Exploring the UK
The Yorkshire Dales are the home of Britain’s largest collection of caves, in terms of both number and size. Caves are scattered about most of the hillsides in the Yorkshire Dales, but the caving community is centered around the small village of Ingleton where accommodation, cafés and caving shops can be found.
The traditional system of farming in the Yorkshire Dales relies upon grazing spread between the fertile valley land and the upland rough grazing has created the distinctive pattern of land cover. Flocks of sheep grazed on the hill tops in the summer, are brought down to the sheltered valley bottom in winter and for lambing [...]
The Yorkshire Dales is home to a variety of rich wildlife. Peregrine falcons nest on limestone crags, merlins live on heather moorland, and curlews fill the air with song throughout spring and summer. This highly valued area is carefully protected as one of the eleven national parks in England and Wales. One fifth of the [...]
Rough grassland, blanket bog and great swathes of heather cover nearly all the high ground of the Dales. Damp grasslands and bogs are home to species of upland wader such as curlew, snipe and redshank. Heather moorland, which colours large areas in the east and north purple in August, is usually managed for grouse, but [...]
Probably the greatest change on the Yorkshire Dales, is the deforestation of woodlands. Mans need of wood and timber, has made many forest disappear slowly over centuries in the region. The forestry commission woodlands in the Dales consists of four only original forests, Jervaulx, Arkengarthdale, Knaresborough and Fountains. Today, just 1 per cent of the [...]
The characteristic brown peat staining of Dales rivers and the natural foaming around waterfalls be-lie their clean, unpolluted state. The natural wild rivers Wharfe, Ure, Nidd, Aire and Ribble are free-stone rivers that drain huge moorland areas in the Yorkshire Dales. They flow through beautiful dales beside some lovely Dales villages. With an number different [...]
The colour comes from a wide range of wild flowers, the most obvious of which are wood cranes-bill, buttercup, pignut and clover. The botanical diversity with some hay meadows contains 80 or more plant species, depends on limited use of fertiliser and late cutting. Some of the finest meadows can be seen in Swaledale, upper [...]
Limestone Pavements are found around Wharfedale, to the north of Malham and around Ingleborough. They have taken shape over the 12,000 years since the end of the most recent Ice Age. Many were formed by glaciers scraping the land down to bare limestone which has since been attacked by rainwater to produce a network of [...]
The Yorkshire Dales is an area of great natural beauty and is possibly the most the popular area for walkers in North Yorkshire. A delightful area of stunning natural outdoor beauty, fascinating sites to visit and endless ways to enjoy this breath-taking scenery. With rich heritage around every corner, makes the Dales the place to [...]
It took perhaps 300 million years for the shaping of the Yorkshire Dales into the land forms we know today. The Yorkshire Dales is home to a varied collection of landscapes, from heather-topped moors to colourful hay-meadows. There are limestone cliffs and crags, waterfalls and underground labyrinths of potholes and caves. The grit-stone and limestone [...]