Cranbrook

Cranbrook is a Wealden market town that still works. The High Street has independent food shops, a good selection of pubs and the kind of trade that makes the place function on a weekday as well as a weekend. At one end of the town, Union Mill -- a working smock windmill built in 1814 -- rises above the roofline and is the reason most visitors come.

Union Mill is England's tallest working smock mill, all seven floors open to the public on most Saturday afternoons throughout the summer season for a voluntary donation. The machinery is explained floor by floor and there are occasional demonstrations of hand grinding. The view from the upper floors takes in the hop-garden and orchard country of the High Weald. St Dunstan's Church, known in the area as the Cathedral of the Weald, is open year-round and is the other significant building; the church's scale relative to the town is disproportionate and worth investigating.

April to September covers the windmill season. The strongest combination is a Saturday from late March to September: Union Mill on its opening afternoon, followed by a walk through the churchyard and a late lunch on the High Street. October brings Wealden autumn colour to the surrounding countryside but the mill is closed for the season from October.