Across the rolling acres of stately homes nationwide, panoramas of Capability Brown parkland are turning extravagant shades of copper, russet and gold. There’s the crack of an antler in the deer enclosure, the crunch of a pippin in the manorial orchard, maybe even a spot of jugged hare or quince crumble to be had in the scullery restaurant. It is autumn in ancestral Britain – and you’re invited.

Lordly piles such as Chatsworth House, Brantwood and Sissinghurst Castle offer more than enough diversions to occupy a crisp autumn weekend in the country: not just oak woods to wander and seasonal bounty to savour, but guided mushroom hunts, craft days, cooking demonstrations and jack-o’-lantern workshops for all the family. At Stourhead, you’ll even get a chance to build your own den in the woods, so you can sample the lifestyle of the stately-home hermit, hired to gibber picturesquely in the grounds.

Here is our hand-picked punnet of aristocratic autumn breaks, with a snug rustic bolt hole in case your den gets damp.

STOURHEAD, Stourton, Wiltshire

Is there a more entrancing autumn view in England than that of Liriodendron tulipifera, decadently decaying on its island at Stourhead? The tulip tree on the estate’s ornamental lake turns to shimmering gold-leaf in October, the crowning adornment on our kingliest landscape garden.

Stourhead was begun in the 1740s by the banker, traveller and all-round show-off Henry Hoare II (or “Henry the Magnificent”, as he liked to be known) as a plant-based paean to the painters of the Italian Renaissance. He dotted the grounds with architectural fripperies – classical temples, dripping grottoes – and added exotic trees, including the Japanese maples that bring a flash of fire to any autumn amble here. The estate has since been occupied by Lady Penelope (miniaturised, in Thunderbirds) and Mr Darcy (in the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice).

You can tour Hoare’s Palladian mansion, with its Poussins and Chippendales, and tuck into seasonal nosh (pumpkin soup, jugged steak) in Stourhead’s restaurant. The main appeal, though, is losing yourself in the secret valley beyond. Lakeside footpaths offer the fall foliage in duplicate, mirrored in the water; or there is a sturdier walk, the route of which can be downloaded from the estate’s website: six miles along an old carriage ride to the 150ft King Alfred’s Tower, offering a polychrome autumn panorama across three counties.

Fall frolics: a rich harvest of events here, including an autumn-colour walk with the head gardener (October 28; £7.50, children £5); fungus forays (October 27; £8); storytelling sessions (October 23; £6); and most thrillingly, a family den-building day in the woods (October 30, donations).

Make a weekend of it: the Spread Eagle (01747 840587, www.spreadeagleinn.com; doubles £110, B&B), right beside the Stourhead gates, has a chandeliered dining room, Victorian art and an autumn menu fat with game and fish from the estate. Details: Stourhead House (01747 841152, www.nationaltrust.co.uk/stourhead) is open Friday to Tuesday until October 28, 11.30am-4.30pm; gardens daily all year, 9am-7pm. Admission costs £11, children £5.50 (garden only £6.60/£3.60).

BRANTWOOD, Coniston, Cumbria

Overlooking Coniston Water and a frieze of fells, this 250-acre estate was the home of John Ruskin – but visiting at this time of year, with morning mists hanging over the lake and the forests aflame, you don’t have to be a poet/painter to feel the romance stir within.

The main house is a shrine to Ruskin’s musings, with his paintings battling for space with personal objets d’art, but in autumn it is outshone by the grounds. A semi-natural woodland of ash and hazel, maple and oak, with the odd 2,500-year-old lime tree, it conceals eight individual gardens, including the ZigZaggy, designed to represent Dante’s Purgatorial Mount.

There are two-hour guided walks through the grounds this month (1.30pm, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday), while Crag Head is a steep but hugely rewarding 45-minute hike above the house. If you really want to earn your fireside pint, the Coniston Fells rise 2,500ft right from the doorstep.

Fall frolics: Brantwood’s plum autumn event is an apple-themed week from October 22 to 28, including orienteering trails from orchard to orchard. Otherwise, there is a season-long Ruskin exhibition showing in the main house, with a guitar recital in Ruskin’s drawing room on October 27.

Make a weekend of it: owned by Beatrix Potter in the 1930s, and used as her house in the recent Renée Zellweger biopic, Yew Tree Farm (015394 41433, www.yewtree-farm.com), two miles north of Coniston, has stunning mountain-view doublesfrom £90, B&B. For food, the lake-view terrace at Brantwood’s Jumping Jenny cafe is hard to beat, although the 16th-century Sun Inn (015394 41248, www.thesunconiston.com), in Coniston, has cockle-warming fireside ales and main courses from £7. Details: Brantwood (015394 41396, www.brantwood.org.uk) is open daily, 11am-5.30pm (to 4.30pm from November to March). Admission costs £5.95, children £1.20 (garden only £4/£1.20).

DRUM CASTLE, Peterculter, Aberdeenshire

Granted to William Irvine by Robert the Bruce after the battle of Bannockburn, Drum Castle was the ancestral home for 24 generations of Irvines until 1975, when it became the National

Trust for Scotland’s oldest intact building. The 400-acre grounds include ancient woods so blazingly yellow and red, you could be walking in New England. Birch and beech are the chief colour show-offs at this time of year, but follow either of the estate’s 20-minute woodland trails and you are near certain to spot scarlet maples, ruby-trunked Scots pines and a kaleidoscope of flaming fungi, including crimson beechwood sickeners, yellow russulas and shocking-purple amethyst deceivers. Throw in a spectacular rose garden and arboretum, as well as 30 recently released red kites and red squirrels skittering madly at this time of year, and sketchpad carriers might want to pack some extra paints.

