Top Things to Do in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, England

Flag Fen near Peterborough in Cambridgeshire is one of the most significant Bronze Age archaeological sites in Britain, a preserved wooden platform and post alignment dating from approximately 1300 to 900 BC that was discovered in 1982 and has been excavated and interpreted by archaeologist Francis Pryor in one of the most sustained and most publicly engaged excavation projects of the late twentieth century. The preserved wooden timbers of the Bronze Age structure survive beneath the fen peat in exceptional condition, and the site provides one of the most direct encounters with the Bronze Age world available in England. The Bronze Age post alignment at Flag Fen extends for approximately one kilometre across the ancient fenland from Northey Island to the Peterborough shore, a structure of approximately 60,000 individual timber posts that represented an enormous investment of labour and resources by the farming communities of the Bronze Age fens. The function of the alignment is uncertain but the large number of metal objects, weapons and personal ornaments deliberately deposited in the water beside the alignment suggests a ritual or votive dimension to the structure, perhaps marking a boundary between the world of the living on the dry land and the watery world of the spirits in the fen. The on-site museum and the active preservation work visible at the site provide the most direct public engagement with the Bronze Age environment of any comparable site in Britain, and the circular Iron Age roundhouse reconstructed at Flag Fen provides an excellent illustration of the domestic architecture of the period.

Burwell Museum of Fen Edge and Village Life is a delightful community museum tucked away in the village of Burwell in Cambridgeshire, situated on the southern edge of the East Anglian Fens. It occupies a rural site that includes a working restored windmill — Stevens' Mill, a fine example of a tower mill — along with a collection of historic farm buildings, outbuildings, and carefully curated exhibitions. The museum is wholly run by volunteers and stands as a passionate testament to the agricultural, craft, and domestic life of this particular corner of England. It is the kind of place that rewards unhurried visitors who appreciate the texture of ordinary historical lives, the mechanics of rural industry, and the quiet continuity of a fenland community. The museum's centrepiece is Stevens' Mill, a late eighteenth-century tower mill that was in commercial use for grinding corn well into the twentieth century. The mill is named after the Stevens family who operated it, and it remains one of the better-preserved windmills in Cambridgeshire. The site itself grew organically around this mill as local enthusiasts began collecting tools, farm machinery, domestic artefacts, and trades equipment relevant to the Fen Edge way of life. The founding of the museum reflects a broader mid-to-late twentieth century movement across England to preserve vernacular history before it disappeared entirely with the passing of living memory. Many of the objects in the collection were donated by local families whose ancestors farmed, fished, traded, and worked crafts in and around Burwell. The museum's grounds are atmospheric in a very particular fenland way. The landscape here is flat and wide-skied, and the site itself feels unhurried and organic rather than polished. There are reconstructed and preserved farm buildings housing collections of agricultural equipment — ploughs, harrows, threshing machines — as well as smaller exhibits covering trades such as blacksmithing, coopering, and domestic service. The mill itself towers above the site, its sails turning when conditions allow, and climbing its interior gives visitors both a mechanical education and a view across the Fen Edge to the vast open farmland beyond. Sounds on a good day include the creak of wood, the rumble of millstones, and birdsong drifting in from the surrounding countryside. Burwell itself is a large and historically interesting village whose roots go back well before the Norman Conquest. It sits on a spring line at the edge of the fens, which made it an attractive settlement site for centuries, with water, fertile soil, and access both to upland and to the rich fenland resources of fish, fowl, and peat. The village is also noted for a tragic event in 1727 when a fire broke out during a puppet show held in a barn, killing over eighty people — one of the worst single fire disasters in English history. While this event is not the museum's primary focus, it is part of the broader village story that the museum contextualises through its documentation of local life. The