Holiday Cottages In Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire has over 1,000 self-catering cottages on selfcatering.co.uk, from brick chalets behind the Skegness sands to stone farmhouses up in the Wolds. The county runs a wide, flat coast of Blue Flag beaches into rolling chalk hills and a cathedral city, and more than 700 of these cottages take dogs while over 300 have a hot tub.

Best areas and towns in Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire splits into three holiday areas: the bucket-and-spade coast around Skegness and Mablethorpe, the quiet chalk uplands of the Wolds inland, and the cathedral city of Lincoln in the west. Most cottages sit near the sea, with the rest scattered through the market towns and farm villages behind it.

On the coast:

• Skegness: the county's big traditional resort, with a pier, a Blue Flag beach and miles of firm sand
• Mablethorpe and the wider parish of Mablethorpe and Sutton: a low-key family resort of dunes and beach huts north of Skegness
• Sutton on Sea: a calmer seaside neighbour just down the coast, with its own Blue Flag sands
• Chapel St Leonards and tiny Anderby: unhurried beach villages between the two main resorts
• the old marsh ports of Wainfleet All Saints and Burgh le Marsh, set just back from the dunes, with Orby close by

Inland and in the Wolds:

• Louth: a handsome Georgian market town on the eastern edge of the Wolds, often called the gateway to the hills
• the market town of Horncastle, known for its antiques shops, with the moated castle village of Tattershall and the hamlet of Little Cawthorpe nearby
• Dunholme, a village a short drive north of Lincoln, and Brigg, a small market town in the north of the county

Lincoln itself, crowned by its cathedral and castle, makes the best city base for anyone who wants history rather than a beach.

The Lincolnshire coast and its beaches

The Lincolnshire coast is a long, flat run of golden sand backed by dunes, and it carries some of the cleanest beaches in the country. Five stretches held a Blue Flag in 2025: Skegness, Mablethorpe, Sutton on Sea, Ingoldmells just north of Skegness, and Cleethorpes at the Humber end of the county. The sands are wide and gently shelving, which makes them safe for paddling and ideal for windbreaks, donkeys and kite-flying. At the southern tip, Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve outside Skegness protects a mosaic of dunes, salt marsh and lagoons that draws huge flocks of migrating birds. Cleethorpes adds a boating lake and pier gardens to its traditional promenade. It is classic English seaside, less polished than Norfolk but with far more room to spread out a towel.

Things to do in Lincolnshire

Lincoln is the heart of a day out inland, with Lincoln Castle, where you can walk the medieval walls and see an original Magna Carta, standing beside the soaring Lincoln Cathedral. North of the city, Whisby Nature Park is an easy walk among lakes and heath. The coast has the seafront amusements of the Mablethorpe Sea Front Area and, near Boston, the rescued big cats of Lincolnshire Wildlife Park. History buffs make for the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre near Spilsby, home to a taxiing Lancaster bomber, while the rolling chalk of the Lincolnshire Wolds National Landscape offers some of the best walking and cycling in eastern England. Up at the Humber, Normanby Hall Country Park near Scunthorpe pairs a Regency house with deer park and walled gardens.

When to visit Lincolnshire

Summer is the coast's moment, when Skegness and Mablethorpe fill with families and the sands are at their best for a beach day. Book early for July and August, as the resort cottages and caravans go fast. Late spring and September are kinder for walking the Wolds, with quieter beaches and better value on cottages. Autumn and winter suit the city and the nature reserves, when Gibraltar Point and the wider coast fill with wintering and migrating birds. Out of season many owners drop their prices and ease the dog rules on the beaches.

Dog-friendly and hot-tub cottages in Lincolnshire

More than 700 of the cottages in Lincolnshire take dogs, and more than 300 have a hot tub. Browse the cottages that welcome dogs or cottages with a hot tub to narrow your search.

Getting to Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire sits on England's east coast, north of The Wash and south of the Humber. The A1 clips the western edge, while the A46, A16, A17 and A52 carry traffic across the county and out to the coast at Skegness and Mablethorpe. Trains reach Lincoln, Grantham and the larger towns, with Grantham on the East Coast Main Line about seventy minutes from London King's Cross, though the seaside resorts are easiest by car. The nearest sizeable airports are Doncaster Sheffield's successor hubs and East Midlands to the west, with Humberside in the north of the county for regional flights.

Useful links

• Visit Lincolnshire
• Lincolnshire Wolds National Landscape
• Lincolnshire County Council

Lincolnshire is a large, mostly rural county on the east coast of England, the second largest in the country by area. It is bordered by the Humber estuary and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Norfolk and The Wash to the south-east, and Cambridgeshire, Rutland, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire inland to the south and west. The landscape is famously open and big-skied, a patchwork of some of the most productive farmland in Britain.

The county is shaped by water and by a single line of low hills. Along the coast runs a flat shelf of sand, dune and marsh, fronted by the resorts of Skegness, Mablethorpe and Sutton on Sea. Behind it the land rises gently into the Lincolnshire Wolds, a band of rolling chalk hills protected as a National Landscape, before falling away again to the drained, dead-level Fens in the south around Boston and the Wash. The cathedral city of Lincoln stands on a limestone ridge in the west, its medieval cathedral and castle visible for miles across the plain.

Lincolnshire has a long and layered past. It was settled by the Romans, who built the colony of Lindum at Lincoln, and later became part of the Danelaw, leaving many village names of Norse origin. In the Middle Ages the wool and cloth trades brought great wealth, paying for the soaring parish churches that still rise over flat farmland. The county was the birthplace of Isaac Newton, near Grantham, and in the twentieth century its airfields earned it the nickname Bomber County. Today farming, food production and tourism shape its quiet, spacious character.