Others have picked red post boxes, cattle grids and early morning mist as their favourite aspects of England.
The selections are contained in a new book, produced by the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, in which dozens of actors, musicians, writers and television personalities describe what best encapsulates the country.
In a deeply personal descriptions, guitarist Eric Clapton, comedian Michael Palin, journalist Kate Adie and chef Raymond Blanc are among those who reveal their favourite emblems of the English countryside.
Popular landmarks such as Stonehenge and Blackpool Tower fail to make the list, and instead the contributors chose more personal icons, such as bonfires on crisp autumn mornings and bird song during the dawn chorus.
For Clapton it is memories of family trips to the chalky grasslands and woods of Newlands Corner, near Guildford, that summed up his view of England, while Palin describes the dramatic rocky crags that litter the landscape near his hometown of Sheffield.
Adie, a veteran observer in dozens of conflict and disaster zones as a BBC journalist, tells of her childhood excitement at spotting deer and wondering if they were "posh people's ornaments". Blanc, a Michelin-starred Frenchman, picks the humble apple orchard.
Spacey, an American who now lives in the UK, also gives a remarkable insight into how he spends his time off from being artistic director of the Old Vic theatre. He tells how he developed a taste for cider while enjoying the Kennet and Avon Canal in a narrowboat.
"Remarkably, I managed to survive the weekend without falling into the canal," he writes. "But sadly the same can't be said for my little dog, Mini. She got elbowed off the boat and, rather amusingly, another friend dived into to save her. By the time he came up for air, however, she was on the bank of the canal shaking the water off her hair."
Musician Bryan Ferry reveals that his father was born on the side of a hill beneath the Penshaw Monument, near Sunderland, while author Sebastian Faulks takes a light-hearted look at the pub signs and the romantic names that adorn them.
Television gardener Alan Titchmarsh deals with his love for the nation's flora, while broadcaster Joan Bakewell describes estuaries as a "bulk of fresh water pressing forward remorselessly into the measureless ocean".
Similarly, author Dick Francis describes about his years riding horses on the Berkshire Downs while Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, head of the Muslim Council for Great Britain, reveals how he fell in love with Britain's most southerly point, Land's End, during holidays to Cornwall after he moved to Britain from Bangladesh.
Others, however, bemoan the loss of their cherished icons which are being gradually eroded by urban sprawl and industrial development.
Writing about Newlands Corner, Eric Clapton said: "It's a sad thing, then, for me to consider that in my lifetime I will have watched this amazing place evolve into a massive rubbish dump. For the last decade a mountain of waste has been quietly growing out of the landscape."
Fashion designer Alice Temperley also mourns the loss of Britain's apple orchards, which have decreased by around 50 per cent in the past 50 years, in places like Somerset.
She said: "It is perhaps because of their rapid demise that they are now, for me, rather melancholic places."
The CPRE hope the book will help to highlight the plight that faces many parts of Britain's countryside. Recent research by the charity revealed that more than 50 per cent of England's countryside is now disturbed and fragmented by construction and roads.
The book, which will be published next month, comes as BT announced a scheme to save another icon of English heritage from destruction by allowing communities to adopt red phone boxes in their area.
The CPRE are also planning to run a vote to allow the public to pick their favourite of the icons contained in the book and also suggest their own icons of England.
Shaun Spiers, chief executive of the organisation, said: "We spend a lot of time trying to stop development and pointing out how much countryside is lost, but we felt it was important to stand back and look at why it is worth saving. People often forget just how dramatic the countryside on their doorstep really is and that is what we are hoping they will remember."
Have your say: Which icons most capture the essence of Britain?
Oh to be in England anytime, the tiny towns of the Cotswolds, flowers everywhere,the englsh gardens and that wonderful cup of Yorkshire tea with Yorkshire water inadditin to the frienly people whether royalty or commoners. I nnot ever tell the difference.
So far I haven't been beyond Heathrow,but when I return someday from Amsterdam,I'd like to walk with someone special through the ancient woodlands & flower meadows remaining. Icons?
Big Ben. And also the scene of the Thames at an angle from the air high enough to see it bookmark the land for many miles.I envy H.G.Wells character The Traveler for
he could see all the fleeting changes of human atifice change back to a flower garden with fruit trees."To view the world
in a grain of sand, and see heaven in a wildflower, is to
hold infinity in the palm of your hand and to live eternity
in an hour.For he who binds himself to a joy does the winged
life destroy.Yet they who kiss the joy as it flies,shall live on in Eternity's Sunrise" William Blake.
Woods filled with bluebells so they look like a carpet.
The sinister speed camera logo which now signifies the spiteful petty surveillance society Britain has become. The black and the angularity have a certain resemblance to Hitler's (stolen) swastika logo does it not?
I live in Aus now, but I love seeing the bridges over the Thames - especially as the plane is coming in to land.
Village churches and the sound of church bells peeling out across the misty valleys.
Oh, and the sight and sound of a village cricket team on a summer's afternoon ... sigh!
A red-breasted Robin perched on the our garden fence.
The gentle valley of Rutland that holds Rutland Water, with a sprawling wood and the grand Burley-on-the-Hill on the other side.
Birds wheeling across the sky above a country meadow on a burning hot summers day.
Sat outside a country pub on an equally hot summers day with a pint and friends.
These are all icons that I hold dear, and all icons that are now in danger due to the rapidly expanding population and government mis-managing of the country. New Labour's lasting legacy will be the destruction of a way of life they never understood and never cared about.
The sight of the steeple of All Saints church Ryde I.O.W. as the ferry approaches.
The wonderful canal system and holidays on Narrow Boats .
Frosty mornings and misty days.
Do the authors of this article actually know the difference between England and Britain? - they repeatedly confuse the two, its insulting to both the English and the non-English.
Rich snobs saying how they love the countryside while buying up second homes, hurtling to and from ther nearest Tesco in their 4X4s etc.
Bkackpool Tower and Circus...114 years young and still as popular as ever. Not even two world wars closed the doors.
Which icons most capture the essence of Britain?
The Old Bailey,
Red telephone boxes,
Double decker buses,
The teapot,
Not having the country's name on postal stamps,
a " hoodie" with a knife....sadly.
Frozen Hockey fields and having to play anyway.
Robins
Blackbirds chorus at dawn
Fields and drifts of Daffodils
They are just not the same anywhere else
As a person who's family came from Carmarthenshire, I would like to nominate the village of Talley, along with the majestic Abbey and its Lakes. Developers are now trying to change time in this beautiful area of South Wales and nominate it asa heritage site, free from any developers. A magical area of Britain at its best!
everything made of bricks
The article is about icons of England, but then you ask"which icons capture the essence of britain" just for once can you please not conflate England with britain.Is it possible to have something just for England?
Durham Cathedral, Palace Green, and The Castle. Walk the length of the Bailey to Prebends Bridge.
Priceless.
Simpsons in The Strand and The City .
Skylarks over the cornfields of North Essex, near Saffron Walden, where I live for 30 years.
I live in the U.S. now but I miss the countryside in the Thatcham area of Berkshire which is now part of the urban sprawl.
A row of allotments on a still, frosty morning, with a robin perched on the handle of a garden spade whilst the gardener, well wrapped up against the cold, clutches a steaming mug of tea during a break in digging.
For me, it's the traditional English Pubs before it got 'Themed' over with trash and silly new pub names like the Parrots or whatever. And then there's the Admiral butterflies which I haven't seen for donkey years.
Ancient village churches with their ancient graveyards.
Nando's