St Michael & All Angels, Alnham

The church sits alone in the Cheviot foothills, miles from anywhere, which rather tells you everything about why you'd come here. St Michael & All Angels is a proper working parish church - nothing fancy, nothing modernised beyond reason - serving a handful of remote farms and the occasional lost walker.

What makes it worth the drive from Alnwick is exactly that isolation. The building itself dates back centuries, though like most country churches it's been added to and fiddled with over time. Inside, it's straightforward and honest - stone, wood, light through old windows. The kind of place where you can actually hear yourself think, which sounds daft until you remember most churches are tourist attractions now rather than actual churches.

You'll need to be someone who gets something from old rural architecture and the sense of continuity these places hold. Families with restless children won't find much to occupy them for long. Walkers on the Pennine Way or exploring the Cheviots will pass near enough, though. History types and anyone interested in how parishes functioned in isolation will find it genuinely moving.

There's no visitor facility here - no café, no gift shop, no opening hours posted anywhere. You just turn up. Admission appears to be free, as is standard for working churches. Budget twenty minutes unless you're seriously into ecclesiastical architecture, then settle in for longer.

Camp at River Breamish, just five miles away, and you've got a proper base for exploring this corner of Northumberland. The church fits perfectly into a walking or cycling itinerary rather than as a destination in itself.