area around the museum includes the earthworks of a medieval castle and the handsome Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, making Burwell well worth a broader wander. The surrounding landscape is classic southern fenland: enormous fields, long straight drains and ditches, wide horizons, and skies that seem disproportionately large. Burwell is close to the market town of Newmarket to the southeast and to Cambridge to the west, meaning it sits in an accessible rural corridor despite feeling genuinely removed from urban life. The Devil's Dyke, a major Anglo-Saxon earthwork, runs close to the village and is itself a rewarding walk. Reach, a tiny neighbouring village with its own medieval fair tradition, is just a short distance away. The museum is open seasonally, typically on Sundays and Bank Holidays from Easter through to October, and admission is very reasonably priced, with the volunteer-led nature of the operation giving visits a warm, personal quality. The site is largely outdoors and on grass, so sensible footwear is advisable, and some areas may be less accessible for visitors with significant mobility challenges, though much of the site can be explored at ground level. Getting there by car is the most practical option, with parking available on site; the village is reachable by bus from Cambridge, though services are infrequent. Visiting mid-morning on a clear day gives the best chance of seeing the mill in operation and enjoying the outdoor exhibits in good light. One of the museum's most charming qualities is that it refuses to feel like a corporate heritage attraction. The exhibits have been gathered with genuine local pride and expert local knowledge, and the volunteers who staff the site are often deeply connected to the history they are sharing. There is something quietly moving about a museum that exists not because of government mandate or tourism strategy but because a community decided its own story was worth telling. For anyone with an interest in agricultural history, fenland life, milling technology, or simply the texture of English rural existence in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Burwell Museum offers an afternoon that is both educational and genuinely affecting.

Burwell Castle is a ruined Norman fortification located in the village of Burwell in Cambridgeshire, England. Though little survives above ground today, the site is a scheduled ancient monument of considerable historical significance. The castle was never actually completed, making it a rare example of an unfinished medieval fortress, and its brief and dramatic history gives it a particular place in the story of the civil war known as the Anarchy — the bloody conflict between King Stephen and Empress Matilda that tore England apart in the mid-twelfth century. For visitors with an interest in medieval history and the quieter, less-visited heritage sites of the English Fens, Burwell Castle offers a rewarding and contemplative experience. The castle was constructed around 1143 on the orders of King Stephen, intended as part of a strategic network of royal fortifications designed to counter the influence of Geoffrey de Mandeville, a powerful and notoriously treacherous baron who had repeatedly switched allegiances between Stephen and Matilda and had been using the Isle of Ely and the surrounding fenland as a base for devastating raids on the local population. Stephen's plan was to build a ring of castles to contain and eventually trap de Mandeville. The strategy proved effective: in 1144, Geoffrey de Mandeville was struck by an arrow while attacking the very castle at Burwell that had been built to contain him. He died of his wound shortly afterward, an excommunicated man, which meant he could not receive Christian burial and was reportedly kept in a lead coffin by the Knights Templar for years until the excommunication was lifted. The castle, having served its strategic purpose through the death of the man it was meant to trap, was never finished. What remains at the site today is largely earthwork: a rectangular moated enclosure with substantial banks and ditches that are clearly visible and remarkably well-preserved given the centuries that have passed. The earthworks outline the intended plan of the castle with some clarity, and excavations over the years have revealed evidence of stone construction that was begun but never completed. The site has a quiet, slightly melancholy atmosphere, as castle ruins often do, but there is something particularly evocative about a place abandoned mid-construction — a frozen moment of medieval ambition and violence. The grass-covered banks rise several metres and the outline of the intended structure can be traced by the attentive visitor. Burwell