The Priory Church of St Mary, Tutbury

The church sits right next to Tutbury Castle, which makes for a handy pairing if you're already touring the fortress. St Mary's is a proper Norman church - the sort of place where you can actually feel the weight of centuries the moment you step inside. The nave and chancel are genuinely impressive, with that solid, purposeful architecture you get from churches that survived the Reformation when plenty of others didn't.

Walk around and you'll spot some fine medieval stonework, though like most parish churches it's been tinkered with over the years. The real draw for most visitors is simply the atmosphere - it's peaceful without being eerie, and it gives you a real sense of how important this place was to the local community for eight hundred years.

This works well if you're based at Peake's Retreats nearby - it's barely two and a half miles away, so close enough for a morning wander from your holiday park. You won't need more than thirty minutes here unless you're really into church architecture or want to sit quietly for a bit. The parish church crowd tends to be walkers and history types rather than families with young children, though there's nothing stopping anyone from popping in. Burton-on-Trent is just down the road if you need a bigger town for lunch or supplies. The church is free to visit, which is about right - a solid half hour that fits neatly into a Staffordshire weekend without overshadowing the bigger attractions.