Starting in Leeds and sprinting through to Harrogate, Stage 1 of the Grand Départ takes the scenic route through the Yorkshire Dales. Mike Bagshaw, author of our Slow Travel Yorkshire Dales guide, takes us on a tour of some of the towns and villages the riders will see along the way.
Skipton
Skipton High Street © Welcome to Yorkshire
In Yorkshire Dales terms this is a large town. It owes its origins to those white, woolly, grass-eaters in the surrounding fields – hence the ‘sheeptown’ label. Its commercial and industrial prominence owes more to its rail and canal links with the bigger towns of West Yorkshire.
All the wool and cotton mills are closed now, but the railways are always busy, taking commuters out to Keighley, Bradford and Leeds, and bringing tourists in. Many of these visitors do use Skipton as a gateway to the rest of the Dales, but lots don’t get any further, as there are a wealth of diversions to occupy them in and around the town. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal is a big draw, whether you’re chugging along it on a narrowboat, strolling beside it on the towpath or just sitting in a waterside café or pub watching other people chug or stroll. I think that the most attractive bit of the canal is a small dead end offshoot called the Spring Branch that curls around the back of Skipton Castle giving walking access to Skipton Woods – well worth a potter, especially in May when the carpets of wild garlic and bluebells beneath the trees are at their peak.
Kettlewell
Transport on foot, whether two or four, has long been a theme here. Kettlewell grew up at the meeting place of packhorse and drovers’ routes and is now quite a centre for walkers, using many of those old bridleways of course. I’m sure our ancestors would find our walking for leisure odd though, especially the habit of heading for the highest hill-tops. Their walks were everyday practical means of journeying from village to village and valley to valley via the lowest and easiest route. They wouldn’t dream of aiming for the summit of Great Whernside, which is my favourite destination from Kettlewell.
Hawes
Sitting at the meeting point of at least four ancient packhorse routes, Hawes is undoubtedly the capital of Upper Wensleydale and its position far up the dale makes it the highest-altitude market town in Yorkshire. Its popularity has waxed and waned over the years: booms with the building of the Lancaster–Richmond turnpike road and the coming of the railway in the 1870s, slumps when the mills went quiet, and on the railways closure in the 1960s. Hawes is now busier than it ever has been but ironically, the tourists that the town almost completely depends on are visiting to celebrate many of its old industries: cheese production, textile weaving and rope making.
Muker
Muker is home to one of my favourite Dales pubs, The Farmers Arms, and a couple of shops. The old vicarage, built in 1680, is a characterful building housing the general store, which also doubles as the village tea shop and tourist information centre. Muker’s church, dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, was a welcome arrival, relatively late in the day; until 1580, locals had to carry their dead ten miles along the ‘Corpse Road’ to Grinton, the nearest consecrated graveyard.
Reeth
Reeth was, and still is, the capital of Swaledale, and site of the only market above Richmond, hence the size of the green. The days when the market would fill this space are long gone but one is still held every Friday. All of Reeth’s pubs face on to the green and it does well to support three today, but this is nothing compared with the early 1800s at the height of Swaledale’s lead-mining boom. Reeth was the centre of the industry and had a staggering ten pubs at the time. The spiritual needs of the miners were met by three chapels, two of which are still open for worship. Reeth has never had its own church, being part of the parish of Grinton with the church a mile away.
Masham
The shops of Masham have been getting invoved in the spirit of Le Tour © Vicki Moores
I can’t understand why the small market town of Masham doesn’t make it into the Yorkshire Dales National Park. To me it is the epitome of Dales life, a town with true community spirit that holds its traditions dearly while moving forward. Arrive on any given day and you could be witnessing Yorkshire cricket, judging sheep or supping a pint of the local brew – from not one but two breweries.
I often judge a town by its shops. From them, you can tell the character of the place. In Masham there is no supermarket (except for a tiny Co-op) and the town is all the better for it. Instead, tucked between the old stone houses that line the market square, is a bakery, a butchers and a greengrocers, one after the other. And there are often people queuing out of the door from each shop. I was ecstatic to see this, not so much that I would have to wait a little while to purchase the most delicious looking, locally grown strawberries, but that the residents obviously value their way of life.
Ripon
Ripon is smaller than most towns, with a great history and that characterful atmosphere that provincial market towns seem to acquire. It owes its status to its huge cathedral, one that dominates its surroundings and is vastly out of proportion to the city’s size, a sign of the cathedral’s importance. You can see Ripon Cathedral as you approach from the surrounding roads – and the chances are you will approach the city this way, for the railway no longer reaches Ripon.
