Travel Guide to Northern England

Northern England: Why go

An industrial ‘belt’ holding up a mine-scarred landscape may be a snooty West Londoner’s idea of the North of England but then, this region isn’t for the superficial. Gothic literature could only have grown out of the gloomy melodrama of Yorkshire’s rain-swept moors and Wordsworth would not have found the sublime anywhere other than the serene waters of Cumbria’s Lake District. Few people break the back of England’s longest hike along the Pennine Way, the magnificent spine of peaks that stretches to Scotland, and nobody should mess with Manchester or Liverpool – these two tough and trendy birds are busy battling it out for the Queen of the North crown and would happily eat upstart Southerners for breakfast.