Brandesburton

Brandesburton itself is a small village, so its accommodation is modest compared with the choice you'd find in a market town, but it's a genuinely useful base if a quiet, lakeside setting close to both Beverley and the Holderness coast appeals more than a busy hotel strip. The Burton Lodge Hotel is the long-standing option within the village, while the lakeside parks — Dacre Lakeside Park and Coneygarth Lakes & Lodges — offer holiday lodges that work well for a self-catering stay with fishing or watersports on the doorstep.

For a wider range of hotels, bed and breakfasts and self-catering cottages, Beverley is only about nine miles away and offers everything from period coaching inns near the Minster to modern chain hotels, plus a much livelier choice of restaurants and pubs for evenings out. Hornsea, on the coast around seven miles to the east, adds seaside guesthouses and holiday parks to the mix, along with easy access to the beach and Hornsea Mere. Staying in Brandesburton itself suits visitors who want peace and quiet with lakes and countryside on the doorstep, using the village as a springboard for day trips rather than expecting much nightlife on site.

Brandesburton itself is small, but it punches above its weight for lakeside leisure, and it's well placed for day trips to the East Yorkshire coast and Beverley.

• Dacre Lakeside Park — A six-acre former quarry lake open year-round for coarse fishing (pike, perch, carp, roach and dace), plus non-motorised watersports, adventure golf, pitch and putt, tennis and bowls. There's a clubhouse bar and Bert's Café and Pizzeria overlooking the water.
• St Mary's Church — A Grade I listed parish church with Norman fragments and work spanning the 13th to 15th centuries, restored in 1892. It contains notable monumental brasses and is the burial place of Reverend Dr John Hymers, founder of Hymers College in Hull.
• The medieval market cross — A Grade II listed cross on the village green, marking the site of Brandesburton's old weekly market and fair.
• Hainsworth Park Golf Club — An 18-hole parkland course on the edge of the village, opened in 1982 and popular with golfers from across the region.
• Billabong watersports centre — A jet-ski and watersports venue on one of the village's other former quarry lakes, one of several that give Brandesburton its cluster of lakeside activity sites.
• Hornsea Mere — England's largest natural freshwater lake is about seven miles away near Hornsea, a good spot for birdwatching, sailing and lakeside walks, with the Hornsea seafront and outlet shopping village close by too.
• Beverley — The historic market town of Beverley, with its Minster, cobbled streets and independent shops, is around nine miles southwest and an easy half-day out.

For a village of its size, Brandesburton has a decent choice of places to eat and drink. The Black Swan, a pub dating from the mid-18th century, and the Dacre Arms are the two village pubs, both known for home-cooked food and a warm welcome, and both good spots to end a day out on the lakes or the coast. Down at Dacre Lakeside Park, Bert's Café and Pizzeria makes the most of its glass-fronted position over the main lake, serving casual food to anglers, lodge owners and day visitors alike — a relaxed option if you'd rather eat with a view of the water than in a traditional pub setting. For a wider range of options, Beverley's town centre and Hornsea's seafront are both a short drive away, and the Sunday market at nearby Skirlington adds a farm shop and café to the list of nearby options worth knowing about.

Camping around Brandesburton means lakeside pitches rather than wild, open countryside — this part of the East Riding is farmland and low-lying former quarry land, and as with the rest of England, wild camping is not legal here without the landowner's explicit permission, so it's best to stick to established sites. The village's own former gravel pits have been turned into exactly the kind of parks that suit a relaxed camping trip: level, sheltered ground close to water, with fishing and watersports laid on rather than dramatic scenery to hike through.

Dacre Lakeside Park, alongside the neighbouring Coneygarth Lakes & Lodges, is the obvious focus, with its six-acre lake, clubhouse bar and Bert's Café making it as much a destination in its own right as a place to pitch up. Anglers in particular are well served, with day-ticket coarse fishing for carp, pike, perch, roach and dace right on site, alongside pitch and putt, tennis, bowls and non-motorised watersports for those who want more than a rod and a chair. The flat East Yorkshire terrain around the village also makes for easy, gentle cycling and walking from a base here, whether that's out towards Hornsea Mere and the coast or into Beverley.

Like most of lowland East Yorkshire, Brandesburton doesn't get the extremes of weather seen further north or west, but it's still an exposed, breezy part of the country close to the coast, so a well-pitched tent and decent groundsheet matter. Late spring to early autumn is the best window, when lake-based facilities are fully open and the long evenings suit a walk around the water after dinner; outside those months, some seasonal amenities wind down, though the fishing continues year-round for those who don't mind cooler conditions. Anyone who prefers a roof over their head without giving up the lakeside setting has glamping-style options too, with holiday lodges at the lakeside parks offering a warmer, more comfortable alternative to canvas while keeping the same water's-edge position.