The Countess Pillar

You'll spot it from the A66 just south of Penrith - a stone pillar rising sharply from a grassy verge, impossible to miss and rather intriguing at first glance. The Countess Pillar marks the spot where Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, met her mother in 1656 after a 24-year separation. It's a proper monument to reunion, though what strikes you most is how solitary it feels, standing alone by the roadside like a punctuation mark on the landscape.

The pillar itself is a short stop - you're not going to spend hours here unless you're deep into 17th-century aristocratic history. But there's something moving about the story it tells. Anne Clifford had been exiled from her estates, and this meeting with her mother was significant enough to warrant stone and inscription. The carved details reward a closer look, and on a clear day you get decent views across the Eden Valley towards the Pennines.

It works well as a quick pause if you're based at Crossfells Campsite or Lowther Holiday Park, both within spitting distance. Families with young kids might find it too static - there's nowhere to run about - but walkers and history enthusiasts will appreciate the layered story. Free to visit, naturally, and you can pull off the road safely enough to have a proper look. Five minutes becomes twenty if you're the type to read every word on the stone. That's when you realise you're standing in quite an unusual corner of Cumbrian heritage.