Birstall War Memorial

The memorial stands in Birstall village, a few miles north of Leicester, and it's the kind of quiet spot where you actually stop to read the names rather than just walk past. This is a proper war memorial - a stone monument honouring the local dead from both world wars, the sort of thing every English village seems to have but few people actually visit unless they're researching family history or doing the rounds of all the local memorials.

It's free to see, obviously, and takes about ten minutes if you're just paying your respects and reading the inscriptions. Longer if you're tracing relatives or interested in how villages remembered their losses. The memorial itself is straightforward rather than grand, which somehow makes it more moving - no frills, just names and dates.

History types will get more from this than families with young children, to be honest. Kids won't stay interested for long. It's best visited on a quiet afternoon rather than during school holidays when Birstall gets busier as day-trippers head to nearby Bradgate Park.

If you're camping at Cossiwild or one of the other parks dotted around the Leicester area - Meadow Farm Marina and Proctors Park are all within a few miles - the memorial is worth a brief detour while you're exploring the villages. It's the kind of stop that takes five minutes but matters, especially if you've got connections to the area or to either war.