Wensleydale
Wensleydale is the broadest and most pastoral of the Yorkshire Dales, a wide river valley of exceptional agricultural beauty running east from the high fells above Hawes to the Vale of York, its broad floor of traditional meadows and its stone-built villages creating the archetypal image of the Yorkshire Dales that has appeared on countless calendars, postcards and chocolate boxes. The dale takes its name from the village of Wensley rather than from the River Ure that flows through it, and while the dale lacks the dramatic limestone pavements and waterfalls of some of its neighbours, it compensates with a landscape of human-made beauty that reflects centuries of traditional farming practice. The meadow landscape of Wensleydale is of national ecological importance. The traditional hay meadows that have been farmed by the same methods for centuries, cut once annually after the flowers have seeded and fertilised only with farmyard manure, support plant communities of extraordinary diversity including yellow rattle, wood crane's-bill, great burnet and dozens of grass and wildflower species that have been lost from the intensively managed lowland meadows of the rest of England. The Pennine Dales Meadows Special Area of Conservation protects the finest surviving examples, and a walk through an unimproved Wensleydale meadow in June is one of the most quietly beautiful experiences the English countryside offers. The dale is equally famous for its cheese, a crumbly white cow's milk variety with a history stretching back to the Cistercian monks of Jervaulx Abbey who developed the recipe in the twelfth century. The Wensleydale Creamery at Hawes, which narrowly escaped closure in the 1990s and was saved by a management buyout, now welcomes visitors to see traditional cheese-making in action and sells its products direct from the creamery shop. Aysgarth Falls, where the River Ure descends in three broad natural steps through the dale, is the most spectacular natural feature in Wensleydale and one of the most visited sites in the Dales. The nearby castles of Bolton and Middleham add historical depth to a dale that rewards slow exploration.