Allerthorpe

Allerthorpe itself has no hotels, reflecting its size as a village of around 230 people, but it makes a workable base for exploring the western edge of the Yorkshire Wolds if you're happy to stay just outside it. Allerthorpe Golf & Country Park has holiday lodges on site, useful for a self-catering stay with a golf course and restaurant on the doorstep. For a wider choice of hotels, guesthouses and country inns, Pocklington is only a mile and a half away and has a small selection of local options serving visitors to Burnby Hall Gardens and the surrounding Wolds. York, with its full range of city-centre and out-of-town hotels, is around 30 minutes' drive and suits visitors who want to split a trip between city sightseeing and a day or two in quieter Wolds-edge countryside. Booking ahead is worth doing in summer, particularly around Burnby Hall's water lily season from June to August, when accommodation across the Pocklington area gets busier. Wherever you choose to stay, the flat, rural roads around Allerthorpe make it an easy short drive to the lake park, golf park and nature reserve, so you don't need to be in the village itself to enjoy what the area offers.

Allerthorpe itself is tiny, so most days out involve a short drive or walk into the surrounding countryside and nearby Pocklington. Here are some of the best things to do in the area.

• Allerthorpe Common Nature Reserve — Managed by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, this is one of just three remaining pockets of lowland heath in the Vale of York and one of the best places locally to see adders. Its birch and willow cover attracts woodpeckers and flocks of lesser redpolls in winter, alongside badgers, foxes and roe deer. There are no formal paths or visitor facilities, so it suits those happy to walk a rougher track and bring their own refreshments.
• Allerthorpe Lakeland Park — A 53-acre park built around three lakes on the edge of the village, with stand-up paddleboarding, kayaking, an Aqua Park, pedalos and open-water swimming on the main lake, plus play areas, fish feeding and quieter walks around the second and third lakes.
• Allerthorpe Golf & Country Park — A 9-hole golf course with driving range and an on-site restaurant, open all year and set among the flat Wolds-edge farmland that surrounds the village.
• Burnby Hall Gardens and Museum, Pocklington — Nine acres of gardens around two lakes holding a National Collection of hardy water lilies, which bloom from June to August, plus a Victorian garden, aviary and Edwardian rock garden, about two miles from Allerthorpe.
• Pocklington Canal — A quiet, partly restored waterway running through a nature reserve rich in dragonflies and waterfowl, good for a level towpath walk or short boat trip.
• Pocklington market town — With red pantile roofs, twisting alleys and All Saints Church, notable for one of the most complete sets of medieval stained glass in the country, plus the Pocklington Arts Centre for film, music and exhibitions.
• Yorkshire Wolds Way — The national trail runs along the chalk escarpment a short drive east of Allerthorpe, offering longer walks with views back over the Vale of York.

The Plough Inn is Allerthorpe's own pub and restaurant, serving the village and passing visitors. Allerthorpe Golf & Country Park has an on-site restaurant, JJ's Bar and Grill, while Allerthorpe Lakeland Park runs a lakeside cafe for visitors using the watersports facilities. For more choice, Pocklington's market town centre has a range of independent cafes, pubs and takeaways within a couple of miles, and Burnby Hall Gardens has its own tea room open during garden hours.

Camping around Allerthorpe centres on Allerthorpe Lakeland Park, which runs its own campsite alongside its watersports lakes, letting you pitch up within walking distance of paddleboarding, kayaking and the Aqua Park. It's a good option for families wanting an activity-led break rather than a purely rural one, with a lakeside cafe and play areas on site. As with anywhere in England, wild camping on Allerthorpe Common or other open land nearby is not permitted without the landowner's explicit permission, so stick to licensed sites rather than pitching on the reserve or surrounding farmland.

The terrain here is flat and low-lying, sitting where the Yorkshire Wolds' chalk hills meet the Vale of York, so this isn't the dramatic hill camping of the Wolds Way further east — it suits those after an easier, family-friendly base with water and heathland on the doorstep rather than serious walking country. Allerthorpe Common itself has no visitor facilities or formal paths, so it's best treated as a place to walk into for a few hours from a proper campsite rather than anywhere to camp overnight.

Late spring to early autumn is the best season to camp here, when the lake park's watersports season is running in full and the Common's birch and willow woodland, heather and wildlife, including its notable adder population, are at their most active. Midges and boggy ground can be an issue on the heath after wet weather, so waterproof footwear is worth packing even in summer. For those who'd rather not pitch a tent, Allerthorpe Golf & Country Park offers holiday lodges nearby as a glamping-style alternative, giving a similar rural setting with proper heating, beds and a restaurant on site, which suits shoulder-season trips in spring or autumn when a canvas tent might feel exposed on this open, flat ground.