Highcliffe Castle

The ruins of Highcliffe Castle command the clifftop between Christchurch and the sea, and it's instantly clear why the Victorians were so taken with this spot. Built in the 1830s as a romantic retreat for Lord Stuart de Rothesay, it's now a dramatic skeleton of pale stone - all Gothic arches and turrets that look properly imposing against the English Channel beyond.

You can wander the remains freely, clambering over fallen masonry and peering into what were once grand rooms. The scale is impressive even in ruin - turrets rise sharply, and the views across the bay toward the Isle of Wight justify every architectural flourish the original builders threw at it. The clifftop location means you get sea air, coastal paths snaking away in both directions, and on clear days that panoramic stretch of water that makes you remember why Victorian industrialists fell over themselves to build here.

This works best for walkers and history types rather than young kids - there's no playground, no on-site facilities that I could find, and the crumbling stonework demands respect rather than scrambling about. Allow an hour to properly explore and photograph it. The cliffs themselves are worth the visit alone if the weather's decent.

Stay at Hoburne Park or Hoburne Naish, both within a mile, and you've got easy access to the castle and miles of coastal path. It slots naturally into a New Forest break - plenty of the caravan parks sit only a few miles inland, so you can do castle, clifftop walk, then head back into the forest proper.