Love — it doesn’t have to be hearts and flowers or racing pulses. It may be the pleasure we feel on seeing a beautiful landscape, rereading a muchloved novel or listening to a favourite tune. Here we present some of the most romantic things to do and places to see around the United Kingdom.
Love and laughter: punting in Cambridge
For a punting trip on the River Cam, through the heart of Britain’s ancient university city of Cambridge, you and your partner will need a sense of fun. Whoever stands on the till, or deck — the platform at the stern of the punt — pushing the boat forward with a pole may not have much time to enjoy the neo-Gothic Bridge of Sighs, the lovely proportions of the Wren Library building or the green manicured gardens that lead down to the water from King’s College. Instead, you will need to smile as you slide about on the deck, find yourself inadvertently embraced by a weeping willow or even hanging from the pole as the punt carries your loved one off down the river.
You could, of course, pack a picnic of champagne and strawberries and pay someone to do the punting for you. A round trip on the Cam to the thatched-roof cottages and red-brick houses of the village of Grantchester takes four hours.
Love rocks: the Giant’s Causeway
One of the natural wonders of the world, the Giant’s Causeway is a fairy-tale setting that’s perfect for a romantic walk — or even a proposal. Located on the coast of County Antrim in Northern Ireland, the Causeway is a collection of 40,000 basalt columns that slope down into the sea. The place gets its name from the tale of a woman’s quick thinking and how it saved the man she loved. It is the legend of a giant called Finn McCool, who built the causeway as a bridge to Scotland. He wanted to fight another giant, called Benandonner. But the Scottish giant was twice as big as Finn. To save her husband from certain death, Finn’s wife, Oonagh, dressed him as a baby. When Benandonner arrived, Oonagh told him Finn was out hunting. “You can wait here,” she said. “Just don’t wake the baby.” “If that’s the baby, what size is the father?” Benandonner thought. He quickly returned to Scotland, destroying the bridge on the way.
Scientists believe the columns were actually created by lava from a volcano 60 million years ago. But when the setting sun throws its beams across the wild sea, the story of the giants seems much more likely.
Love’s young dream at Gretna Green
It’s England in 1790, or maybe 1820, or perhaps 1870: a young couple are running away in the dead of night, heading north, an angry father hot on their heels. The couple’s destination is Gretna Green, a tiny Scottish village just across the border. In the mid 18th century, a new law was passed in England that required couples to be 21 years old to marry without their parents’ consent. In Scotland, however, age-old traditions remained legal. Couples in their mid-teens could marry by “handfasting”, a ceremony requiring only two witnesses and somebody willing to declare the pair husband and wife. Once the new law had been passed in England, thousands of young couples fled across the border to be married in the first village they reached — Gretna Green. In fact, the first building they came across was the local blacksmith’s, where so-called anvil priests would perform the wedding ceremony in exchange for a small sum of money or a “wee dram”. Today, Gretna Green is a romantic wedding destination, and services are still performed over the blacksmith’s anvil. It is said that couples who marry “over the anvil” will be joined for eternity — just like the metals forged upon it.
Great knights at Tintagel
Some of the most romantic places in Britain are linked to the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. What could be more romantic — and tragic — than the story of a brave king who was able to unite his kingdom and bring peace to it, only to be betrayed by his beautiful wife, Guinevere, and his closest friend, the knight Sir Lancelot?
Tintagel Castle, on the coast of Cornwall, is said to be Arthur’s birthplace, and it may have been the site of his court, Camelot. Standing amid the ruins on the windswept headland, looking out over Merlin’s Cave and the surrounding cliffs, it is certainly easy to imagine Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot locked here in their tragic love triangle.
Another spot closely linked with Arthur is Glastonbury Tor, rising from the plains of Somerset. Was this once the mysterious Island of Avalon, where Arthur’s sword Excalibur was forged? Legend has it that, after his final battle, Arthur was taken to Avalon to recover from his wounds and wait for the time when Britain would once again be in need of a great king.
Stars in their eyes: two romantic films
Brief Encounter (1945) is set in small-town England. Laura (Celia Johnson) is a young married mother who meets married doctor Alec (Trevor Howard) by chance in a railway station cafe on her trips to a local town. (The film was shot partly at the station in Carnforth, just south of the Lake District.) What begins innocently enough turns steamy over cups of tea, rousing emotions that the two will have to sacrifice. Directed by David Lean, Brief Encounter uses small gestures and a few kisses to capture the great stillness of desperation and a love that cannot find a home.
