English villages draw autumn visitors and tourism features

The articles spotlight historic and scenic destinations across England, from Northumberland’s Warkworth, with its medieval castle, church, bridge and nearby beach, to traditional Derbyshire and Peak District villages such as Great Longstone, Birchover and Bamford. In Cheshire, Marthall is portrayed as a quiet rural village near Knutsford, best known in part as the home of Wayne and Coleen Rooney’s estate and for nearby shops and a farm shop. Lancashire’s five-and-a-half-mile Tolkien Trail follows countryside around the Ribble Valley where J.R.R. Tolkien spent time and worked on The Lord of the Rings, though any direct influence on his fictional world is uncertain. A separate retrospective recalls Blackpool landmarks, including Lewis’s and the ABC cinema, many of which have been demolished or substantially changed.