Day trips from York

Visitors to York may think that they need not leave the confines of the city for at least a week before their interest wanes, and they would be right! However, if York is your base and you have your own transport there is plenty to be seen that is within an easy day’s drive there and back.

Castle Howard

Drive along the A64 to the northeast for about 18 miles (towards Malton) and follow the signs to one of Britain’s most magnificent country houses. Castle Howard has been home to the Howard family for more than 300 years, having been designed by Sir John Vanburgh (a playwright who had never designed anything before) and Nicholas Hawksmoor. The building took more than 100 years to complete, but much of what the visitor sees today is the result of restoration after a disastrous fire in 1940. The building is familiar as the setting of “Brideshead Revisited”, filmed in 1978 and again in 2007.

The vast house has many rooms that are open to the public, including the Great Hall with its dome, which was rebuilt after the 1940 fire to the original design. There are many treasures on display, including furniture by Sheraton and Chippendale and paintings by Gainsborough, Rubens and Van Dyck.

There are also 1000 acres of grounds to explore, the extensive views being bracketed by examples of 18^th century extravagance in the form of temples, obelisks and statues. Water features abound, including fountains and large artificial lakes, on one of which boat trips can be taken to observe the wildlife.

The gardens include a walled rose garden with more than 2,000 varieties and a woodland garden that is renowned for its changing colours as the seasons rotate.

Castle Howard represents excellent value for its entry fee, with the needs of children also taken into account. A full family day out is therefore guaranteed.

North York Moors

Only about ten miles further on from Castle Howard is Pickering, which is the terminus of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. This was used as the route of the “Hogwarts Express” in the Harry Potter films. The line cuts through the North York Moors to Grosmont and Whitby, with trains being drawn by steam or diesel locomotives. It is possible to go all the way to Whitby and spend a few hours in this fascinating old port town before making the return journey in order to get back to York in reasonable time.

Another way to explore the Moors, during the summer months, is by “Moorsbus”, a network of routes through the Moors that, with careful planning, you can use to create a special day trip that leaves the driving to someone else. You can buy a ticket that lasts all day on all the Moorsbus routes (children travel free if with a fare-paying adult). You can park at several locations within easy reach of York and just set off. If you want to get off the bus and just walk across the magnificent landscape of the open moors you can do so and just hail a bus when you see one on the route back. There is one bus a day each way between York and Helmsley, an ancient market town on the edge of the Moors with medieval castle ruins to explore.

Rievaulx Abbey and district

This ruined Cistercian Abbey is close to Helmsley and therefore within easy day-trip distance of York. Although the site was despoiled during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s, the skeleton of the Abbey church, plus traces of the monastic buildings surrounding it, bear witness to the wealth that the Abbey must have possessed in its heyday. The beautiful setting of the Abbey in its wooded valley is also very atmospheric and tranquil.

Unconnected with the Abbey, but not far away, is the Rievaulx Terrace, which was constructed in the 18^th century to provide a romantic view of the Abbey in the valley below. This provides a picnic spot for a break during a full-day trip to the area.

Rievaulx  is close to the Hambleton Hills, which offer splendid views across the Vale of York to the Yorkshire Dales in the distance. At Sutton Bank is a National Park Visitor Centre, and not far away is the massive Kilburn White Horse, the most northerly such feature in the country. You need to be at the bottom of the hill to appreciate it fully but at the top to get the best views of the surrounding countryside.

Also not far away is Byland Abbey, another Cistercian foundation that was always the “poor relative” of Rievaulx. The ruins are not as extensive as those at Rievaulx, but are impressive nevertheless, with the lower half of the frame of a huge rose window at the west end of the church being particularly noteworthy.

Should time permit, a visit can be made to Shandy Hall, Coxwold, which was the home of the eccentric English novelist Lawrence Sterne (1713-68), the author of “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman”. The house is open as a museum of memorabilia devoted to Sterne, although only on Wednesday and Sunday afternoons. The 2-acre gardens are open as a separate attraction, every day except Saturdays.

Harrogate and Knaresborough

Knaresborough is 22 miles west of York, with Harrogate being four miles beyond. The former is an attractive old town that rises above the River Nidd as it flows through a steep gorge. Visitors will be interested in the 14^th century castle, with its dungeon and underground tunnel, and “Mother Shipton’s Cave”, which is reputed to be where a 16^th century prophetess predicted events including the wars of the 20^th century. Perhaps even stranger is the “Petrifying Well”, where objects hung in the constant drip of mineral-rich water are turned to stone within a few months.

Harrogate owes its fame to the remarkable properties of the springs that rise in the area and which turned the town into a celebrated spa during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The Royal Pump Room and Royal Baths can still be visited, although “taking the waters” is no longer fashionable.

Harrogate is renowned for its parks and gardens which complement the elegant Victorian architecture of the town’s buildings and monuments. Of particular note are the Valley Gardens, with the 600 feet long Sun Colonnade along one side, and The Stray, a 200-acre area of common land on the south side of the town centre. Several mineral wells rise in these and other open spaces in the town. The Harlow Carr gardens, on the western side of the town, belong to the Royal Horticultural Society and can be visited on payment of a fee.

The Yorkshire Coast

A day at the seaside is perfectly possible starting from York. Bridlington has a safe sandy beach and is an excellent, albeit declined, family resort. On the road to Bridlington from York you soon pass the site of the Battle of Stamford Bridge, where King Harold defeated a Norwegian invasion before marching to defeat at Hastings in 1066.

Filey is somewhat more upmarket as a resort than Bridlington, with many Edwardian features including some splendid public gardens. It also boasts miles of sandy beach.

Scarborough is the largest Yorkshire resort, with everything to provide a family day out including two sandy beaches, amusements and rides, a cliff railway, boat trips and a sea life centre. Between the two beaches, on a headland, stand the extensive ruins of Scarborough Castle which dates from the 12^th century.

An alternative to a day on the beach is offered by the cliff scenery at Flamborough Head, just north of Bridlington. The 400-foot chalk cliffs are best seen from the north side. You can visit the lighthouse on the Head itself, or go two miles up the coast to the nature reserve at Bempton Cliffs which is famous for its gannets and puffins. If time permits, you can take a boat trip from Bridlington to view the Flamborough and Bempton Cliffs from the sea.

The above suggestions are by no means an exhaustive list of the day trips you can make using York as your base. The towns of Ripon and Selby, with their respective Cathedral and Abbey, are well within day-trip distance, as are the ruins of Fountains Abbey, another vast Cistercian abbey that was dissolved in the 1530s. You could even venture into the southern part of the Yorkshire Dales, but the further you go the less time you will have to appreciate their beauty.

However long you spend in York, and however many day trips you make, you are bound to want to come back and see and do more!

© John Welford