I almost went to Sizergh on Monday, but the castle itself was closed and that was what I have been meaning to visit. It closes for the season at the end of this week, so – even though it’s half term – today was my only chance unless I was going to let the wish dangle for another couple of years.

I should have chosen my time better, but heigh ho. (The kids were fine; it was the adults I could have done without!) Sizergh Castle is a pele tower with a later Tudor house. The Strickland family have lived there for centuries and given their name to a few pubs and streets. The castle is quite small and most of the visitable rooms are panelled in what is now very dark wood. The panels of the inlaid chamber were sold to the V&A at the end of the 19th century, but they have found their way back. Some wonderful plasterwork ceilings and lots of portraits – in some cases blurring time by showing side by side the grandparents as young people and their grandchildren as elderly, as if illustrating Einstein’s theory of relativity and Burnt Norton simultaneously.