The 13 best things to do in Yorkshire (2024)

As England’s largest county, you can expect Yorkshire to be a bit exceptional. It is England in miniature: high fells and moorland for wild walking; soft green valleys for timeless villages and sparkling rivers (waterfalls, too); a bracing coastline for family beaches and fossil-hunting; and rolling farmland dotted with romantic ruined abbeys and sprawling stately homes.

Add to the mix a lively dollop of culture – a 500-acre sculpture park, David Hockney, moody Brontë country, museums from the quaint (toys) to the spectacular (trains) – plus one-off Yorkshire experiences such as steaming across the moors in vintage railway carriages, and everyone should be happy.

For further inspiration, see our holiday guide toYorkshireand the besthotels,pubs,beachesandrestaurantsin the area.

• North York Moors and the surrounding area
• Yorkshire Dales
• East Yorkshire and Coast
• Towns and cities

It may not be as isolated as when it was founded by 12th-century Cistercian monks, butRievaulx Abbey’ssetting – beside the River Rye and cupped by protective wooded slopes – is still pretty magical. Once one of the most powerful and wealthiest abbeys in the country, its roofless ruins still rise majestically and make you catch your breath when they first reveal themselves.

Insider’s tip:One of the most dramatic views is fromRievaulx Terraceabove a long greensward book-ended by classical-style temples, built in 1758 by wealthy neighbour Thomas Duncombe as a picnicking spot to capture the romance of the vista.

Contact: english-heritage.org.uk
Price: ££

Roll back the years to when trains ran on time, guards were cheery and engines whistled. Settle yourself into a vintage carriage and let one of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway’s steam engines huff and puff as it carries you in comfort over the 24 miles from Pickering to Whitby. Passing through woodland and secret valleys, trains snort their way up the532 feet to Goathland Summit before winding back down to Whitby.

Insider's tip:All services are ‘hop on, hop off’ – there are four stations in between Pickering and Whitby – so you can either have a cuppa at one of the station tea-rooms or follow the Rail Trail walk between the stops.

Contact: nymr.co.uk
Price: ££/£££

Insider's tip: The heather is at its blooming purple best from late July through to early September – as good as the lavender fields of Provence.

Contact: northyorkmoors.org.uk
Price: Free

The self-styled ‘food capital of Yorkshire’, Malton, is a bustling, colourful and pin-neat market town – even the bank has a vine growing up its façade - where every other business seems to be aimed at your palate: artisan bakeries, coffee roasters, delis, butchers, brewers and tea-shops. You can take a tour on your own – most places are clustered in and around the Market Place and Yorkersgate – or book a guided tour with guaranteed tastings.

Insider’s tip: Visit the Rare Bird gin distilleryand you’ll get a free tot – and a tour if they’re not busy. Or book a place at their ‘gin school’ to make your own bottle of ‘Mother’s Ruin’, choosing from over 30 different botanicals.

Contact: visitmalton.com
Price: £££

If you have to choose a grand house to visit, you may as well go for one with film-set good looks (Brideshead Revisited, Bridgerton, Victoria), a jaw-dropping frontage and a 1000-acre parkland scattered with follies. Castle Howard, still lived in by the Howard family, is a fine mix of Baroque and Palladian styles. Interiors are suitably lavish with a rich collection of art, from Italian masters to Pre-Raphaelites. Save time for the grounds which include walled garden, woodland garden, lakes, a sumptuous Nicholas Hawksmoor-designed mausoleum plus a John Vanbrugh-designed temple.

Insider’s tip: If children need persuading to visit, challenge them with the Statue Trail, then let them run wild in the Adventure Playground.

Contact: castlehoward.co.uk
Price: ££

Malham Cove is limestone scenery at its best. The 230-foot high cliff, a curving and sheer wall which lies an easy half-a-mile walk from Malham village, is the result of ice action and glacial meltwater eroding the rock 12,000 years ago. For a more spectacular walk (which demands fitness), head to the rocky canyon of Gordale Scar, scramble up its waterfall and around Malham Tarn to the limestone pavement that leads to the top of Malham Cove (around 7.5 miles in total).

Insider’s tip: Visit between April and June and you’ve a good chance of spotting the pair of peregrine falcons that breed here; wardens are on hand with binoculars and telescopes for close-ups.

Contact:yorkshiredales.org.uk
Price: Free

Insider’s tip: The Strid Wood Tea Rooms, 10 minutes from its namesake, are less busy, and cosier, than the main Cavendish Pavilion café.

Contact: boltonabbey.com
Price: ££(free if arrive by foot, bicycle or public transport)

For a good day out, the quintessential Dales’ market town of Hawes, in upper Wensleydale, is both hard-working – regular farmers auction, weekly market, Wensleydale cheese-making – and attractive. Apart from Wensleydale Creamery – watch the handmade process, then taste – there’s the Dales Countryside Museum (locos to butter-churning), the family-run Raydale Preserves (jams to chutneys, curds to sauces), pubs, cafes and antique shops. Just outside town you’ll find Hardraw Force, England’s highest single-drop waterfall.

