Other in West Yorkshire

Bolton Abbey in the Yorkshire Dales is a ruined Augustinian priory of exceptional beauty set in a wooded valley of the River Wharfe, one of the most beautiful and most visited heritage landscapes in the north of England. The priory was established in 1154 and developed over the following centuries into a substantial monastic complex before its suppression by Henry VIII in 1539. The nave of the priory church survived the Dissolution and remains in use as the parish church of the local community, while the remaining conventual buildings are preserved as ruins within the parkland of the Devonshire estate. The setting of Bolton Abbey is the principal reason for its status as one of the great visitor attractions of the Dales. The River Wharfe curves through a wide wooded valley below the priory buildings, and the combination of the romantic ruined arches of the east end of the priory church, the sound of the river, the mature woodland of oak and beech on the valley sides and the open moorland visible above creates a landscape of which successive generations of British visitors, from the early Romantic tourists of the eighteenth century to the present day, have never tired. Turner, Landseer and Ruskin all painted or sketched at Bolton Abbey, and the combination of natural beauty and historical association that drew them continues to draw half a million visitors annually. The Strid, a dramatic natural feature a short walk upstream from the priory, is where the full volume of the Wharfe is compressed through a narrow gorge of water-smoothed limestone, the dark water churning through the rock channel with a force that is immediately and viscerally dangerous despite the apparent narrowness of the crossing. The Strid has claimed many lives over the centuries and its reputation for lethal deceptiveness is thoroughly deserved: the channel is far deeper than it appears and the walls beneath the surface are deeply undercut. The Bolton Abbey estate, owned by the Devonshire family since 1753, includes extensive walking trails, the Cavendish Pavilion restaurant and café, and the atmospheric single-carriage Embsay and Bolton Abbey steam railway.

Kirkstall Abbey on the western edge of Leeds is one of the finest and most complete Cistercian abbey ruins in England, a twelfth-century monastery whose roofless but substantially intact church, cloister buildings and gatehouse survive in remarkable condition alongside the River Aire in a setting that preserves something of the rural character the monks sought when they chose this site in 1152. The abbey is managed by Leeds City Council and is freely accessible to the public, making it one of the most generously available medieval heritage sites in the north of England. The abbey was founded by monks from Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire, the great Cistercian mother house, and the family connection is visible in the architecture, which follows the same austere Early English style that characterises Cistercian building across the north of England. The church, though roofless, retains its west front, nave, transepts and tower in a state of preservation that allows the quality and ambition of the original building to be read clearly. The cloister buildings to the south of the church, including the chapter house, refectory and warming house, provide an unusually complete picture of how the domestic arrangements of a Cistercian monastery were organised. The abbey's later history includes dissolution by Henry VIII in 1539, a period of use as a quarry for building stone, and a gradual transition from ruin to civic heritage site as the industrial city of Leeds grew up around it. The Abbey House Museum in the gatehouse provides interpretation of the abbey's history and the social history of the surrounding area, and the Kirkstall riverside walk connects the abbey with the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the River Aire green corridor. The scale and completeness of Kirkstall, together with its free admission and urban accessibility, make it one of the most democratic heritage experiences in the north of England.

The Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds is one of the oldest museums in Britain and houses one of the world's most significant collections of arms, armour and artillery. Although its roots lie in the Tower of London where successive monarchs accumulated weapons and armour over centuries, the Leeds museum that opened in 1996 brought much of this collection to a purpose-built home in the city's revitalised waterfront district and created a world-class visitor experience that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. The collection spans five themed galleries: War, Tournament, Oriental, Self Defence and Hunting. The War gallery contains armour and weapons from across more than five centuries of European and global conflict, from medieval plate armour to seventeenth-century firearms and beyond. The scale of some individual pieces is astonishing: complete sets of armour made for Henry VIII, who was a substantial figure even by modern standards, illustrate the extraordinary craftsmanship of Tudor court armouries. Jousting armour, with its asymmetrical reinforcement and carefully designed lances, reveals the technical sophistication that lay behind what might appear to be straightforward sporting combat. The Tournament gallery celebrates the medieval and Renaissance tournament as a complex social and athletic phenomenon. Live interpretation events staged regularly in the museum's indoor performance area include jousting demonstrations, falconry displays and costumed interpretation that bring the collection to life. The Hunting gallery explores the history of the chase from prehistoric spears to eighteenth-century sporting firearms, with material ranging from Indian elephant howdahs to the bows that helped win the Battle of Agincourt. The Oriental gallery is one of the finest collections of Asian armour and weapons in the world, including Japanese samurai armour of exquisite quality and craftsmanship, Mughal Indian arms and armour, and weapons from across the Ottoman Empire. The diversity of materials, techniques and aesthetic traditions represented here provides a genuinely global perspective on the history of arms and armour. Entry to the Royal Armouries is free, making it one of the best value cultural attractions in the north of England. The museum's café and retail spaces are of good quality, and the riverside setting in Leeds Dock allows visitors to combine a museum visit with a walk along the regenerated waterfront.

Malham Tarn is an extraordinary natural feature of the Yorkshire Dales, the highest natural lake in England, lying at over 380 metres above sea level in a limestone landscape of exceptional geological interest. The tarn and its surrounding environment form a National Nature Reserve and a Site of Special Scientific Interest, protected for both its ecology and its unusual geological situation. What makes Malham Tarn particularly unusual is its very existence. Limestone is a porous rock through which water typically drains quickly rather than forming permanent lakes. The tarn exists because it sits above an impermeable layer of Silurian slate at the bottom of a glacially scoured basin, trapped by a geological fault that juxtaposes the permeable limestone with rock that holds water. The surrounding limestone landscape drained rapidly after the last Ice Age, leaving behind a patchwork of dry valleys, limestone pavements and springs that makes the Malham area one of the finest karst landscapes in Britain. The tarn and surrounding fen, marsh and calcareous grassland support an outstanding range of wildlife. The fen community in particular contains plant species associated with the high calcium levels produced by the limestone bedrock, including rare sedge communities and wetland plants that have become scarce across much of northern England. The tarn itself supports breeding populations of several water birds and is an important feeding site for migratory species. The field study centre on the tarn shore, established in 1947, has been a base for ecological research and environmental education for more than 70 years. The landscape around Malham Tarn can be explored as part of the Malham circular walk, one of the most popular and rewarding day walks in the Yorkshire Dales. The full circuit takes in not only the tarn but also the spectacular Malham Cove, a curving limestone cliff 80 metres high with an extensive limestone pavement at its summit, and Gordale Scar, a dramatic limestone gorge with two waterfalls that can be climbed with care in dry conditions. The combination of dramatic geology, clear walking paths and the varied scenery between these features makes the Malham area one of the best day walking destinations in northern England.