St Michael & All Angels, Newnham

The church sits quietly in Newnham village, a few miles south of Daventry, and it's one of those places that rewards turning off the main road. St Michael & All Angels is a proper medieval parish church - the kind with low doorways, chunky stone walls, and that particular smell of age and polish that gets into your clothes.

Walking through, you'll spot the sort of details that medieval churches are made of: decorated chancel arch, some decent carved work if you bother to look up, and the usual collection of memorial stones and brass plaques that tell you more about the village than any guidebook could. It's not dramatically grand - no soaring perpendicular tracery or tombs of the famous - but that's rather the point. This is a working village church that's been doing its job for about 800 years.

History buffs will find enough to occupy half an hour, though don't expect crowds or visitor facilities. Families with young children might get restless unless someone's into rubbing brass or learning to read really old inscriptions. If you're staying at Whitefeather Campsite just down the road, it's a pleasant walk and genuinely worth the detour on a Sunday morning.

Admission is almost certainly free - these things usually are - and there's no set visiting hours in the conventional sense, though you'd want daylight and reasonable decency on your side. Early afternoon on a weekday tends quietest.