Jubilee Tower, Quernmore (Forest of Bowland)

This little Victorian folly on the Quernmore road is the easiest quality launch site in the Forest of Bowland: a free car park literally beside the tower, a stone staircase you can climb for an elevated visual position, and one of the great two-way views in Lancashire. West, the whole of Morecambe Bay opens out with the Lakeland fells beyond — at sunset the bay's wet sands turn to a sheet of light and it's hard to shoot a bad frame. East, the access land climbs away toward Clougha Pike and Grit Fell, all heather, gritstone and moor grass, which reads beautifully from the air in late August when the heather flowers. The tower itself makes a tidy orbit subject. Being a roadside spot on the moor edge, it's exposed; the prevailing south-westerly comes straight off the bay with nothing to slow it down, so check the forecast at altitude, not just at ground level. The legal picture needs care in season: this is grouse moor country and internationally important breeding ground for curlew, hen harrier and merlin, so between March and July keep away from the open moor birds and stick close to the tower, and expect shooting parties on the fells from 12 August. Outside those windows you'll often have the place to yourself, with just a steady trickle of view-stoppers.