itself is a large and attractive fenland village with considerable character of its own. The Church of St Mary is a magnificent example of Perpendicular Gothic architecture and is considered one of the finest parish churches in Cambridgeshire. The village also has a working windmill, Stephens Mill, which is open to visitors on certain days. The landscape around Burwell is quintessentially fenland: broad, flat, and open to enormous skies, with drainage channels, agricultural fields, and a sense of ancient habitation layered beneath the surface of the land. Burwell Lode, a navigable waterway that connects to the River Cam, passes nearby and forms part of the extensive network of fenland waterways. Access to the castle earthworks is straightforward; the site is freely accessible and there is no admission charge. It lies close to the centre of the village and can be reached on foot without difficulty. Burwell is served by bus routes connecting it to Cambridge, which lies roughly twelve miles to the southwest, and the village is also accessible by bicycle along the network of quiet fenland roads and paths. There is no dedicated car park at the castle site itself, but parking can generally be found in the village. The site can be visited year-round, and the earthworks are visible in all seasons, though the low-angled light of autumn and winter can make the banks and ditches particularly striking. Summer brings long fenland evenings and the surrounding countryside is pleasant for walking. One of the more haunting footnotes attached to Burwell is the fire of 1727, unrelated to the castle but deeply embedded in the village's memory. A travelling puppet show drew a large crowd into a barn, which caught fire; around eighty people died, making it one of the worst fire disasters in English history at the time. A memorial in the churchyard commemorates the victims. This tragedy, combined with the violent medieval history embodied in the castle ruins, gives Burwell an unexpectedly weighty historical character for a quiet English village. The castle site itself, with its unfinished earthworks and its connection to the death of one of the most feared warlords of the Anarchy, remains a place where the past feels genuinely close.

Hamerton Zoo Park is a small, family-run zoological collection situated in the rural heart of Cambridgeshire, England. It occupies a site near the village of Hamerton in the district of Huntingdonshire, and despite its modest scale compared to major city zoos, it has earned a devoted following for the intimacy and quality of the animal encounters it offers. The park specialises in a carefully curated collection of exotic and endangered species, with particular renown for its big cats, cheetahs, meerkats, lemurs, and a variety of birds and reptiles. What sets it apart from larger institutions is the unhurried atmosphere and the relatively close proximity visitors can achieve to many of the animals, making it especially rewarding for wildlife photographers and families with young children who might find the scale of a large urban zoo overwhelming. The park's origins lie in the early 1990s when it was established as a private zoological collection on farmland in this quiet corner of Cambridgeshire. It grew steadily over the following decades, gaining its formal zoo licence and developing its grounds and enclosures with an emphasis on naturalistic habitats rather than the stark concrete structures associated with older zoological thinking. The park has been involved in conservation breeding programmes for several threatened species, aligning itself with the wider mission of modern accredited zoos to act as a refuge and breeding resource for animals whose wild populations are under pressure. Over the years the collection has expanded and diversified, though it has deliberately retained the character of a small, personal institution rather than scaling into a theme-park style attraction. In terms of physical character, Hamerton is a genuinely pleasant place to spend a day. The grounds are well maintained, with paths winding between enclosures set against a backdrop of mature trees and open grassland typical of this part of England. The sounds of the park are a compelling mix — the throaty vocalisations of big cats drifting across the site, the chatter of meerkats, the calls of exotic birds — layered over the gentle ambient sounds of the English countryside. The enclosures are thoughtfully landscaped, and many animals can be observed at close range through glass panels or mesh, giving a sense of genuine engagement rather than distant observation. The overall feeling is unhurried and slightly old-fashioned in the best sense, the kind of place that rewards a slow, attentive visit rather