Scenic Point in North Yorkshire

Beningbrough Hall is an early eighteenth-century country house of the highest architectural quality standing in its own parkland beside the River Ouse in North Yorkshire, managed by the National Trust and housing an exceptional collection of portraits from the National Portrait Gallery which provides the principal focus of the interior display. The house was built between 1712 and 1716 and is one of the finest examples of early eighteenth-century English baroque architecture in the north of England, its restrained but confident exterior and richly decorated interior representing the best of the Queen Anne architectural tradition applied by a talented provincial architect. The house was built for John Bourchier and the quality of the craftsmanship throughout is remarkable for a house of this period and this region. The carved woodwork, the plasterwork ceilings, the painted staircase hall and the bold architectural mouldings of the principal rooms represent a level of execution that compares favourably with the great London houses of the same period. The central hall rising to the full height of the house and lit by a clerestory above is one of the finest baroque interior spaces in the north of England, its proportions and details carefully calibrated to produce an impression of solemnity and grandeur appropriate to the aspirations of its patron. The partnership with the National Portrait Gallery allows Beningbrough to display over one hundred seventeenth and eighteenth-century portraits within its historic rooms, providing a combination of architectural quality and picture collection that creates an unusually coherent and satisfying visitor experience. The portraits, displayed in appropriate period settings, illuminate both the history of the house and the broader history of the period they represent. The walled garden and the parkland setting by the Ouse provide good outdoor visiting, and the combination of house, garden and landscape makes Beningbrough one of the most rewarding National Trust properties in Yorkshire.

Goathland on the North Yorkshire Moors is a village of considerable charm and historical character that has achieved a level of fame in contemporary popular culture quite disproportionate to its modest size through its use as the filming location for the television series Heartbeat, which ran for eighteen series between 1992 and 2010 and used the village as the fictional Aidensfield. The filming association has made Goathland one of the most visited villages in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park, and the combination of the Heartbeat heritage, the genuine moorland village character and the Goathland station on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway creates a destination of considerable visitor appeal. The village green, the pub and the surrounding moorland landscape retain their character as a genuinely traditional North Yorkshire Moors moorland village, the grazing sheep and the open moorland around the village perimeter providing the authentic backdrop that made it attractive to the Heartbeat production team. The station on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway heritage line, styled as Hogsmeade Station for the Harry Potter films, provides an additional cultural reference point that brings a younger demographic to complement the Heartbeat visitor base. The Mallyan Spout waterfall accessible by a short walk from the village provides an excellent natural feature complementing the village visit, the waterfall cascading approximately 20 metres into the West Beck gorge in a setting of considerable woodland beauty particularly attractive in the autumn when the surrounding deciduous trees are at their most colourful.

Helmsley is the finest market town in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park, a stone town of considerable charm surrounding a market square that provides the principal visitor centre for the southern section of the moors. The combination of the ruined medieval castle, the walled garden, the excellent independent shops and restaurants and the access it provides to the walking of the Cleveland Way and the Tabular Hills makes Helmsley the most complete and most welcoming base for exploring the western North Yorkshire Moors. Helmsley Castle, managing by English Heritage, is a castle of considerable historical depth whose ruined towers and keep provide excellent views over the town and the surrounding countryside, and the unusual combination of the medieval fortification with the substantial domestic range that was added in the sixteenth century by the Manners family reflects the transition of this castle from a purely military function to a comfortable aristocratic residence. The earthwork defences that surround the castle are among the most complete and best-preserved of any English castle. The Helmsley Walled Garden, restored from dereliction since 1994 by a charitable trust, provides one of the finest examples of a Victorian walled garden restoration in Yorkshire, its productive beds, glasshouses and ornamental sections creating an excellent horticultural visit complementary to the castle. The Ryedale Folk Museum at nearby Hutton-le-Hole and the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey seven miles to the northwest provide excellent complementary heritage destinations for a base at Helmsley.

