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Cark-in-Cartmel

Cumbria's premier stately house, Holker Hall is one of the homes of the Cavendish family, the Dukes of Devonshire. An intriguing blend of 16th-century, Georgian and Victorian architecture, it's a visitor-friendly place with no restraining ropes keeping visitors at a distance. There's a fire burning in the hearth and a lived-in, family atmosphere. There's also an impressive cantilevered staircase, a library with some 3500 leather-bound books (plus a few dummy covers designed to hide electricity sockets), and an embroidered panel said to be the work of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Each year, Holker's 25 acres of award-winning gardens host the Holker Garden Festival, which has been hailed as the Chelsea of the North. The gardens are the pride of Lord and Lady Cavendish who developed the present layout from the original "contrived natural landscape" of Lord George Cavendish 200 years ago. The Great Holker Lime and the stunning spring display of rhododendrons are among the delights not to be missed. Here, too, are a wonderful rose garden, an azalea walk and a restored Victorian rockery. Lord and Lady Cavendish put their pride into words: "If you gain from your visit a small fraction of the pleasure that we ourselves get from them, then the work of generations of gardeners will not have been in vain."

The Holker Hall estate contains a wide variety of other attractions - formal gardens, water features, a 125-acre deer park, picnic and children's play areas, a gift shop and café. Also within the grounds is the Lakeland Motor Museum, which houses an extensive and fascinating collection of some 30,000 exhibits, including cars, motorcycles, tractors, bicycles, pedal cars and engines, plus perhaps the largest display of auto memorabilia on public display within the UK - mascots, badges, advertising posters, petrol pumps, globes, enamel signs, pottery and models.