than a rushed circuit. The surrounding landscape is quintessentially English Midlands pastoral — gently rolling arable farmland, wide skies, hedgerows, and small villages connected by narrow country lanes. The village of Hamerton itself is tiny, barely more than a hamlet, and the zoo sits on the edge of this community in a setting that feels genuinely rural rather than suburban. The nearby town of Huntingdon, birthplace of Oliver Cromwell, is within reasonable driving distance and offers further historical interest. The Cambridgeshire fens stretch away to the east, and the market town of Peterborough lies to the north. The broader area is associated with the gently undulating landscape that characterises the border country between the East Midlands and East Anglia. For practical purposes, Hamerton Zoo Park is most easily reached by car, as its rural location means public transport options are extremely limited. The A14 corridor provides good road access from the east and west, and the park is roughly equidistant between Huntingdon and the A1 trunk road. The postcode PE28 5RE is reliable for navigation systems. The park is typically open most days during the main season, though visitors are strongly advised to check the official website for current opening hours, seasonal closures, and any special events before travelling, as smaller attractions of this kind do adjust their schedules. Summer and the spring half-term periods tend to be busier, while a weekday visit in late spring or early autumn can offer a quieter, more contemplative experience. The park is reasonably accessible for pushchairs and has basic visitor facilities including a café and gift shop. One of the more charming aspects of Hamerton is that it genuinely punches above its weight in terms of the quality and rarity of some of its animals. Cheetahs in particular have been a long-standing highlight of the collection, and the park's relatively intimate scale means that watching these animals move and behave feels more like a private encounter than a public spectacle. The park's commitment to education and conservation is evident throughout, with informational signage that goes beyond basic identification labels to convey genuine detail about species behaviour and wild status. For those who find large commercial zoos slightly impersonal, Hamerton offers something rarer — the sense that the people who run the park genuinely care about both the animals and the visitors, and that care is palpable from the moment you arrive.

The Isleham Hoard is not a place in the conventional sense but rather refers to one of the most significant Bronze Age metalwork discoveries ever made in Britain, named after the village of Isleham in Cambridgeshire, England. The hoard was unearthed in 1959 by a farmer ploughing his fields near Isleham, and it comprises an extraordinary collection of over 6,500 individual pieces of bronze metalwork, making it one of the largest Bronze Age hoards ever found in the British Isles. The sheer scale and variety of the objects — including swords, spearheads, axes, knives, gouges, harness fittings, and ornamental pieces — mark this as an exceptional window into late Bronze Age society and craftsmanship, dating to approximately 900 to 700 BCE. The hoard is now housed and displayed at the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, where it forms a centerpiece of their prehistoric collections. The discovery was largely accidental, as so many great archaeological finds are. The farmer who turned up the objects had no immediate sense of their antiquity or significance, but specialists quickly recognised the collection as extraordinary. The objects had been deliberately buried together, most likely as a founder's hoard — a cache of scrap bronze gathered for recycling by a metalworker — or possibly as a votive deposit, placed into the ground as an offering to gods or spirits. The mix of objects in varying states of completeness, including broken and fragmentary pieces, supports the founder's hoard interpretation. The practice of collecting and recycling bronze was common during the Late Bronze Age, and such hoards were often buried temporarily before being reclaimed, though in this case, the owner never returned. The village of Isleham itself sits in the Cambridgeshire Fenlands, a broad, flat landscape of former marshland and peatland that stretches across much of eastern England. The fenland environment would have looked very different during the Bronze Age, when the area was a mosaic of shallow lakes, reed beds, river channels, and slightly elevated ground, making it a productive but also spiritually charged landscape for prehistoric communities. The proximity of water — so defining a feature of fenland life — lends weight to the votive deposit theory, as wetlands and riverbanks across Bronze Age Europe were frequent sites of deliberate offerings of valuable objects. The choice of location may therefore have been far from random. The landscape around the find site today is characteristic Fenland countryside: wide open skies, flat arable fields stretching to the horizon, scattered hedgerows, and the quiet drama of big light over low land. The village of Isleham itself is a modest but pleasant settlement with a notable medieval church, St Andrew's, which itself contains remarkable features including a fine example of a carved Flemish chest. The surrounding area includes Wicken Fen, one of the oldest nature reserves in Britain managed by the National Trust, which lies roughly ten miles to the southwest and offers a preserved fragment of the original fenland habitat that would once have characterised this entire region. For visitors specifically interested in the Isleham Hoard, the destination of choice is the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology on Downing Street in central Cambridge, which holds the collection. The museum is free to enter and is a compact, rich institution well worth a visit for anyone with an interest in archaeology, anthropology, or the deep history of Britain. Cambridge itself is easily accessible by rail from London King's Cross or Liverpool Street, and the museum is a short walk from the city centre and its famous university buildings. The museum typically keeps standard daytime hours during the week and on Saturdays, though visitors are advised to check current opening times before travelling. A particularly fascinating dimension of the Isleham Hoard is what it implies about the social and economic organisation of Bronze Age communities in fenland Britain. The sheer quantity of metal represented — thousands of objects — suggests that whoever buried the hoard had access to a remarkable network of exchange and accumulation. Bronze was not locally produced; the copper and tin from which it is made had to be brought from distant sources, with copper coming from Wales or Ireland and tin from Cornwall. That so much of this imported, valuable material ended up concentrated in a single deposit in a Cambridgeshire field speaks to the complexity of long-distance trade and the role of specialist craftworkers in late prehistoric society. The Isleham Hoard has not attracted the popular fame of some other British prehistoric finds, such as the Sutton Hoo treasure or the Amesbury Archer, but among archaeologists it holds a place of the highest regard. Its size, preservation, and the diversity of object types make it a uniquely informative assemblage. Researchers have used it to understand regional metalworking traditions, trade connections, and the rhythm of Bronze Age economic life. It stands as a quiet monument to an entire world of human activity that left almost no written record, preserved by nothing more than a chance burial in the dark Fenland earth and the blade of a twentieth-century plough.

Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire is the oldest nature reserve in Britain, a fragment of the original fenland that once covered vast areas of East Anglia that has been managed by the National Trust since 1899 and provides the only surviving example of the natural fen habitat that has been almost completely drained and converted to agriculture across the rest of the region. The combination of the extraordinary ecological importance, the historical depth of the conservation tradition and the remarkable wildlife accessible at close range makes Wicken Fen one of the most significant natural heritage sites in England. The fen supports an exceptional variety of wildlife adapted to the wetland habitats of open water, reedbed, sedge fen and fen meadow that have largely disappeared from the wider fenland landscape. Over 8,000 species of plants, insects and animals have been recorded on the reserve, including over 1,000 beetle species alone, a diversity that reflects the complexity of the ancient fen ecosystem and the sustained quality of the management that has maintained it. The National Trust is engaged in a long-term project to extend the fen by purchasing and rewetting surrounding farmland, aiming to create a fen of approximately 5,300 hectares over the next hundred years in one of the most ambitious rewilding projects in England. The project is converting intensive arable land back to wetland habitat in a reversal of the drainage that destroyed the original fen, creating new habitat for the wildlife that has survived in the Wicken fragment. The fen tower hide and the board-walked trails through the reed provide excellent wildlife watching in every season.

