Lodges with private hot tubs in Scarborough
Few seaside towns let a large group take a whole house a short walk from the front. Scarborough is one of them. The lodges with hot tubs in Scarborough run from couples' cottages in the moor-edge villages to houses sized for a family reunion in the town itself, each with a hot tub of its own. Here a big group gets the resort on the doorstep and a house to itself, not a cabin in a park row.
Town and coast
Self-catering cottages and houses with hot tubs
Sleeps
Features
Owl View
Lebberston
Railway House
Scarborough
Wagtail Nest, Northfield Cottage
Scalby
Hayloft
Staintondale
The Old Workshop
Suffield
Church View
Scarborough
The Nook at 29 High Street
Cloughton
Hawthorn Cottage
Silpho
Castle View
Burniston
Green Tor
Scarborough
Crabtree Cottage
Suffield
Coronation House
Scarborough
Tower View
Scarborough
Sunset Retreat
Seamer
Tawny Cottage
Irton Moor
The Pheasantry
Irton Moor
Seamer Manor House
Seamer
Yardley Manor
Scarborough
Royal Victoria House
Scarborough
North Beach Lodge
Scarborough
The Corner House
Scarborough
Manor Farmhouse
Reighton
Seacrest Lodge
Scarborough
No lodges match those filters.
Two bays, one headland
A resort built around two bays
Scarborough grew up around one great headland. The castle still holds the top of it, and the rock drops away on either side into two separate bays, each with a character of its own.
South Bay is the busy one, the picture most people carry of the town. The harbour and the old streets crowd one end, the sands and amusements sweep round to the Spa, and the whole front hums through the season.
North Bay is the quieter half. Peasholm Park and its boating lake lie just behind it, and the crowds thin the further you walk from the centre.
This is where the British seaside holiday began, when a spring on the South Bay cliff drew the first visitors to take the waters in the 1620s. Sea bathing followed, and the resort grew up around it.
Behind it all rise the North York Moors. The town sits in the gap between open moorland and the sea, which is why a base here can manage an arcade afternoon and a silent moor-top walk on the same day.
In the town, or out in the villages
The stays divide between the town itself and a ring of villages just inland. Town or village sets the feel of the trip.
Right in the resort
In the town you are mostly looking at houses, and a good number of them are large. These are proper town houses and terraces that take a whole family or two, with a hot tub in the courtyard or back garden and the sea a short walk down the hill.
These houses are made for a gathering. A landmark birthday, a reunion, three generations under one roof. The beach, the harbour and the bars are all on foot, and it is the alternative to splitting a big group across a row of park cabins.
The moor-edge villages
Out of town, the land climbs towards the moors. Scalby, Cloughton, Burniston and Staintondale sit to the north, with Silpho and Suffield deeper into the trees. All are within a quarter of an hour or so of the front, but a great deal quieter.
These are mostly cottages, some for two and some for a family, with views over fields or the coast and a footpath from the door. They suit couples and dog owners who want both the moors and the sea close to hand. Most of the dog-friendly cottages are out here, several with an enclosed garden.
The southern villages
South of town the land softens towards Filey. Seamer and Irton Moor are barely outside Scarborough, while Lebberston and Reighton edge towards Filey Bay. This side suits families who want a slower pace than the seafront, with the sands still close by.
North Bay or South Bay for a quieter stay?
North Bay, for the most part. It has the less crowded beach, Peasholm Park and a more residential feel. But a stay set back above the bay, or out in the villages, gives you the quiet, with the seafront a short walk or drive away.
Private hot tubs, ready when you arrive
Every hot tub is private to your stay, not a shared spa down at a central complex. It is there for your group and no one else.
Owners here have a habit of getting the hot tub up to heat before you turn up. After the long pull up the A64, the soak starts the moment you have unloaded the car.
The stays come in all sizes, the biggest town houses sleeping twenty or more. At the luxury end you get the things a hot tub holiday is really booked for: a woodburner, a sea view, a games room for the afternoon the weather turns.
What's on the doorstep in town
For all the country around it, a lot of the appeal is in the town itself, most of it walkable from a central stay.
Scarborough Castle
The headland between the two bays is topped by the castle, a twelfth-century ruin with three thousand years of history beneath it and the long view down both beaches from the walls. It is a stiff climb from either bay, though the car park at the top spares the legs if you have less mobile guests along.
The two beaches
South Bay is the full resort beach, with donkeys, arcades and fish and chips behind the sand. North Bay is the less hectic one, with more of the sand to yourself. Both have seasonal dog restrictions on the main stretch, so check before you walk down with one.
Peasholm Park
The boating lake behind North Bay stages mock naval battles with model warships through the season, a genuinely odd half-hour that children love. It costs nothing to walk round, and a few pounds to take a boat out.
The Spa
The Victorian spa complex on South Bay still puts on concerts and shows, and its suntrap terraces are a pleasant place to sit even off-season. The cliff lift down from the Esplanade saves a steep walk back up when it is running.
Sea Life and the Rotunda
Out at the far end of North Bay, the Sea Life centre is the reliable wet-weather hour with younger children. Down by the Spa, the Rotunda is a small museum on the geology of this coast, one of the oldest purpose-built in the country.
A coast day one way, a moors day the other
The coast stretches both ways from the town, and the moors begin just inland, so you can spend one day by the sea and the next on the moors.
Robin Hood's Bay and Whitby
North of town the coast turns dramatic. Robin Hood's Bay tips down a one-in-three hill in a tangle of old smugglers' cottages; Whitby, twenty miles on, brings the abbey, the harbour and the Dracula trade. Both old centres are no place for a car; park on the cliffs above and walk down.
Cayton Bay and Filey
South is the gentler direction. Cayton Bay is the surfers' beach, with a school or two if anyone fancies a lesson. Beyond it, Filey has a long family beach and the Brigg, a rocky spit you can walk out at low tide. Both stay quieter than the Scarborough seafront in high season.
Forge Valley and Dalby Forest
Inland, Forge Valley is an easy riverside woodland walk only a few miles west, flat enough for a buggy. Dalby Forest, further into the moors, has graded mountain-bike trails, a Go Ape and a forest drive with a toll. It is enough for a full day with older children.
The moors railway and Flamingo Land
At Pickering, the North Yorkshire Moors Railway runs steam trains over the moors to Whitby through Goathland, the Heartbeat village, whose station was Hogsmeade in the first Harry Potter film. Flamingo Land, theme park and zoo together, makes another full family day out inland.
The journey up, and where to leave the car
Scarborough sits at the seaward end of the A64 from York, about an hour past the city, or a good two hours from Leeds and the M62 corridor. Trains come in from York and Leeds to a station right in the middle of town, so a car-free weekend in a central stay is easy enough.
If you are taking one of the town houses, settle the parking before you book. The old streets were never built for two cars to a house, and a permit or a nearby car park is often the arrangement. The village stays have parking at the door, which is part of what you go out there for.
The front fills up in the school holidays and on summer weekends, when dogs are off the main beaches and the car parks are full by mid-morning. Spring and autumn are quieter and often the better trade, the moors at their finest and the hot tub all the more welcome on a cool night. Out of season the resort winds right down, but a self-catering stay with its own hot tub can carry a winter weekend on its own.
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