Westwood Long Barrow

A Neolithic burial mound sits quietly in the Gloucestershire countryside near Stroud, and unless you know exactly where to look, you'll walk straight past it. Westwood Long Barrow is one of those archaeological sites that rewards the effort - a proper ancient monument where you can actually stand at ground level and appreciate the scale of what Neolithic peoples built around 5,000 years ago.

The barrow itself is fairly modest in appearance now - a grass-covered mound with a stone chamber at one end - but that's rather the point. What makes it worth the detour is the walk to reach it and the genuine sense of standing somewhere genuinely old. There's no railing, no interpretation board telling you what to think, just the thing itself and the landscape it sits in.

This is very much for walkers and archaeology enthusiasts rather than families expecting visitor facilities. Allocate an hour including the walk from the nearest parking, and go when it's dry - the ground can get boggy. There's no admission fee because there's nowhere to collect one, and the site is accessible year-round.

If you're based at one of the nearby glamping spots like Middle Lypiatt or Cherry Tree, or the caravan sites around Cirencester, Westwood makes a solid half-day outing when combined with a walk through the Cotswold landscape. Stroud is your nearest town for facilities, about three miles away. It's not spectacular, but it's exactly what archaeology should be - unglamorous and genuinely interesting.