and slumbering vegetation while extraordinary peach and plum tints exploding across the sky reflect in the still water. Magical.

• Beautiful churches in the Stour Valley
• Day out: Lavenham, suffolk
• Discover the Stour River in summer

The longest of nights: the winter solstice is often described as the shortest day of the year. By default, this makes it the longest night, and an occasion worth celebrating. Ancient cultures saw it as a time of rebirth, welcoming back the light – a view maintained by many to this day. Here at Lammas Eco Village in Pembrokeshire, drummers, pipers and dancers gather together around a fire on the solstice to “honour the turning point in the Sacred Dance of our Earth Mother”. 

Native gamebird the red grouse is widespread on heathery moors, particularly in the North York Moors. Discover more winter wildlife spectacles.

Christmas Eve, and all around the country the centrepiece for celebrations will most likely be a conifer, festooned with fairy lights, surrounded by presents.

In the minds of many, that affection for conifers doesn’t extend beyond the festive season. In recent decades conifer forestry has often been mired in controversy, thanks to insensitively placed commercial plantings. Many see densely spaced geometrical plantations in much-loved upland landscapes as an abomination. Worse still, confrontations between conservationists, landowners and politicians over commercial forests covering large areas of Flow Country in the far-north of Scotland, which involved draining bogs that are critically important habitats for nesting wading birds, endangered wildflowers and rare insects, gave conifer forestry a bad name.

Britain’s most spectacular autumn arboreta

• Britain’s best forests and woodlands
• Britain’s most spectacular arboreta
• What is forest bathing?

The story of single malt Scots whisky is an intoxicating tale – a heady mix of myths and legends, swirling beneath a dense veil of Scotch mist. One thing is certain: some of the most distinctive whiskies in Scotland emanate from the west-coast island of Islay, home to eight (soon to be nine) of Scotland’s 98 active distilleries.

How are oysters are used in whisky production?

Perched at the mouth of Great Langdale in the midst of the Lake District is Chapel Stile, a small community of blue-grey stone buildings, raised from the slate quarries that surround it. 

On a rocky shelf overlooking the village is Holy Trinity Church, completed in 1858 on a site that has seen Christian worship for centuries. Like much of the village, the neo-Gothic-style building is made of local slate, giving the place a distinctly North-Wales flavour. 

Seek refuge from the cold inside one of Scotland’s most majestic churches, then venture into the Highlands on a winter walk past the wizards’ railway to a lonely mountain pass.

Icy rails and blustery snow won’t stop the North Yorkshire Moors Railway’s Santa Special from winding its merry way to Levisham station, with the man himself on-board.

The UK’s best festive days out.

Main image ©John Hunt