Grassington
Grassington has played a few roles in its time, originally as the name suggests as a place for grazing cattle, then a market for selling them. The town was very involved with both the long-gone lead mining and textile booms, and the railway made a fleeting visit then left again. Now this is the administrative centre for Upper Wharfedale in the background but its public face, especially from Easter to October, is tourism. Grassington is one of the best loved and most visited places in the Dales. It has a National Park Centre, small folk museum, three pubs, five cafés and numerous art and craft shops, mostly clustered around the Market Square.
(Photo: The Devonshire Hotel, Grassington © Welcome to Yorkshire)
Buckden
A Bronze Age stone circle at Yockenthwaite provides archaeological evidence of people living in this valley for thousands of years, but Buckden is a relative latecomer. The name gives a clue as to why; Buck-dene, the valley of deer, refers to the Norman hunting forest of Langstrothdale and the village was created as their forest keeper’s headquarters. Only later when the forests were cleared and the last deer had been killed did Buckden become a market town dealing in sheep and wool. The market is long gone but there is a village store open every day, a local artists’ gallery that doubles as a national park information point and a farm shop stocked with local Heber Farm lamb and beef. Like Kettlewell it is now a tourist centre with a high proportion of visiting walkers.
Aysgarth
This is an odd split-site village with the main settlement, presumably the original ‘clearing in the oaks’, half a mile away from the most visited buildings clustered around the famous Aysgarth Falls. St Andrew’s Church is here, on the hillside overlooking Yore Mill and the river. The church is the probable original reason for the separation; it is a restored 16th-century building but almost certainly on an older religious site, maybe even pagan, connected with the Falls. It was at its most influential during medieval times when the church was owned by Jervaulx Abbey. Its present claims to fame are the old abbey rood screen and vicar’s stall that were moved here at the time of the Dissolution. This work of art was too valuable to dismantle so was carried the 13 miles in one piece on the shoulders of 20 men.
Buttertubs Pass
© Welcome to Yorkshire
This strange name refers to caves near the highest point, that either resemble traditional butter containers, or really were used to keep it cool in transit, depending on which old story you choose to believe.
Leyburn
This pleasant and, seemingly, always busy market town is easily the largest settlement in this part of Lower Wensleydale though it has limited attractions of its own. I like Leyburn but I must admit I can’t be entertained for very long within the town itself. It desperately tries to borrow a bit of history from Bolton Castle in its Leyburn Shawl story, where Mary, Queen of Scots was said to have escaped from Bolton Castle but dropped her shawl on the cliffs above Leyburn, thus betraying her whereabouts and causing her recapture. Wishful balderdash I’m afraid; Leyburn Shawl Crag’s name is much older than the Tudors and has its root in the word ‘shielings’ or shepherds’ huts. Retracing the queen’s supposed footsteps back along the Shawl top to the castle makes a splendid walk though, with glorious panoramic views.
Middleham
Two miles south of Leyburn and perched on high land between the rivers Ure and Cover, sits the village of Middleham. It has three links with royalty: the childhood home of a king, royal treasure and the sport of kings. The impressive remains on the edge of the village are, in fact, Middleham Castle mark two, its predecessor still visible as a mound on William’s Hill just south and up the slope.
Harrogate
Harrogate Valley Gardens © Welcome to Yorkshire
Where York has history and Knaresborough has small-world charm, Harrogate has elegance. My father used to say that it was easy to imagine Miss Marple-like elderly spinster ladies daintily sipping tea out of bone china cups and nibbling on cucumber sandwiches while discussing society life. Even today the centre of Harrogate is about refinement.
Harrogate’s appearance owes much to the kind of visitors it has been able to attract over the centuries – wealthy and noble society from across Europe in search of cures for ailments from the town’s spa water. They brought money into the area and with it an air of decadence. Today the town regularly features on top ten lists of the best places to live.
The vast open expanse right in the centre of town is The Stray, an important part of Harrogate community life where joggers breathe a cleaner air, and any number of weekend football matches for all ages take place. An act of parliament created the park in the late 18th century, fixing its size at 200 acres, which must be maintained today.
There’s no doubt that it enhances the look of Harrogate and in winter, when the trees that line its perimeter twinkle with fairy lights, it takes on a magical quality.
Harrogate is also home to a the Yorkshire instution that is Bettys.
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