Day Trip to Spurn Point Lighthouse

It was Mr R’s birthday a few weekends ago and we decided to have a mini break to the East Coast. We booked a cottage near Hornsea and Mappleton (I wouldn’t recommend this particular cottage) and used it as a base to explore the local area. We decided to explore the coast and had a day trip to Spurn Point Lighthouse!

One thing he wanted to do is walk to the lighthouse at Spurn Point. It’s a pretty special place. Spurn is a narrow spit of land that gets cut off from the mainland at high tide and is a nature reserve run by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. You can walk along the beach to the lighthouse and the actual Spurn Point, a distance of around 6.5 miles there and back. The walk takes you through different wildlife habitat, although the most exciting thing we saw was a harlequin ladybird. There were lots of seabirds in the mudflats on the estuary side but we had no binoculars and my eyesight is terrible so I couldn’t tell you what they were. Apparently you can see seals there, which was one of the reasons we went, but we saw none during our visit.

If you visit it’s really important to check what time high and low tide is. You can be stranded there if you get the times wrong, and although we had a beautiful day for our walk, I imagine it’s pretty bleak when the weather is bad! There is a cafe and visitors’ centre where the car park is which also has some toilets, and there are toilets down by the RNLI base on the Point.

Hols seemed to really enjoy the walk to the lighthouse, where we ate a picnic lunch, but not so much the walk back. It’s a long way for little legs! You can go up inside the lighthouse but as I’m not a fan of heights I didn’t. The lighthouse itself was built in 1895 and was refurbished in 2015.

The whole area is beautiful and definitely worth the walk. We had such a beautiful day for it too.

On our way home we drove through Hornsea, and then stopped off in Hull for some food. Who knew Hull was so lovely?! We were pushed for time so didn’t get to explore much, but will definitely be going back.

If you want some more day trip inspiration, check out our Travel archives.