Broadway Station - Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway

The platforms at Broadway Station still feel like they're waiting for the 1904 timetable to come good. This is the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway's showcase, and it's genuinely worth stopping for if you're anywhere near the Cotswolds. You'll find lovingly restored Victorian and Edwardian coaches lined up, the sort of thing that makes train enthusiasts actually weep, plus period signalling equipment and the kind of detail work that shows someone really cares. The station building itself is proper restoration done right - all original ironwork and that particular smell of old wood and metal polish.

Walking the platforms, you get a proper sense of what branch line travel meant in its heyday. There's usually someone about who knows the history inside out, which beats a laminated sign any day. If you're actually catching a steam train from here - which runs seasonally - allow a good three hours minimum for the full experience, longer if you're the sort who photographs every valve and coupling.

Families with kids who've got beyond dinosaurs and into mechanical things will get it. Those just after a quick snap probably won't. It's free to look around the station itself, though ticket prices vary depending on what's running that day.

Stay at Broadway Caravan and Motorhome Club just down the road and you're practically on site. The whole Cotswold line between Broadway and Cheltenham makes for a decent couple of days - proper landscape, proper trains, proper cake stops in between.