Hutton-le-Hole in the North Yorkshire Moors is one of the most beautiful and most photographed villages in North Yorkshire, a settlement of stone cottages scattered on both sides of the Hutton Beck across the village green whose combination of the stream, the green, the grazing sheep and the moorland visible above creates one of the most complete and most immediately appealing English village scenes available in the national park. The Ryedale Folk Museum in the village provides one of the finest open-air museums of traditional English rural life in the north of England. The Ryedale Folk Museum houses an exceptional collection of traditional buildings from across the North Yorkshire Moors that have been relocated and reconstructed on the museum site, creating an open-air village of cruck houses, thatched cottages, craft workshops and agricultural buildings that represents the rural built environment of the North Yorkshire Moors from the medieval period to the twentieth century. The working demonstrations of traditional crafts provide the most engaging interaction with the heritage on display. The village of Hutton-le-Hole itself, with its scattered cottages, the sheep grazing freely on the green and the stream dividing the village into two sections connected by bridges, provides one of the finest examples of an organic moorland village settlement in Yorkshire. The walking from the village onto the surrounding moorland provides immediate access to the North Yorkshire Moors landscape of heather and wide sky that frames the village.

Masham is a charming small market town in the Ure Valley of North Yorkshire celebrated throughout England as the home of two of the most acclaimed independent breweries in the country: the Theakston Brewery, whose Old Peculier beer has been produced here since 1827, and the Black Sheep Brewery established in 1992. The combination of the two brewery visitor experiences in a single market town has made Masham one of the most visited beer tourism destinations in Yorkshire. The Theakston Brewery offers tours of the Victorian brewery buildings and the cooperage where oak casks are still made by hand in one of the last working cooperages in England. The Black Sheep Brewery, established in a distinctive Victorian maltings building above the town, provides a more modern brewery tour experience with exceptional views of the Ure Valley from its elevated position. The market place of Masham, one of the largest in North Yorkshire relative to the size of the town, hosts a weekly market and provides the centre of a market town that has maintained its traditional character while developing a visitor offer based on genuine local products of exceptional quality.

Robin Hood's Bay is one of the most picturesque and most visited fishing villages on the Yorkshire coast, a steeply tiered settlement of red-roofed cottages packed into a narrow ravine that descends from the cliff top to the beach below in a composition of extraordinary visual charm that makes it one of the most photographed villages in the north of England. The village has no connection with the legendary outlaw whose name it bears, the origin of the name remaining obscure, but its character as a former fishing and smuggling community on a remote section of the North Yorkshire coast gives it a historical atmosphere that complements its natural beauty. The village descends steeply from the main road parking area to the beach below on a single, very narrow road flanked by the close-packed cottages of the fishing community, their doors, windows and small gardens creating a human-scaled streetscape of considerable intimacy. The narrowness of the space between the buildings, the steepness of the descent and the sound of the sea growing louder as you approach the beach create an experience of progressive revelation characteristic of the finest English seaside villages. At the bottom, the rocky shore opens out and the wide expanse of the bay, enclosed by the headlands of North Cheek and the cliffs toward Whitby to the north, provides a rewarding contrast to the enclosed village. The beach and the rock pools exposed at low tide provide excellent fossil hunting, the alum shales of the Yorkshire coast having produced ichthyosaur and other Jurassic marine reptile remains over many years of collecting by both professional and amateur palaeontologists. Robin Hood's Bay is the eastern terminus of the Coast to Coast walk, Alfred Wainwright's 192-mile crossing of England from St Bees in Cumbria, and arriving walkers traditionally complete their journey by dipping their boots in the sea on the beach below the village.

Thornton-le-Dale near Pickering in the North Yorkshire Moors is consistently voted the most beautiful village in Yorkshire, a settlement of stone cottages along a beck fringed with daffodils in spring and lined with willows in summer. A thatched whitewashed cottage by the beck is one of the most photographed buildings in the north of England, appearing on calendars and in photographic collections of English village scenes with remarkable frequency. The village has the genuine character of a working agricultural settlement rather than a preserved tourist artefact, its residents managing working farms and ordinary village life alongside the considerable visitor interest its reputation generates. The beck flowing through the centre creates the visual element that defines the scene and provides the perpetual gentle sound of flowing water that animates any visit. The stocks on the village green and the medieval market cross provide historical focal points, and the surrounding architecture of limestone and pantile roofs reflects the characteristic building tradition of the North Yorkshire Moors. The North Yorkshire Moors Railway station at Pickering nearby and Dalby Forest to the north provide excellent complementary heritage and outdoor experiences.