Mountainpainter

Mountainpainter is a gallery tucked away near Penrith that focuses on landscape art, particularly work inspired by the Lake District's peaks and valleys. It's a proper gem if you're into painting and want to understand how artists interpret the fells around you - the kind of place where you'll see familiar views rendered in oils and watercolours and suddenly notice details you'd walked past a hundred times.

The gallery works well as a half-hour stop if you're based at one of the nearby caravan parks - Beckses is practically on the doorstep, while Ullswater Holiday Park sits just a couple of miles away if you want lake views as well. Don't expect a sprawling museum; this is intimate stuff. Walkers and landscape photographers tend to get the most from it, though anyone with a passing interest in how artists capture moorland light will find something worth pondering.

You could easily pair it with a walk up into the surrounding fells - the area around Penrith has plenty of decent trails - then come back to browse the work with fresh legs. The admission situation and opening hours aren't always clear-cut, so ringing ahead from Waterfoot Caravan Park or wherever you're staying makes sense. Worth the detour if you're spending a few days in the area rather than a rushed day trip.