Core Concepts

Places to Visit

Curated destinations near the property — gardens, heritage sites, dark skies, walks.

Authoritative catalogues of high-value visitable places, each answering “what nearby destination would guests plan a day around?”

Endpoints

Gardens

240 UK gardens curated by the Royal Horticultural Society, with opening times, admission, features, plant collections, and RHS accolades (Plant Heritage, National Collection, National Garden Scheme).

National Trust

~600 UK National Trust properties — country houses, gardens, coastal areas, hillforts, castles, nature reserves. Full-frame NT photo, description, and location.

National Trust walks

1,201 named walking, cycling, and running routes on NT land — with distance, category, and start-point coord. Sourced from NT’s own outdoor-activities search.

World Heritage

1,273 UNESCO World Heritage Sites globally — Cultural, Natural, and Mixed. Every official inscription, with description, date inscribed, and a photo from UNESCO’s own catalogue.

Dark Sky Places

295 DarkSky International-certified locations globally — Sanctuary, Reserve, Park, Community, and Urban Night Sky Place. Ranked by category prestige. Complements the astronomy data in Weather.

Difference in radius defaults

GardensNational TrustNT walksWorld HeritageDark Sky Places
Default radius60 km60 km40 km200 km200 km
RationaleHalf-day tripHalf-day tripMorning driveFull-day tripAstronomy trip
Scale240 UK~600 UK1,201 UK1,273 global295 global
Applicable outside UKNoNoNoYesYes

All accept an optional radius_km query param to override.

Example: compose all three

const [gardens, heritage, darksky] = await Promise.all([
  fetch(`/v1/pulse/gardens?lat=${lat}&lng=${lng}`,        { headers }).then(r => r.json()),
  fetch(`/v1/pulse/nationaltrust?lat=${lat}&lng=${lng}`,  { headers }).then(r => r.json()),
  fetch(`/v1/pulse/ntwalks?lat=${lat}&lng=${lng}`,        { headers }).then(r => r.json()),
  fetch(`/v1/pulse/heritage?lat=${lat}&lng=${lng}`,       { headers }).then(r => r.json()),
  fetch(`/v1/pulse/darksky?lat=${lat}&lng=${lng}`,        { headers }).then(r => r.json()),
]);
// Only render sections that have hits for this coord
const sections = [gardens, nationaltrust, ntwalks, heritage, darksky]
  .filter(s => s.applicable);

What we return (facts only)

Gardens: name, address, coord, postcode, region, features (e.g. Woodland, Rose Garden), plant collections, opening times, admission, accolades, photo URL, website, RHS page URL.

National Trust: name, coord, town, county, region, description, NT-hosted photo, NT page URL.

National Trust walks: name, coord (trail start), distance in km and miles, category (walking/cycling/running), NT-hosted photo with credit, description, plus a property block linking each walk to the NT property it sits on.

Heritage: name, category (Cultural / Natural / Mixed), date inscribed, country codes and state party names, region, location text, danger-list flag, transnational flag, coord (nearest POI for serial sites), short description, photo URL, UNESCO page URL.

Dark Sky Places: name, category (Sanctuary / Reserve / Park / Community / Urban Night Sky Place), designated year, area, coord, address, short description, photo URL, DarkSky page URL.

Data sources

  • RHS Partner Gardens — Royal Horticultural Society’s curated partner scheme, refreshed monthly from their public garden finder.
  • National Trust — property catalogue from NT’s public sitemap + page metadata; walks from NT’s own outdoor-activities search API.
  • UNESCO World Heritage List — official XML feed from whc.unesco.org.
  • DarkSky International — WordPress REST API on darksky.org, refreshed monthly.

See Attribution for the full source list.