Amberley Castle

The gatehouse is what stops you cold - a proper medieval structure still standing guard over the River Arun valley after nearly a thousand years. Amberley Castle is more intimate than grand, a working manor wrapped in 14th-century walls rather than the fortress-on-a-hill you might expect. You get real sense of the place from outside the walls, where the flint and stone defences rise above water meadows that flood in winter, turning the whole scene into something from a medieval manuscript.

Walkers and history types will get the most from it. The castle itself is privately owned so you're viewing from the public footpath that circles the grounds - no entrance fee, which is refreshing. Allow an hour if you're making a proper circuit; twenty minutes if you just want the photo. Spring and autumn are better than summer, when the place gets hemmed in by vegetation and the light gets flat.

It sits perfectly between Arundel and the South Downs if you're basing yourself at Littlehampton Caravan and Motorhome Club Campsite five miles south. The walk down from Arundel town itself is cracking - takes about forty minutes through proper Sussex countryside, and you can tie it into a broader ramble along the Arun Valley Way. Don't expect battlements and turrets; this is about medieval practicality and setting rather than showmanship. But that's precisely what makes it worth the detour.