Coed Bryn-bâch

Explorer Tom Vicarage Wood is a small patch of broadleaved green near the entrance to Gelli Aur Country Park, and it has no need to pretend it is an endless forest. Step in for a short woodland pause, listen to the leaves doing their gossip, and let the larger day arrange itself around you. The Woodland Trust manages Vicarage Wood alongside nearby Waun y Fedwen, two small woods. They are separated by a minor road and a privately owned pasture, so treat them as two separate visits rather than inventing a shortcut across the field. The Trust marks the woods as open for public access and singles out their autumn colour. A damp day can make the wander feel properly wild. There is parking nearby, according to the Trust, but no promise of a dedicated woodland car park or a neatly signposted circular trail. Plan your approach before setting out, use the public entrances and paths you can identify, and leave gates and private ground alone. A small wood asks for a slower eye: look at the canopy, the fallen leaves and the changing light rather than counting miles. You may discover that the best bit of a walk was the bit you almost hurried past. Gelli Aur Country Park is close enough to extend the outing, with more estate paths and visitor facilities under separate management. Keep its arrangements distinct from those at Vicarage Wood; a cafe in the wider area is not a cafe inside these trees. If your grand expedition lasts twenty minutes here, congratulations: you have given twenty minutes to a place that knows exactly how to use them.

Explorer Tom Aberglasney Gardens began to come back from neglect in the 1990s, and now its restored cloister garden looks as if the plants staged a remarkably well organised rescue. I would volunteer to supervise with a cup of tea, but the gardeners have plainly done better without my advice. The estate's history reaches back through centuries of Welsh families, bishops and changing fashions. In the Elizabethan period, Bishop Anthony Rudd and his son Sir Rice Rudd are associated with rebuilding the house and making the raised Cloister Garden. The garden is a rare survivor of a formal style often swept away or altered elsewhere. Beyond it, the grounds have many different planted spaces, including a kitchen garden and the sheltered Ninfarium, while the mansion's restored ground floor hosts exhibitions and events. The place nearly vanished into a different kind of history. After years uninhabited and damaged, the house and gardens were bought by the Aberglasney Restoration Trust in 1995, with help from benefactor Frank Cabot. The gardens opened to the public in 1999 and restoration continued. That work is visible in the contrast between carefully renewed spaces and the older structures that hold them. I can imagine a stubborn vine demanding its own name on the restoration plaque; the real achievement belongs to people who repaired a remarkable place. Aberglasney is a visitor garden in Carmarthenshire, with its own current information on entry, events and what is in bloom. Check that before travelling. Spend time in the Cloister Garden, then wander into a very different planting scheme and notice how the setting changes your mood. The rescue story is impressive; the pleasure is seeing what now grows because it happened.