You barely need to leave town to start. St Nicholas, Hornsea's parish church, stands a short walk inland from the seafront, and its tower — fourteenth century, with the sturdy proportions typical of this corner of Yorkshire — is among the oldest substantial structures in the town. The nave and aisles were largely rebuilt in the nineteenth century, but the Victorian architect reused a good deal of medieval stone, and inside there is a real sense of continuity if you take your time: an old font, fragments of carved stone, a chancel where earlier work can still be traced. Outside service times the building is generally open during daylight, and the churchyard, with its leaning headstones and wind-bent trees, is a lovely spot to sit after a morning on the beach.
About ten miles south-west of Hornsea, along quiet lanes through Holderness farmland, St Augustine at Skirlaugh is the church that makes people stop and stare. It was built in a single campaign in the early fifteenth century — traditionally credited to Walter Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham, who was born in the village — and it has the rare quality of being all of a piece. There is no jumble of periods here: just a beautifully proportioned Perpendicular tower with battlements and pinnacles, a light-filled nave, and a chancel that the standard architectural guides rate among the finest village churches in the East Riding. Look up at the roof timbers and carved woodwork; look down at the floor slabs and brasses. Allow at least half an hour.
For something considerably older, head north up the coast. St Andrew's at Aldbrough, roughly eight miles away, has one of the best Norman doorways in the region — round-arched and richly carved with chevron and beakhead motifs — along with a font that predates the tower by centuries. The church has been altered many times since, but the twelfth-century mason's work is unmistakable once you know what you are looking at. Much smaller, and barely three miles from Hornsea, is St Mary the Virgin at Atwick: a modest medieval church with a peaceful churchyard set among fields. It is the sort of place you may well have entirely to yourself, which is rather the point.
Fifteen miles west, Beverley makes an easy half-day trip. Beverley Minster is one of the great Gothic buildings of England, begun around 1220 and not finished until the 1420s. Its twin west towers, the fourteenth-century Percy tomb canopy and the shrine of St John of Beverley are the highlights, but the misericords beneath the choir stalls are worth the journey alone. A few minutes' walk away, St Mary's Church is smaller yet no less rewarding: a Perpendicular nave, a spectacular painted ceiling, and a carved rabbit reputed to have inspired Lewis Carroll, whose family had connections with the town. Both churches ask for a small donation towards upkeep, and both are worth far more than that.
If you fancy a longer loop, head north-west towards the Wolds. All Saints at Rudston has a Norman tower and, in its churchyard, the Rudston Monolith — the tallest standing stone in Britain at around 7.7 metres, and a genuinely strange thing to find beside a country church. A few miles away, St Andrew's at Boynton is known for its medieval wall paintings, rediscovered in the twentieth century and still surprisingly vivid. For the truly committed, St Patrick's at Patrington, in the far south of Holderness, is celebrated as the Queen of Holderness: a glorious Perpendicular church with a soaring spire, about forty minutes away by car and worth every mile of the drive.
Pick a dry day, allow more time than you think you need, and let the quiet do its work. There is something quietly restorative about sitting in a fifteenth-century nave with nothing but the sound of jackdaws in the tower before you head back to the sea.
Hornsea Bed & Breakfast shares practical, down-to-earth guidance on seaside bed and breakfast in hornsea, east yorkshire for readers across the UK.
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