Majac Gallery

The Majac Gallery sits quietly in Loughborough, serving up contemporary art without any of the stuffiness you might expect. It's a proper working space where local and emerging artists show their stuff - paintings, sculptures, installations, the lot. The kind of place where you might stumble across something that actually speaks to you rather than something chosen by a committee.

You'll want to allow an hour, maybe ninety minutes if you're the type to read every wall text and chat with whoever's manning the desk. It's intimate rather than sprawling, which means you won't feel obligated to drag yourself around for three hours pretending to understand abstract expressionism.

Families with older kids (teens upwards) will get more from it than the under-tens crowd, if I'm honest. Young children tend to lose interest quickly in galleries unless there's something interactive happening. Art students and serious collectors, though, should absolutely swing by - you often spot genuine talent before it gets picked up by the big London galleries.

If you're staying at one of the nearby parks - High Meadows Farm or Midshires Way are both five-star rated - the gallery makes a decent rainy-day outing or a cultural break from the usual caravan routine. Loughborough's got enough going on to fill an afternoon, and the gallery slots nicely into a wider wander round town. Ring ahead to check current opening hours and what's on, as exhibitions rotate and sometimes close for changeovers.