National Trust - Peckover House and Garden

The Georgian façade of Peckover House catches you off guard on a quiet street in Wisbech. This is a proper townhouse, not some grand country pile - four storeys of red brick that once belonged to a banking family with serious taste. Inside, the rooms are intimate and lived-in feeling, packed with furniture, paintings and the kind of decorative detail that rewards a slow look around. The library alone is worth the visit if you're into that sort of thing.

But the garden is the real draw. Behind the house sits two acres of Victorian gardens that feel genuinely separate from the town outside - walled, peaceful, and planted with the sort of trees and shrubs that have had nearly 200 years to establish themselves. There's a fernery, a summer house, and enough mature greenery to make you forget you're in Cambridgeshire. It's the kind of place families enjoy without the crowds you'd get at bigger National Trust properties, though older kids might find the house a bit slow.

The house and garden are managed by the National Trust, so admission is charged and standard NT opening hours apply - worth checking ahead. Give yourself a good two hours to do it justice, ideally visiting when the gardens are at their best in spring or early summer. If you're camping at Glamping with Llamas nearby (barely a mile away) or based at Westerby Farm, this makes a proper half-day outing. The town of Wisbech itself is unremarkable, but Peckover feels like genuine local history rather than a tourist trap.