A fenland walk to a great pub: the Carpenters Arms, Cambridgeshire

This lowlands route imbued with centuries of English history leads through fragrant wildflower meadows to a reborn pub

Rabbits chase each other around the grassy hummocks. Buzzards wheel overhead. The nibbled turf is a delicate tapestry of bedstraw, wild thyme and salad burnet, milkwort and speedwell. I am walking across Great Wilbraham Common, one of Cambridgeshire’s biggest surviving areas of biodiverse grassland. It’s an early highlight on a route that’s rich in wildlife and history. There’s a converted windmill, a medieval moat, an Anglo-Saxon earthwork and thatched cottages.

This circular walk from Great Wilbraham, where the Carpenters Arms reopened in April, loops through villages and ancient meadows, big-skied farmland, orchid-studded wetlands and flowering woods. After the common comes Fulbourn Fen, a patchwork of habitats that feels far bigger than its 31 hectares (76 acres). There is a web of paths across meadows that have never been ploughed or treated with chemicals.