Love on a throne is the main theme of A United Kingdom (2016). Set in 1948, it tells the story of typist Ruth (Rosamund Pike) who meets Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo), a law student and the future king of Bechuanaland (now Botswana) at a dance in London. Against the odds of colour, class and family objections, they fall in love and marry, returning to Africa and a society still dominated by cultural apartheid. Directed by Amma Assante, this is a woman’s view of how to nurture love with calm, perseverance and a lot of style.
Stourhead: Palladian pleasures
Imagination plays a key role in romance, and it was a passion for landscape drama that inspired England’s famous Stourhead estate.
The vast grounds in Wiltshire, a threehour drive from London, are centred on an 18th-century Palladian villa and a shining, man-made lake with an ornamental stone bridge. The garden is known for its carefully choreographed vistas and classical follies — a grand tour in miniature with a pantheon, a grotto, a Temple of Flora and a small, circular Temple of Apollo.
This last folly was a film location in Pride and Prejudice, a hit movie of 2005 starring Keira Knightley as Lizzie and Matthew Macfadyen as Mr Darcy — all based, of course, on the Jane Austen novel of the same name. A key scene in the film occurs when Mr Darcy realizes, finally, that he’s in love. He declares his passion to Lizzie in a park, where she is sheltering from the rain in a neoclassical folly — Stourhead’s Temple of Apollo. Darcy could not have picked a more theatrical backdrop for what turns out to be one of recent cinema’s most memorable lovers’ quarrels.
Breathless in Snowdonia
Dominated by the high mountains of North Wales, Snowdonia National Park extends across 2,000 square kilometres of rugged natural beauty and is criss-crossed by footpaths and hiking trails. Sitting on the summit of Snowdon, Hafod Eryri visitor centre is home to the UK’s highest cafe. The vista is stunning, but you don’t need to be breathless to enjoy it — the Snowdon Mountain Railway runs from Llanberis to the top. The scenic Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways also offer romantic trips through enchanted woodlands and historic slate towns. If you prefer your culture indoors, take a tour of the collected works of local poet R. S. Thomas. Snowdonia is a Welsh-speaking land of myth and fable, with tales of buried giants and the romance of the knights of King Arthur. It can appear otherworldly, which explains why Dragonslayer, Robin Hood, Lara Croft and James Bond have all been filmed here. But the scenery is as real as the rain you watch from the window while two sets of walking boots steam gently in front of an open fire.
Shakespeare for hormonal teenagers
Could Romeo and Juliet be the world’s favourite love story? William Shakespeare’s tragic tale of “star-cross’d lovers” has captivated audiences for more than 400 years. The play has been adapted countless times for film and stage. Some famous versions include the musical West Side Story, which updates the setting to New York City in the 1950s, and Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film Romeo + Juliet, in which youth culture dominates.
Is Shakespeare’s story really so romantic, though? Cynics point out that Romeo meets Juliet only because he is chasing after her cousin Rosaline, that the pair are immature in their whirlwind romance (they get married the day after they meet) and that Juliet is only, um... 13. However, none of that can reduce the power and beauty of the couple’s young love. And the language — oh, the language: “But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.” For these hormonal teenagers, it’s all or nothing: if they can’t have each other, they’d prefer to die. But for a short time, they achieve perfect happiness. It’s a story for everyone who believes in choosing true love no matter what the cost.
Walter, Walter, lead me to the altar
For generations of readers in Britain, beginning with the publication of Waverley in 1814, Sir Walter Scott’s writings were the embodiment of romance and adventure: think Game of Thrones or Outlander, but with a much bigger vocabulary.
The first three of the more than 20 novels by the Edinburgh-born writer were set in Scotland. However, Ivanhoe (1820) tells the story of the struggle for power between the Normans and Saxons in 12th-century England. At its heart is Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, a young Saxon nobleman ready to fight for his convictions and — if possible — marry his sweetheart, Lady Rowena. For modern readers, Ivanhoe, with its elaborate, old-fashioned language, is a challenge to read. More accessible is a 1997 BBC TV adaptation of the story, available from Amazon, and a rewritten and updated version of the story by David Purdie published in 2012. The home that Scott had built, Abbotsford House on the Scottish Borders, is open to visitors.