Isleham Lime Kilns are a pair of well-preserved nineteenth-century industrial kilns situated on the banks of the River Lark in the village of Isleham, Cambridgeshire. They represent a tangible fragment of the agricultural and industrial heritage of the Fenland region, and their survival in a relatively intact state makes them an unusual and rewarding discovery for anyone with an interest in rural industrial history or the quieter byways of East Anglian heritage. Listed as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, the kilns are protected for their historical significance and stand as a reminder of the economic forces that shaped this corner of the English countryside during the height of the Victorian era. The kilns were built in the mid-nineteenth century and were used to produce quicklime by burning limestone or chalk, which was transported to the site along the River Lark. The resulting lime was used extensively in the surrounding Fenland to improve the heavy, acidic soils and make them more productive for arable farming, a practice that was central to the agricultural improvement movement sweeping Britain at the time. The arrival of chalk and limestone by water, and the distribution of lime by road to local farms, meant that these kilns occupied a pivotal place in the local agricultural economy. When cheaper and more convenient sources of lime became available through the expanding railway network later in the century, demand for locally produced lime declined and the kilns fell out of use. Physically, the kilns are built of brick and are of the characteristic bottle-kiln or draw-kiln type common to the region. They present themselves as robust, chunky structures with characteristic arched openings at the base where the finished lime would have been drawn out. Their brickwork, weathered by a century and a half of East Anglian weather, has taken on the mellow, slightly mossy patina common to abandoned industrial structures in this part of England. Standing beside them, you get a palpable sense of the heat and labour that once animated them — the roaring fires fed through the draw holes, the clouds of caustic dust and smoke, the men working in difficult and dangerous conditions to feed local farms. The setting along the River Lark adds considerably to the experience of visiting. The river here flows through a quiet and largely undeveloped stretch of the Fenland, its banks lined with reeds, willows and occasional stands of alder. The landscape is flat and open, with wide skies that are characteristic of this part of Cambridgeshire. The sounds are those of water, birdsong and wind — a stark contrast to the industrial clamour that would have characterised the site in its working days. The river itself remains navigable and is popular with boaters and canoeists, and the towpath provides pleasant walking in both directions. Isleham itself is a pleasant and historically interesting village a short distance from the kilns. The village church of St Andrew contains a notable medieval priory cell, and there are several attractive older buildings in the village centre. The wider area sits within the Fens, within relatively easy reach of Ely to the west and Mildenhall to the north, making it possible to combine a visit to the kilns with exploration of these nearby towns and their own heritage attractions, including Ely Cathedral, one of the great ecclesiastical landmarks of England. Access to the Isleham Lime Kilns is on foot, typically via a path from the village or along the riverside. There is no formal visitor centre or interpretation on site, so the experience is an unsupervised and contemplative one. The path to the kilns can be muddy in wet weather, so appropriate footwear is advisable. The site is open to visitors at any reasonable time and there is no admission charge. The best times to visit are spring and autumn, when the light is good, the vegetation is manageable, and the riverside is particularly attractive without the height of summer growth obscuring the structures.

Peterborough Cathedral is one of the finest Norman cathedral churches in England, a building of exceptional scale and architectural quality whose west front, completed in the early thirteenth century, is arguably the most distinctive and most dramatic cathedral facade in Britain. The three enormous arches of the west front, each over twenty metres high, create a composition of breathtaking boldness that is entirely unique in European medieval architecture, their scale and the depth of the carved decoration making the Peterborough west front one of the most immediately impressive sights in English church architecture. The cathedral was founded as a Benedictine abbey in 655 by the Mercian King Peada and subsequently refounded after Viking destruction, reaching its architectural flowering between approximately 1118 and 1200 in the Norman building campaign that created the nave, transepts and choir. The Norman nave is one of the finest in England, its painted timber ceiling of approximately 1220 one of the rare surviving examples of medieval nave ceiling painting, the diamond and lozenge patterns in red, blue and gold creating a complete medieval interior experience of great richness. The cathedral has a remarkable royal connection through its role as the burial place of two queens. Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII, was buried in the cathedral in 1536 following her death at Kimbolton Castle, and a banner of the Spanish royal family marks her tomb in the north aisle. Mary Queen of Scots was buried here in 1587 following her execution at Fotheringhay, before her body was reinterred in Westminster Abbey by her son James I. The presence of both queens whose lives were so consequentially connected to Henry VIII gives Peterborough Cathedral a remarkable historical resonance.

