Cinderford South Live Cam

There are many different ways to get out and enjoy the Gloucestershire countryside. If you want to just "go and be in the countryside" then why not enjoy one of the country parks or picnic sites that Gloucestershire has to offer. Crickley Hill Country Park and Coaley Peak Picnic Site are both owned by the County Council and situated on the Cotswold scarp.

Beechenhurst Picnic Site is the starting point for a number of walks in the heart of the Forest of Dean and Keynes Country Park in the Cotswold Water Park is handy for a spot of fishing. Cleeve Common and Leckhampton Hill near Cheltenham and the commons around Stroud have superb views and support a range of wild flowers on their short-cropped limestone grassland.

You could take a short stroll through one of the woodlands owned by the Woodland Trust, and the Forestry Commission and National Trust both have a number of sites open to the public.

Gloucestershire is blessed with some of England's most beautiful countryside but it needs help to stay that way. Gloucestershire has such glorious countryside that over half of the county's area is designated as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), with a major part of the Cotswolds AONB and small parts of the Wye Valley AONB and the Malvern Hills AONB. This national level of protection ensures that the natural beauty is conserved and enhanced.

Much of the Cotswolds AONB is also designated as an Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) in which management agreements can be made with landowners to ensure the continuance of sympathetic traditional farming methods that respect historic, landscape and natural features. Day-by-day countryside management is carried out by the thousands of landowners and farmers who live on the land and care for it. They can seek advice on farming and conservation from the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG). In 1979 Gloucestershire became the first English county to appoint a full time FWAG adviser and since that time some 1600 farms have been visited.

In 1938 the Forest of Dean was made into a Forest Park (the first to be created in England) and today Forest Enterprise care for some 27,500 acres, balancing the needs of conservation and recreational use with commercial timber production. There are over 120 Countryside Stewardship Schemes in operation throughout Gloucestershire by which the Ministry of Agriculture makes incentives available to landowners and managers to enhance and restore valued English landscapes and habitats.

Much valuable work in caring for the Cotswold countryside is done by the Cotswolds AONB Partnership who co-ordinate a team of volunteers to carry out work on environmental work projects and public rights of way, as well as leading guided walks and patrolling sites. The National Trust owns and cares for some 7000 acres of Gloucestershire countryside as well as historic buildings and gardens. Local people are enabled to work together on countryside issues by Vision 21, Gloucestershire's response to Local Agenda 21, which aims to promote sustainable lifestyles and develop projects that foster sustainable development. Consumption of locally produced food, sustainable methods of woodland management and the promotion of renewable resources for energy and construction are among the many concerns of Vision 21.

Gloucestershire can offer some of the best walking country in Britain. Why Walk? Walking in the countryside is healthy, relaxing, refreshing, and uplifting. There is a rare delight in lacing up your shoes or boots and setting off on a welcoming footpath. On foot you can enjoy your surroundings at first hand; see the flowers, hear the birds, feel the gentle breeze and get in touch with the real countryside.

You can discover hill routes walked by neolithic man, explore forest tracks laid down by miners, and tread parish paths used by generations of church-goers. As a considerate walker you will be content that you are not damaging the environment, harming the wildlife or disturbing other people's enjoyment of the countryside.

Gloucestershire has over 3300 miles of footpaths, bridleways and byways over which you are free to walk. These routes are marked on Ordnance Survey maps and are often signposted where they meet a road. Sometimes they are also waymarked along their length with a coloured arrow - yellow for a footpath, blue for a bridleway and red for a byway open to all traffic. In the Forest of Dean the Forestry Commission permit freedom of access on foot to their land, while British Waterways allow walkers to enjoy the towing path of the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal.

Follow a trail around a Cotswold town, taking in the architectural heritage, wool church, market hall, weavers' cottages, history written in stone, before refreshment at the 400 year old inn. Feel like a break from the countryside? Then why not spend an hour or two walking round one of Gloucestershire's historic towns or cities. Many have a published trail leaflet describing points of interest and some have conducted tours with a guide to answer your questions. Find out what is available from the local Tourist Information Centre.

Although Gloucestershire is usually thought of as a rural county it has a suprisingly rich industrial heritage. For thousands of years minerals have been mined from the Forest of Dean, firstly iron ore and later coal. At Puzzle Wood near Coleford you can walk around in a large area of "scowles" or opencast iron workings, now delightfully covered in woodland but originally worked for iron ore some 2,700 years ago.

At the nearby Clearwell Caves visitors can explore underground (with relative ease) superb tunnels and caverns of ancient iron mines stretching far under the forest. Hopewell Colliery Museum near Cannop gives visitors the opportunity of having an underground tour of a genuine Forest of Dean coal mine. The Wye Valley once had a thriving ship-building industry using the local timber. The Cotswolds have been quarried from time immemorial for their oolitic limestone, leaving a wealth of large and small quarries of great interest to the geologist or naturalist. In the Cotswold Water Park gravel is still being extracted and the dozens of resulting lakes are havens for wildlife and the venue for a variety of water sports. Keynes Country Park has a children's beach and is the nearest thing Gloucestershire has to the seaside! And across the county the remains of canals and railways are a poignant reminder of a different way of life before the arrival of the motor car.

The county's only navigable canal is the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal, 16.5 miles long, opened in 1827 to bypass the difficult waters of the lower Severn. It has a lock from the tidal River Severn at Sharpness and a lock back into the River Severn at the head of Gloucester Docks, from which the River Severn Navigation runs 43 miles north to Stourport. At the end of the eighteenth century there was a canal system joining the River Severn to the River Thames. The Stroudwater Canal ran from Framilode to Stroud and the Thames & Severn Canal continued from Stroud to Inglesham. The total length was 37 miles with 57 locks, but it was mostly abandoned around 1927.

Today the Cotwold Canals Trust is working towards reopening the Cotswold Canals to full navigation. The Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal ran from Gloucester up the Leadon valley to Ledbury and Hereford from 1845 to 1881. The Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Trust has the objective of fully restoring the 34 mile canal.