All Saints Church, Rudston

The churchyard at Rudston is dominated by something you won't see anywhere else in England - a monolith that towers 25 feet above the gravestones, predating the medieval church beside it by thousands of years. This Bronze Age standing stone is the real draw, though All Saints itself is worth a proper look once you've recovered from the shock of it.

Inside, the church has good tracery in the windows and some decent carved details if you're into that sort of thing. The juxtaposition is what gets people though - a pagan monument that someone, at some point, decided was worth keeping when they built a place of Christian worship around it. You can walk right up to the stone, and on a clear day the views across the Yorkshire Wolds from the churchyard are excellent.

It's a short drive from Driffield, making it an easy stop if you're basing yourselves at Thorpe Hall Cottages or one of the coastal parks further afield like Haven Reighton Sands. History types will find it fascinating; families with young children might spend twenty minutes here before moving on. The churchyard is open during daylight, and there's no charge. Allow half an hour if you want to read the information boards and have a proper wander. The real magic is the stone itself - go on a quieter afternoon and you'll understand why people have been staring at it for five thousand years.