Must Farm Bronze Age settlement

A Bronze Age settlement frozen in time by fire - that's what makes Must Farm genuinely arresting. Located east of Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, this archaeological site preserves the remains of roundhouses that burned down around 1100 BC, their contents sealed in mud and remarkably intact. You're looking at genuine Bronze Age life: pottery, tools, food remains, the lot.

The site itself is quite spare visually - it's not a reconstructed village or theme park experience. What you get is the actual excavation area with interpretation boards explaining what the archaeologists found and what it tells us about how people actually lived three thousand years ago. History types and anyone seriously interested in archaeology will find it genuinely compelling. Younger children might struggle unless they're already keen on the subject - there's not much to do beyond read and look.

Admission details aren't entirely clear from standard sources, so ring ahead before visiting. Allow a couple of hours maximum to get the most from it. The site's exposed and windswept, so go when the weather's reasonable.

It sits well within a broader Cambridgeshire trip. Ferry Meadows Caravan and Motorhome Club Campsite is just five miles away and highly rated - decent base for exploring the area's Bronze Age heritage and the surrounding Nene Valley. You could easily combine this with other local attractions in a long weekend.