St Mary (Stow Minster)

The church sits in Stow village, a few miles south of Newark, with a tower that catches the eye long before you reach the churchyard. St Mary is a proper medieval affair - all buttresses and Perpendicular windows - and it's the kind of place where you can spend twenty minutes or two hours depending on how much medieval stonework gets you going.

Inside, the nave's surprisingly spacious. There's good woodwork, some decent brasses if you're into that sort of thing, and the usual village church atmosphere - creaky pews, faint smell of old hymn books, shafts of light through stained glass. It's free to wander in (though do check opening times locally), and the churchyard's worth a proper walk round if the weather's decent.

Historians and architecture types will find plenty to poke about in. Families with younger kids might manage thirty minutes before restlessness sets in - it's quiet, which some children find boring and others find peaceful. Anyone staying at Trentfield Farm or Wild Acre Village nearby gets a genuine slice of rural Nottinghamshire life here, rather than another manicured tourist spot.

The real value is as a gentle walk from Newark if you've got an afternoon free, or a paired visit with Sundown Adventureland if you're breaking up a family holiday. Don't expect grand spectacle. This is local history at its most authentic - a working village church that happens to have decent bones.