In early 2023, the ‘Stonehenge of the North’ was being hyped in the media: a trio of neolithic earthworks by the village of Thornborough, east of Masham, on the flatlands between Yorkshire’s Dales and Moors. I couldn’t resist a folding-bike visit, enabled by the ongoing £2 flat bus fare scheme. The hyping came about because…
Category: Yorkshire Ridings
Masham: The genuine fake Druid’s Temple
Every list of ‘quirky sights of Yorkshire’ includes the Druid’s Temple, a few miles west of Masham on the edge of the Dales. And every list then quickly stresses that IT’S NOT A REAL DRUIDS’ TEMPLE, but is a folly. It was built not by wise ancients in pointy hats and white robes, but by…
Swanland: Thinking outside the phone box
You know you’re getting old when the Grade II listed buildings are younger than you. And if, like me, you grew up in the East Riding – that flat, quiet, forgotten third of Yorkshire – then you might now be feeling geriatric. Because this very month, nine K8 phone boxes in and around Hull were…
Goodmanham: Fired up
I retraced a historic ride today. It involved arson, miracle wells, religious wars, Britain’s tallest man, a nineteenth-century LGBT film-star, another £2 flat bus fare, and a pint of bitter with 0.012 food miles. The historic ride in question was that of Coifi, a torch-happy pagan high priest whose sudden conversion in 627 to the…
Helmsley: Star line-ups
And another two-quid trundle, thanks to the 31X York to Helmsley bus and folding bike. This one featured a mighty ruined abbey, a Michelin-star restaurant, and a local brewery-bar gem. Star quality for all budgets, from £175 tasting menus down to £1.55 pork pies. You can probably guess which end I’m at. The run up…
Ripon: Up secret valleys, down Cathedral rabbit holes
Another two-quid trundle – that is, a £2-flat-fare bus trip with a folding bike – took me to Ripon. It’s famous for its 800-year-old nightly horn signal, which I’ve experienced before with no clothes on. But my bargain trip today was to visit Yorkshire’s oldest continuously used building, and wander round the nearby Studley Royal…
Castle Howard: Bridleway Revisited
The road to Castle Howard is one of the oddest in Yorkshire. It bounds straight over slopes of the Hambleton Hills AONB, as straight as a reformed ex-con arrow following a Roman Road with a ruler-defined GPX. And it has some cool gates that are only just big enough to admit a bus, or those…
Goathland: Spouting off about time travel
There are plenty of reasons to come to Goathland, one of the North York Moors’ most characterful and interesting villages. Its setting for the 1990s ITV series Heartbeat. The station’s appearances in Harry Potter. A road built by a giant, or the Romans, or perhaps someone else. Mallyan Spout’s dramatic waterfall. Sheep. For me, though,…
Whitby: A Gothic-Horror hill
Most people come to Whitby for the Goth festivals, the fish and chips, the quaint old fishing-cottage alleys, Captain Cook, the Abbey, or the Dracula shtick. Today, I came for a cobbled lane. Because the rugged harbour gem has a candidate for Britain’s steepest cyclable street. Well, cyclable in theory. Church Road, aka Donkey Track,…
Map addict: Darlington to Whitby with an OS-meister
My friend Mark Wedgwood is on a remarkable journey right now: cycling all 204 OS Landranger maps, in order. It’s a 7,000-mile odyssey that will take him everywhere in Britain. To exotic, far-flung places even I’ve never been, like St Kilda, or Skegness. He’s blogging about his journey at ridealltheosmaps.co.uk, and Instagramming on @ridealltheosmaps. Today…