For a longer autumn yomp, head for Crathes Castle, six miles southwest of Drum, where the half-dozen walking trails include a glorious path along the Coy Burn that could turn up otters, kingfishers and even the odd leaping trout.

Fall frolics: Drum has events throughout autumn, kicking off with an autumn wildlife watch this very afternoon (1pm-5pm), with storytelling at 3pm and art workshops for all ages using pine cones, leaves and seeds.

Make a weekend of it: eight miles west of the castle, on 10 acres of rust-coloured private parkland, Raemoir House Hotel (01330 824884, www.raemoir.com) is an 1817 mansion littered with roaring fireplaces and cushiony sofas. The dining room is entirely lit by candles. Doubles start at £140, B&B. The Milton (01330 844566, www.themilton.co.uk), opposite Crathes Castle, offers superb, locally sourced lunch and dinner dishes from about £10. Details: Drum Castle (0844 493 2161, www.nts.org.uk/Property/24) is open daily until the end of October from 12.30pm-5pm, except Tuesdays and Fridays; the grounds are open all year, 10am-6pm. Admission costs £8, children £5.

CHATSWORTH HOUSE, Bakewell, Derbyshire

When the old duke’s funeral cortege glided out of Chatsworth a couple of years back, chambermaids and chauffeurs lined the drive, caps doffed, like something out of The Remains of the Day. The “Palace of the Peak” is an authentic remnant of aristocratic England, its rough upland pastures tamed to make perfect lawns, its surging waters sculpted into fountains. On autumn evenings, it becomes a gold ingot, glowing beside the River Derwent.

The baroque mansion has a window for every day of the year, and you can easily spend a full day doing it justice – maybe two days, if you get lost in the maze. Marvel at the Van Dycks, ogle the frescoed chapel, paddle in the 300-year-old cascade or hunt for deer in the riverside meadow. This month, there’s a new litter of piglets to pet in the farmyard, and a 35ft naked woman scratching her bum in the main quad – Damien Hirst’s Virgin Mother, part of a startling sculpture show scattered among the grounds.

Save day two for a crunch through Stand Wood, the ruff of forest that froths around the house from the ridge behind. There’s miles of walking here, up to the Elizabethan hunting tower and on through the oak woods, where artistically distressed follies loom among the leaf litter. Romantic doesn’t begin to describe it.

Fall frolics: events include a week of rural skills, from weaving to woodland survival (October 20-28), seasonal cookery sessions in the farm shop (October 25, November 29) and Hallowe’en pumpkin-carving (October 27-28). Tractor rides trundle through Stand Wood daily, taking in the autumn tints (£3.50/£2.50).

Make a weekend of it: the Cavendish Hotel (01246 582311, www.cavendish-hotel.net; doubles from £149, room-only), at Baslow, is just across the lawns from Chatsworth Park, and as English as they come, with putting on the lawn and treacle pudding on the menu. Details: Chatsworth (01246 582204, www.chatsworth.org) is open daily, 11am-5.30pm. Admission costs £11.55, children £4.40 (garden only £7.45/£3.60).

SISSINGHURST CASTLE, Cranbrook, Kent

It’s a wonder Vita Sackville-West found the time to stake out her seminal cottage garden at Sissinghurst, what with winning poetry prizes, eloping with Violet Trefusis and penning love letters to Virginia Woolf. Vita and her beloved (and equally bisexual) husband, Harold Nicolson, staged many fruity “frolics” in the compact grounds of their “castle” – a pleasing pick-and-mix of architectural leftovers, including an oast house, a priest’s house and the pink-brick Tudor prospect tower that pins down the estate. You can climb to the top of this and peek into Vita’s slightly spooky writing room, untouched since her death in 1962, and complete with desk clutter and booty from her travels.

Her gardens are sensational still – a series of intimate outdoor “rooms”, themed by season and hemmed by hedges and walls. They promise a different kind of autumn colour show, exploding with firework floral effects. The head gardener, Alexis Datta, says this promises to be an especially eye-catching October, with asters and dahlias blooming pink and purple in the top courtyard, and fall-flowering crocuses decking the “Delos” garden.

Elsewhere, the medieval moat encloses an orchard dripping with fruit, harvested to fill robust tarts and crumbles in Sissinghurst’s spiffing restaurant. There is also the wider estate to explore, ripe with sweet-chestnut woods in dazzling amber, where you can wander by the lakes and tick off the bird life – 104 species in all.

Fall frolics: two toothsome “roast and ramble” events (October 14 and 21) will combine leaf-peeping in the company of Sissinghurst’s warden and a slap-up lunch (£20, children £10). A grand autumn collage-making project is planned for October 21 and 22, using materials scavenged from the garden. There are also Hallowe’en pumpkin hunts (October 26-28, £1.50), with assorted history talks and insect walks throughout the month.

Make a weekend of it: don’t miss the delectable mile-long ramble through the estate for lunch at the Three Chimneys (01580 291472) in Biddenden, where you should probably plump for the sautéed lamb’s liver with port and red-onion gravy (£12).

For a bed, it’s got to be Cloth Hall Oast (01580 712220; doubles from £90, B&B), in nearby Cranbrook.

Details: Sissinghurst’s garden (01580 710700, www.nationaltrust.co.uk/sissinghurst) is open until October 28, Friday to Tuesday, 11am-6.30pm. Admission costs £7.80, children £3.60. The lakeside and woodland walks are free, and open daily all year.

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