Another sunny bank holiday has sailed past — and you were stationary for most of it.
No mad dash out of London on the Thursday, bag bulging with gins in tins for the train. No trips to the coast, sitting on windswept sands, bucket hat blowing off in the wind, insisting you’re not cold and yes you would like an ice cream.
As lockdown swallows spring and we start to worry whether we’ll be stuck all summer too, talk is of holidays. There’s no imminent prospect of going abroad (or going very far at all) which makes it all the more important to daydream.
And when we can travel, our first destinations are likely to be much closer to home. So, as you count the days until the next pointless May bank holiday (it’s in two weeks), here are the star staycation locations floating in our writers’ fantasies.
Lewes
Obviously when Virginia Woolf wrote about the importance of having a room of one’s own she didn’t mean sitting in the same one indefinitely, panic-ordering jigsaws and yoga mats. She also had, while living at Monk’s House in Lewes, a garden so beautiful it would make London flat-renters pass out with delirium. The fact that just down the road sits Charleston farmhouse, which her sister Vanessa Bell turned into an artwork by painting walls and furnishings, is all the more reason to escape to this luscious, literary part of the South-East as soon as staycationing is back. Walking in the footsteps of the Bloomsbury Group — this creative (and, legend has it, horny) set of artists and writers were regular visitors — is just the remedy for curious minds sent doolally by lockdown. And from here, you can enjoy the South Downs and a pint in one of Lewes’s cosy pubs. (Please reopen the pubs.)
Jessie Thompson
The Isle of Wight
Camping in my back garden isn’t cutting it: the place I’m longing to pitch my post-lockdown tent is the Isle of Wight. For me, it’s the perfect staycation destination: close enough that you can get there in a couple of hours from Waterloo (and with bikes); escapist enough that you have to get a ferry. Those 45 minutes watching Portsmouth’s shrinking skyline from the deck never fail to transport me into minibreak mode (starting the moment you ask for a ticket to Ryde at the ferry office). The best way to see the island? On two wheels. Pedalling clockwise from Ryde pier can be spread across a couple of days if you account for plenty of pub stops: ice creams on the harbour wall in Seaview, post-walk pints after strolling up Tennyson Down, fish and chips by the superyachts in Yarmouth. Pick a August sunny evening and you could be promenading the St Tropez seafront.
Katie Strick
St Andrews
I grew up on the west coast of Scotland, which means the eastern seaboard should, strictly, be the heartland of my sworn enemies. Still, while Glasgow’s rollicking pubs and leafy avenues beguile, in lockdown I’m dreaming of windswept St Andrews, perched on its cliff edge facing the North Sea. In the right weather — cold and clear, with a breeze that could take your skin off — it feels like the end of the Earth, in the best way. Both my sisters go to university there and visiting is a treat: it’s only three streets (and a golf course) but those cobbled roads offer a lot of bang for their buck. Topping Bookshop has everything, and is staffed by Marianne Sheridan lookalikes, poised to offer recommendations from the tops of sliding ladders. Play in the ruins of St Andrews Cathedral and climb St Rules Tower. Then sink some whisky until you’re warm (and mad) enough to consider paddling on East Sands.
Phoebe Luckhurst
The Compasses Inn, Lower Chicksgrove, Wiltshire
It must be more than a decade since I discovered the Compasses Inn, driving from London with my mate Martin, who insisted we go on a thoroughly English weekend away because he was about to move to America. In trying to recapture the idyllic experience of a childhood trip to Wiltshire with my parents, I stumbled upon this wonky, oak-beamed, friendly pub with cosy rooms, in a village down a higgledy-piggledy country lane, which just happened to serve the best dinner (and the most lavish pork-based breakfast) for miles around. Nearby was one of England’s finest ruins, Old Wardour Castle (built in the 14th century as a “lightly fortified luxury residence”; you can clamber all over it, climbing stairs and peering down privvies), which served as a location in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. For the druid-curious, the pub is 20 minutes’ drive from Stonehenge and about an hour from the Neolithic and Bronze Age sites of Avebury. And I’m a sucker for a stone circle.
Nancy Durrant
Ambleside, the Lake District
My Lake District holidays follow the same joyful routine. Days are spent hiking, breathlessly climbing hills to look down over sparkling lakes, weaving through sheep-dotted fields, hopscotching over pebble-strewn streams and waving a good morning to locals (such a thrill for a Londoner). Evenings are for warming up with red wine and roaring fireplaces at cosy pubs in pretty villages before stumbling back, headtorch on, through the pitch black to a cottage and the lure of more wine. My love of the lakes began as a young girl, on family trips where I’d be bribed into long walks with the promise of Kendal Mint Cake and bumpy rides on my dad’s shoulders. This year, as soon as I’m able, I’ll be making a dash for Ambleside near Lake Windermere. I’ll stay at the Drunken Duck, a stylish pub with chic rooms and a beer garden with the best views I’ve ever seen. It’s where my grandparents spent their honeymoon more than 60 years ago. So in our new normal, that’s where I’ll be, raising a glass to the past and feeling so very thankful we’ve made it through.
Suzannah Ramsdale
The Jurassic Coast, Dorset
Having enjoyed many happy summer holidays there when my children were toddlers, the stunning stretch of coast between Weymouth and Lyme Regis is the one place in England I long to return to, and the only part of the country I’d ever consider moving to if I had to leave London. We used to stay at a friend’s house in Bridport, a lovely market town with a thriving community, lots to do and a perfect mix of old-school local and new-wave artisan. We’d eat fish and chips and Mr Whippy ice creams at West Bay, and drive down perilously windy roads to get to secluded beaches such as Chesil, Burton Bradstock, or the most beautiful of all, Eype, for some basic bucket and spade. We’d visit the swans at Abbotsbury, and go mackerel fishing on boats in Lyme Regis, or if it was raining, gawp at the fossils in the museum there. I don’t imagine the area has changed much now that my toddlers are in their twenties; I hope not anyway.
Katie Law
The Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall
Cornwall is my favourite of the UK’s corners, and the Lizard Peninsula is its wildest crevice. My girlfriend’s mother, an artist, lives and paints there, and we’ve missed her during lockdown. The train to Penzance is an essential part of the experience: six hours to decompress on one of the most beautiful railway lines in the world. Book a window seat on the left side on your outward journey for the best sea views at Durdle Door. Everybody has their top beaches: try Kennack Sands or Marazion (for views of St Michael’s Mount). But it’s the walks past ancient standing stones and wind-ruffled gorse that most appeal to me, I think because they’re the rambles we made on family holidays. Also: ice cream at Roskilly’s Farm; The Gurnard’s Head near Zenner (some of the best wine in the county); Tate St Ives and the Barbara Hepworth studio; Gweek (just fun to say). I’m fond of the country lanes that seem to barrel down through foliage funnels into an underworld — until a tractor heading the other way turns up.
Samuel Fishwick