Ely Cathedral rises above the flat fenland landscape of Cambridgeshire with the commanding presence of a great ship on a calm sea, its massive Norman nave and the extraordinary fourteenth-century Octagon and lantern tower visible across the fens from remarkable distances. The image of the cathedral floating above the surrounding plain has given rise to the affectionate epithet Ship of the Fens, and the building's exceptional visibility and its architectural achievements combine to make it one of the most important and most rewarding cathedrals in England. The Norman nave, begun in 1083 under Bishop Simeon, is one of the finest and most complete in England, its length of over 75 metres and the powerful Romanesque arches of its three storeys creating a building of great solemnity and architectural authority. The development of the eastern end in the Early English Gothic style added the elegant retrochoir and presbytery, while the Decorated Gothic Lady Chapel of 1321 to 1349 represents the most elaborate expression of that style in any English cathedral, its wall arcades carved with scenes from the life of the Virgin in a programme of sculptural decoration of exceptional ambition. The Octagon and lantern tower, designed by Alan of Walsingham to replace the Norman crossing tower that collapsed in 1322, are the supreme architectural achievement at Ely. Rather than simply rebuild the tower in conventional form, Alan created an octagonal space of stone covered by a timber-framed octagonal lantern supported on eight enormous oak posts, combining the structural ingenuity of Gothic vaulting with a central lantern that floods the crossing with natural light from eight windows. The engineering solution was entirely original, has never been precisely replicated and remains one of the great individual achievements of medieval architecture.

Cambridge University Botanic Garden is one of the finest botanic gardens in Britain, a 40-acre scientific collection and public garden in the heart of Cambridge that has been developed continuously since its establishment on the present site in 1846. The garden serves both as a living scientific collection for the University of Cambridge's research and teaching programmes and as a public garden of considerable horticultural quality and seasonal interest, and the combination of scientific rigour and aesthetic ambition has produced a garden that succeeds on both levels simultaneously. The garden was founded by Professor John Stevens Henslow, who was Charles Darwin's mentor at Cambridge and who directed the young Darwin toward natural history fieldwork that ultimately led to the development of evolutionary theory. Henslow recognised the inadequacy of the university's earlier botanical garden and secured the present site and resources to create a properly equipped scientific collection of plants from around the world. The scientific tradition Henslow established has been maintained and developed across nearly two centuries, with the garden's research collections and seed bank contributing to contemporary plant conservation and climate change research. The main features of the garden include the rock garden, one of the finest in any British botanic garden; the systematic beds, where plants are arranged by taxonomic family to allow direct comparison of related species; the glasshouses containing tropical, Mediterranean, arid and alpine plant collections; and the extensive winter garden designed to provide interest and colour during the quietest months of the horticultural year. The nine National Collections of genera hosted by the garden include nationally important holdings of Tulipa, Geranium and Fritillaria. The garden's location within Cambridge makes it an excellent complement to a visit to the university colleges, museums and the River Cam, and the combination of scientific interest and garden beauty makes it rewarding for visitors with widely varying backgrounds and interests.

Burghley House near Stamford in Lincolnshire is one of the grandest and most complete Elizabethan country houses in England, a great mansion built between 1555 and 1587 by William Cecil, the first Lord Burghley and the most powerful minister of Elizabeth I's reign, whose combination of the extraordinary architecture, the outstanding art collection and the Capability Brown park landscape creates one of the most complete and most rewarding English country house experiences available. The house is the ancestral home of the Cecil family, Marquesses of Exeter, and continues in family occupation. The exterior of Burghley House is one of the most spectacular architectural compositions of the Elizabethan age, the great south front with its symmetrical towers, the decorated chimneys disguised as columns and obelisks and the ornate roofline creating a display of architectural ambition that sought to express in stone the power and sophistication of its builder. The combination of Gothic and classical elements in the facade reflects the transitional nature of Elizabethan architecture, which was absorbing the influence of the Italian Renaissance while remaining rooted in the English medieval tradition. The interior contains one of the finest collections of Italian Old Master paintings assembled in any English country house, including works by Veronese, Tintoretto and other sixteenth-century Venetian and Italian masters. The Heaven Room and Hell Staircase, painted by Antonio Verrio in the 1690s in a programme of baroque ceiling painting of considerable ambition, are the most celebrated interior spaces. The park was landscaped by Capability Brown in the 1750s and hosts the annual Burghley Horse Trials.