The connection between nature and creativity comes in many forms. Here, artists, writers and musicians talk about the different ways in which they take inspiration from the outdoors - and share the places that fuel their imagination

Fantasy author JRR Tolkien’s mythological Middle Earth takes inspiration from a number of places in Gloucestershire and the West Midlands. Tolkien frequently visited the Forest of Dean and its tempera

PLACES TO GO, THINGS TO DO, IDEAS TO TRY

An early-morning dog walk through the woods sees John Lewis-Stempel coming face to face–or skin to spider silk–with the industrious magic of a September dawn

When I think of garden visiting, I think of walking through an enticing gate and gasping at the hazy, romantic abundance of midsummer at its soaring, delicately coloured loveliest. I think of sitting

Search for “bog” in this new edition of Seamus Heaney’s poems and you will find the word some 60 times; the 1,200 tissue-thin pages are mulchy with “the squelch and slap of soggy peat”. There is the o