If you can’t eat your lunch in the great outdoors in August, when can you? We look at six favourite local spots

Tatton Park

Verdant gardens in the grounds of a magnificent stately home, a 1,000-acre deer park, a picturesque mere...Tatton is a default choice for anyone eager to spread the tartan rug and unscrew the Thermos. The 50 acres of gardens at Tatton, Knutsford, are pretty much as they would have been in Edwardian times, so when you munch a pork pie while gazing at this horticultural masterpiece, you are enjoying an experience which would be very familiar to your great great grandfather...he liked a pork pie too.

Heswall

A splendid circular walk which begins at Banks Road car park, Heswall, takes you along the coast, then up through Dungeon Wood until you get panoramic views of the Dee estuary. But a third of the way around the five-mile walk, before the route takes you away from the coast, towards the Wirral Way, there is a bench on the edge of a little cliff where you can sit and gaze out upon endless water and big sky. Butty time!

Gawsworth Hall

Got a yen to mix a stately home with al fresco food and a side order of culture? Gawsworth Hall, near Macclesfield, has a programme of open air theatre and entertainment which this year includes Britain’s Got Talent classical singers Jonathan Antoine and Charlotte Jaconelli on Friday August 2, The Proclaimers on Friday August 9, the Music of Les Miserables, performed by Tideswell Male Voice Choir on Sunday August 11 and much more besides.

Delamere Forest

There are walking trails, cycle routes, places to ride a horse or walk a dog through Delamere Forest. You can make like Tarzan in the high ropes trail, or hunt for the greater spotted woodpecker and the southern hawker dragonfly.

Or you could just park yourself at one of the many picnic spots, unwrap your jam butties and see how long it is before a wasp arrives on the scene.

Llandudno

There’s nothing like a bracing sea breeze to sharpen the appetite, and nothing like the relatively unspoilt architecture of Llandudno to remind you of the charms which made such seaside resorts the stuff of dreams in Victorian times.

Stare out to sea, eat your picnic while fending off the seagulls, and have candy floss for afters, just like your ancestors did.

Chester

On a sunny day, the River Dee is a fabulous spot to while away some time, watch old-fashioned river cruisers scud by and, if you’re lucky, enjoy some music wafting over from the band stand. More adventurous picnickers may want to hire a rowing boat, row out to a tranquil spot, ship the oars and have your feast on the water. Don’t get seasick, now.