Welcome to my home town: Why Penrith is much more than a pit stop on the way to better things

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calder’s Travel email Get Simon Calder’s Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The town’s most famous ex-resident is probably Charlie Hunnam, who once described Penrith as “just about the worst place you could hope to live.” Hear, hear, chimed 15-year-old me. Stuck in a stuffy school with the same “temporary” prefab classrooms that housed my parents’ classes almost three decades earlier, time seemed to move like treacle. Coming back a happier, more self-assured person, I see much more clearly all the wonderful and weird things which make Penrith so special Although I’ll never regret my decision to leave, the more comfortable I find myself in my own skin, I realise that the discomfort and sense of not belonging I felt growing up was never to do with Penrith, but to do with me. open image in gallery Take a spooky tour of St Andrew’s Church graveyard Close to the Inglewood of Arthurian Legend, Penrith is also home to several henges, including one known locally as King Arthur’s Round Table.