Insider’s tip: Two other waterfalls worth visiting in upper Wensleydale are Aysgarth, which tumbles in three tiers, and West Burton, in the outrageously pretty village of the same name.

Contact:yorkshiredales.org.uk
Price: £

Not only do you get two World Heritage sites for the price of one, at this tranquil spot in the Skell valley near Ripon, but two wildly different experiences. The lofty ruins of Fountains Abbey, with vast vaulted cellar, soaring columns and windowless arches, is one of the largest medieval Cistercian monasteries in England. Alongside it spread the glossy-magazine-perfect 18th-century water gardens of Studley Royal with their ‘moon ponds’, geometrically perfect canals, dancing cascades and eccentric buildings – a temple here, a summerhouse there. The latter are perfectly placed both to capture, and be framed by, the views.

Insider’s tip: The grounds include a deer park in which wildlife volunteers run monthly deer walks (free) to allow you closer access to the red, fallow and sika deer population.

Contact: nationaltrust.org.uk
Price: ££

Everyone visiting Whitby makes a beeline for the Abbey whose gaunt medieval ruins rear up on the eastern headland. The views are magnificent and worth the 199-step climb. But it would be a mistake to ignore Whitby Museum set in parkland and across the other side of town. An idiosyncratic ‘museum of curiosities’ whose old-fashioned cabinets contain items from Victorian tonsillectomy guillotines to dolls’ houses, early Meccano toys to ships in light bulbs, as well as gigantic 175-million-year-old fossil creatures.

Insider’s tip: Not far below the museum, Silver Street and neighbouring Skinner Street are worth browsing for their mix of traditional and more outré shops, from old-fashioned confectioners and antiques to ‘goth’ clothing.

Contact:whitbymuseum.org.uk
Price: £

One of England’s quietest and most bucolic long-distance national trails, the Yorkshire Wolds Way, curves gently from Hessle, on the Humber estuary, through the chalk landscape and rich farmland of East Yorkshire to Filey on the coast, 79 miles away. Dry valleys, wildflower meadows and softly rolling hills (only a couple of short, sharp ascents) mean walkers of all levels can enjoy it. The views from the hill-tops are horizon-stretching – York Minster on a clear day – and red kites and hares are likely to be spotted. David Hockney knew the landscape from his youth, and returned to paint it in vibrant, paint-box colours. No need to do it all; it breaks down into six sections, or there are circular walk options.

Insider’s tip: To see the colourful poppy fields, plan your walk for June or early July when they’re at their glowing best.

Contact: nationaltrail.co.uk
Price: Free

Insider’s tip: Leave time to pop inside the excessively grand Italianate United Reformed Church to see its cupola, Corinthian columns and vast chandeliers.

Contact:saltsmill.org.uk
Price: Free

The 500-acreYorkshire Sculpture Park near Wakefieldrepays a slow, meandering visit. The artwork varies from the familiar curves of a Henry Moore and chunky metalwork of Eduardo Paolozzi to the monumental figures of Sean Henry and the mesmerising beauty of Kimsooja’s ‘A Needle Woman’, whose shimmering needle-thin pyramid of reflective resin panels soars into the sky. Some, such as Dennis Oppenheim’s ‘trees’ of old household junk, are both comical and thought-provoking.

Insider’s tip: Pack a picnic; there are heaps of thoughtfully placed benches and tables, often tucked in copses or overlooking one of the lakes.

Contact: ysp.org.uk
Price:£

Harrogate is everything you’d expect of a well-bred, northern town that once compared favourably with the grandest European spas – the first of the town’s 80-odd medicinal springs was discovered in the 16th century – with tree-lined avenues, Regency terraces, lush hanging baskets, delis and tearooms, antique shops and art galleries. Discover its history (and taste the water) at the octagonal Royal Pump Room Museum, before ‘taking a turn’ in the immaculate Valley Gardens and browsing Montpellier Quarter’s classy shops. Have a wallow at the Victorian Turkish Baths, with their original Moorish tiling, before afternoon tea at Bettys.

Insider’s tip: A bosky two-mile walk from Valley Gardens takes you to Harlow Carr gardens, the Royal Horticultural Society’s northern outpost at Beckwithshaw – and which also, usefully, has a branch of Betty’s.

Contact: visitharrogate.co.uk
Price: £-££

What’s rather shocking about this museum – one of the world’s largest collections of arms and armour – is how weapons can make such extraordinarily beautiful displays. The modern monolith of a building, overlooking Leeds Dock, has a hexagonal tower hung with a mesmerising pattern of swords, suits of armour, helmets and bayonets. These are just part of a truly vast collection, from Ming dynasty swords to Henry Vlll’s armour, and from an Indian elephant in full armour to early machine guns and an umbrella gun. There are opportunities to handle – safely, obviously – some of the items, plus daily live shows such as medieval longsword fighting and jousting.

Insider’s tip: For a fun way to arrive, take the bright-yellow water taxi from Granary Wharf, near the south entrance to Leeds railway station.

Contact: royalarmouries.org
Price: Free