Medbourne

Market Harborough, just five miles from Medbourne, is the best base for exploring this corner of the Welland valley, with a range of hotels, guest houses and inns to suit most budgets. Its position on the Midland Main Line also makes it a convenient choice if you are travelling from London or Leicester without a car, with regular direct trains to St Pancras. Within the town you will find everything from budget chain hotels to independent guest houses in Georgian townhouses, many within easy walking distance of Harborough's handsome market square and its cluster of independent shops and cafés.

Closer to Medbourne itself, accommodation is scarcer but more distinctive. The Nevill Arms in the village centre offers rooms above its historic coaching inn, putting you within a few minutes' walk of the church, the brook and the surrounding footpaths, and saving you a return drive after dinner. A scatter of bed and breakfasts and self-catering cottages can also be found in the neighbouring villages of the Welland valley and the Leicestershire and Rutland border country, ideal for visitors who want a quieter rural setting within easy reach of Rutland Water, Uppingham and Market Harborough. Whichever base you choose, the surrounding countryside of gentle hills, hedgerows and stone villages makes for excellent short breaks built around walking, quiet pub lunches and slow exploration rather than a packed itinerary.

Medbourne rewards slow exploration rather than a checklist of sights, but there is genuinely interesting history and scenery packed into a small area.

• St Giles Church - An ancient cruciform church of stone in the Early English style, with roots going back to around 1000 AD. The original building was destroyed by fire in 1270 and rebuilt by 1320; the chancel was restored again in 1876. Its tower and worn stone doorways are worth a look even if you only pause on your way through the village.
• Medbourne Brook and the village bridges - The brook that gives the village its name runs alongside the main street and under several old stone bridges, with ducks, weeping willows and a scatter of benches making it a natural spot to stop for a picnic.
• Bringhurst - A tiny, almost impossibly pretty hamlet immediately next to Medbourne, with its own small church and a scattering of stone cottages. The two settlements are so close they are often spoken of in the same breath, and the short walk between them is one of the loveliest in the area.
• Hallaton Bottle Kicking and Hare Pie Scramble - Every Easter Monday, Medbourne takes part in one of England's oldest and strangest surviving customs, joining neighbouring Hallaton for a chaotic, centuries-old contest to carry small kegs of ale across the parish boundary. It is fiercely local, good-humoured, and unlike anything else in the county.
• Footpaths through the Welland valley - Medbourne is a popular starting point for walkers, with well-used footpaths following the brook and climbing into the surrounding farmland, linking the village to Hallaton, Blaston and the wider Leicestershire and Rutland border country.
• The village's listed buildings - Beyond the church, Medbourne has a notable concentration of listed farmhouses, cottages and former inns, many dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, making a wander around the lanes rewarding for anyone with an interest in vernacular architecture.

The village's culinary heart is the Nevill Arms, a historic coaching inn set beside the brook that has built a strong reputation well beyond the village, including a mention in the Daily Mail's list of Britain's best 100 pubs. It sources much of its meat from its own farm a few miles away, serves a good range of real ales in a traditional bar with open fires, and offers rooms for those who want to make a night of it. Beyond the Nevill Arms, Medbourne is a genuinely small village, so for a wider choice of restaurants, cafés and takeaways visitors typically head the short distance to Market Harborough.

Leicestershire's countryside around Medbourne is classic English lowland farmland: gentle, rolling hills, hedgerow-lined fields and the quiet valley carved by Medbourne Brook, making for pleasant if unspectacular camping country rather than dramatic wilderness. As in the rest of England, wild camping is not legally permitted without the landowner's express permission, so pitching up in a farmer's field or along the footpaths without asking first is not an option here, however tempting the scenery. The good news is that this part of Leicestershire and neighbouring Rutland has a healthy scattering of small, well-run campsites and farm-based sites within a short drive, many offering simple grass pitches for tents alongside hook-ups for tourers and motorhomes.

Because the terrain is gentle rather than hilly, this is easy country for family camping, with flat, sheltered pitches the norm and no serious gradients to contend with when choosing where to set up. The nearby Welland valley footpaths and quiet lanes also make for excellent camping-base walking, whether you are staying a single night between longer touring stops or basing yourself for several days to explore Rutland Water, Uppingham and Market Harborough. Rivers and brooks in the area, including Medbourne Brook itself, are generally shallow and slow-moving rather than the kind of water associated with wild swimming spots, so this is more a walking-and-pub-lunch camping destination than a watersports one.

Late spring through to early autumn is the best window for camping here, when the ground is drier underfoot and the long evenings suit sitting out with a barbecue after a day's walking; the shoulder months of May and September often bring the added benefit of quieter, less busy sites. Given the modest number of formal campsites directly around Medbourne, it is worth booking ahead in peak summer weekends and during the Easter period, when the village's Hallaton bottle-kicking tradition draws extra visitors to the area. For those who prefer a roof over their heads without giving up the outdoor feel, glamping options - shepherd's huts, safari tents and camping pods - have become increasingly common across Leicestershire and Rutland in recent years, offering a comfortable middle ground between a hotel stay and a traditional tent.