The Forest of Bowland covers some 300 square miles in the north of Lancashire and in North Yorkshire. About 13% of it is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Around half of it was originally in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The countryside is extremely pretty, with hills rising up to around 1,500 feet above sea level and numerous streams running through it.
Tags: Forest of Bowland streams trees woods Lancashire
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Wensleydale is one of the northern Dales, and runs from east to west. Its main settlement is the town of Hawes, which is just out of shot. This picture was taken from the southern end of the narrow lane, which goes up over the top from Askrigg and
links Wensleydale with Swaledale.
Tags: Wensleydale Yorkshire Dales National Park countryside fells North Yorkshire
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When we recently stayed in Harrogate for a couple of nights we decided to pay a visit to Pateley Bridge, which we had passed through a few months previously. It's a very attractive small market town in Nidderdale in the Borough of Harrogate. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it lies on the River Nidd.
Apparently, it has the oldest sweet shop in England. Established in 1827, it is housed in one of the earliest buildings in Pateley Bridge, dating from 1661. Pateley Bridge is also the home of the Nidderdale Museum.
The last Dales agricultural show of the year, the Nidderdale Show, is held annually on the showground by the River Nidd. The show attracts over 14,000 visitors each year. Pateley Bridge lies just outside the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
Tags: North Yorkshire Pateley Bridge market towns street scenes
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We've just returned from a short visit to the Yorkshire Dales, and this time we were not so lucky with the weather. The only time we saw the sun was on our last day, and so we tried to make the most of it and crammed as much in as possible.
As we drove up over the Buttertubs Pass from Wensleydale this was the view of Swaledale that greeted us. The last of the recent snow was still clinging to the hillsides. Swaledale runs broadly from west to east (parallel to Wensleydale) and is a typical limestone Yorkshire dale, with its narrow valley bottom road, green meadows and fellside fields, white sheep and dry stone walls on the glacier-formed valley sides, and darker moorland skyline. The upper parts of the dale are particularly striking because of its large old limestone field barns.
The village in the picture is Muker. At one time this was a Norse settlement though there are remains dating from the bronze age. During the 18th and 19th centuries lead mining was the most important local industry, but now agriculture and tourism provide the principal earnings.
Tags: North Yorkshire Yorkshire Dales Swaledale Muker villages
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The most popular route from Wensleydale to Swaledale is to drive up over Buttertubs Pass. But coming back towards Wensleydale I decided to take a very steep, winding and narrow country lane that took me up the side of Swaledale and over Askrigg Common, before descending into the village of Askrigg in Wensleydale. The lane runs alongside Oxnop Ghyll on the southern side of Swaledale where the dry stone walls, small stone farmhouses and stone barns are a feature of this classic Dales landscape.
Tags: North Yorkshire Yorkshire Dales National Park old stone barns Dry stone walls Swaledale Askrigg Common Oxnop Ghyll
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