The Drawing Room

Art lovers passing through Northampton should make time for The Drawing Room, a gallery that punches well above its weight. It's the kind of place where you'll find contemporary work displayed with real care - drawings, paintings, mixed media - rather than another generic high street gallery flogging prints of sunsets.

The space itself matters here. There's nothing clinical about it. Walk in and you immediately feel the curator has thought about how work sits in the room, how light falls on the pieces, how you move through the space. It's intimate without feeling cramped, and the focus stays entirely on the art rather than the venue trying to make itself the star.

You'll want to spend a solid hour here if you're genuinely interested in contemporary practice. Less if you're just browsing between shopping trips into town. The work tends to skew towards emerging and mid-career artists, which means you might discover someone brilliant before their prices go mad.

If you're based at one of the nearby caravan parks - Billing Aquadrome is just a couple of miles away, Riverview Park and Blisworth Park not much further - The Drawing Room makes a decent rainy afternoon outing or a cultural counterweight to a week of walking and water activities. Northampton itself is perfectly decent for a town with proper independent shops and restaurants, so you could easily string together a decent day out.

Check opening hours before you go. Smaller galleries can be temperamental with their schedules.