Lincolnshire Wolds

The Wolds are a band of rolling chalk hills running up the eastern side of the county, quiet and largely undeveloped, and protected since 1973 for their landscape — redesignated, along with the rest of England's AONBs, as a National Landscape in 2023.

It's gentler, smaller-scale scenery than the Yorkshire Dales or the Peak District — a patchwork of arable fields, beech hedgerows and small valleys, best explored slowly by car or on foot rather than aimed at from any single viewpoint. The poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson was born in 1809 in Somersby, a small village in the heart of the Wolds where his father was rector, and the surrounding area still trades gently on that connection.

Louth, generally regarded as the Wolds' main town, is a well-kept Georgian market town built around St James' Church, whose spire — at around 90 metres — is the tallest of any parish church in England. Horncastle and Market Rasen are the other two market towns most visitors use as a base, with Market Rasen also known locally for its National Hunt racecourse.

Where to Stay in the Lincolnshire Wolds

• Kenwick Park Hotel & Spa — set in parkland just outside Louth, with a spa and golf course on site.
• Brackenborough Hotel — a country hotel on the northern edge of Louth.

Getting there

The Wolds have no rail line of their own; Louth and Horncastle are reached by road from Lincoln via the A157 or A153, with Market Rasen the nearest station on the Lincoln–Cleethorpes line.