We gathered at the bandstand, an elegant Edwardian building in the abbey grounds, all slender ironwork and tented top. Fran Garcia was leading a spider walk and our group of 10 included two children, one of them my granddaughter. Fran is a member of the British Arachnological Society and communicates knowledge with lively humour.

As an introduction to spiders he explained their anatomy and web building using a bizarre range of items: wire and ropes of varying thicknesses, a bottle of glue, a folding knife to demonstrate tarantula jaws. Then Fran passed around an egg sac from a wasp spider, Argiope bruennichi, a species found in southern England but moving north. Teardrop-shaped and papery, it was subtly marked in grey and beige to blend with grasses.

A tube web spider, Ariadna bicolor, at the entrance to its lair in a wall. Photograph: Bryan Reynolds/Alamy

We then set off on a spider hunt. Searching for harvestmen in the stonework of a small bridge was a chance for Fran to explain that, while arachnids, harvestmen are not spiders. Though they also have eight legs, they cannot spin webs, have no venom and have just two eyes (rather than eight or six) mounted on a turret. Spindly legged, loping, they were camouflaged and hard to spot.

Nearby in an old brick wall were laceweb spiders, Amaurobius sp., their silken tunnels tucked into pits in the mortar. At the entrance, strands of silk allow a spider to sense vibration from approaching prey. The children were fascinated to watch as Fran struck a tuning fork against the brickwork, then held it close to the spiders’ lair. A dark leg appeared, then the spider shot out in response to the vibration before realising it was a con and retreated. Tube spiders, Segestria senoculata, identifiable by their sun-ray trip wires, were more reclusive.

His next revelation was among a patch of creeping thistles. Autumn-tangled, brittle, they were dank and drooping. Pulling a spray bottle from his rucksack like a magician, Fran covered the unseen spider webs in water droplets, instantly revealing their beauty and complexity and emulating a dewy morning. Any fears my granddaughter had about spiders – except for big ones in the house – were lost in the absorption of looking.

Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024, is available now at guardianbookshop.com