Sitting snugly between the brooding North York Moors to the east and the dramatic Lake District to the west are the Yorkshire Dales (from the Viking word dalr, meaning ‘valleys’), a marvellous area of high hills and moors, cut through by rugged stone walls and spotted with extravagant houses and the faded, spectral grandeur of monastic ruins.
A contender for best-looking village in Yorkshire, Hutton-le-Hole may sound odd but it’s actually a wonderful collection of gorgeous stone cottages centred on a village green, an undulating grassy expanse with a stream creating a small valley that divides the village in two. The dips and hollows on the green might give the village its name – it was once called simply Hutton Hole, but posh wannabe Victorians added the Frenchified ‘le’, which the locals defiantly pronounce ‘lee’. Its popularity as an understated tourist destination has twee-ified the place somewhat, but it’s lovely for a stroll and a streamside picnic.
Leeds struts across England’s urban stage like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, oozing the confidence that befits the favourite child of the New Urban Revolution, that unassailable force that has turned punch-drunk postindustrial cities into visions of the future. And the future round these parts is all about retail. For Leeds is the ‘Knightsbridge of the North’, the shopping mecca whose counter is just getting longer. Its heart is lined with busy pedestrianised streets, packed with shops, restaurants, upstanding Victorian edifices and stunning arcades. From cutting-edge couture to contemporary cuisine, Leeds will serve it to you on a plate… or in a stylishly designed bag. And when you’re through for the day, the night awaits, full of pubs, clubs and more restaurants to keep you fed and fuelled for more.
Wild, windswept and oh so interesting, the North York Moors – much of them protected by the boundaries of a national park – exist in isolated splendour; lonely, heather-clad hilltops staring down on steeply cut valleys and across to some of the most spectacular views you’ll see in the north of England. The ridge-top roads and high open moors afford terrific views of the dramatic countryside – where you will spot an isolated farm or village or come across the odd castle and ruined abbey – while to the east the moors suddenly give way to an even more dramatic coastline of sheer cliffs, sheltered bays and long sandy beaches.
The largest of Yorkshire’s four counties is also the most beautiful, if only because unlike the rest of northern England, mills and mines are nowhere to be found. Blissfully free of the landmarks of the Industrial Revolution, North Yorkshire has, since the Middle Ages, always been about sheep and the woolly wealth that they produced.
The lively market town of Pickering has its charms – most notably the Norman castle and the fabulous North Yorkshire Moors Railway, for which Pickering serves as a terminus – but it is too big and bustling to keep you in thrall. It is, however, a handy staging post from which to explore the eastern moors.