What’s your ideal British weekend break? Sand castles and fishing boats tied
to a cobbled quayside, or purple heather and pub lunches on a yomp across
the untamed uplands? No need to choose – the North York Moors National Park
offers a two-for-one deal. From Captain Cook to curd tarts, from dinosaurs
to Dracula, there is plenty to sink your teeth into. We asked six notable
locals to nominate their favourite haunts.
Full-size
illustration of the area
IAN CARMICHAEL
At 87, the veteran actor, best known as Bertie Wooster and Lord Peter
Wimsey, still lives in his native county
“I’ve lived at Grosmont, deep in the moors, for 30 years. The village is on
the North Yorkshire Moors vintage railway line, and the engines chuffing in
from Pickering are unspeakably picturesque, especially on a steam weekend.
Everybody affects period costume: it’s like living on a movie set. I love
Whitby, the cobbles and the nostalgia, but our weekends by the sea have
always been at Sandsend, a mile up the coast. The bay is dynamically
beautiful and the beach is blissfully undeveloped: our children,
grandchildren and now great-grandchildren have all knocked out sand castles
there.
“We’ve just discovered a splendid restaurant-with-rooms in Sandsend, Estbek
House. It’s a Georgian place done up in the modern style – but intimate, and
with really careful cooking. My lobster and brown shrimp ravioli was
sensational; or you can have a big slab of halibut with sauvignon blanc
cream. Apparently, the bedrooms are nice, too. We came out to find ducks
dabbling on the beck and a crescent moon reflecting in the bay: very
glamorous, rather like Turkey, my wife said. Which you don’t say too often
in North Yorkshire...”
Details: a Day Rover ticket on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway (01751
472508, www.nymr.co.uk ) costs £14
(children £7). Estbek House (01947 893424, www.estbekhouse.co.uk
) has B&B doubles from £110; lobster ravioli starter £8.25.
GP TAYLOR
The former punk promoter and parish priest has made his fortune writing
supernatural thrillers for teenagers, famously Shadowmancer
“When I was growing up in Scarborough, my garden backed onto the disused
railway track to Whitby, and I’d jump on my moped and ride along the
clifftops, feeling like Steve McQueen. Now, I take my daughters, and it
makes the best cycle ride ever. It’s where the moors crash into the sea, and
the old train journey must have been spectacular – coursing right along the
600ft cliffs at Ravenscar towards Boggle Hole, where there’s a youth hostel
down in the cove, run by an amazing woman named Peta, who’s also the
coastguard. I set the chase scenes in Shadowmancer along those cliffs,
because they feel so full of mystery.
“When we’re cycling, we’ll head for Whitby Abbey, with its Dracula
connections, or stop on the way at the Ravenscar visitor centre, where you
can scramble down and examine dinosaur footprints in the rocky foreshore;
it’s pretty spine-tingling to think of those creatures walking there, a
million years ago. The best way to finish is back home in Scalby, at the Yew
Tree Cafe, which looks for all the world like a village caff but does the
best steak and chips you’ll ever taste. I eat at the Ivy in London a lot
and, in my opinion, the food at the Yew Tree is comparable. What a day out!”
Details: Ravenscar Coastal Centre (01723 870423, www.nationaltrust.org.uk
) is open until September 30, 10.30am-5pm. Boggle Hole hostel (0870 770
5704, www.yha.org.uk ) has beds from £14
(children £10). The Yew Tree Cafe is on 01723 367989.
ALAN HINKES
He is the first British mountaineer to conquer all 14 peaks over 8,000
metres – despite injuring his back on Nanga Parbat, when he sneezed on the
flour from a chapati
“I’m a great champion for my home town, Northallerton. It’s not as fairy-tale
as Richmond, maybe, but it has a classic Yorkshire high street and the best
food shop in Britain: Lewis & Cooper. They do their own coffee blend,
which you’ll smell roasting as you walk in, and sell proper dry-cured bacon,
gourmet cheeses, organic chocolate... and they have a superb olive
selection. Pick up your picnic, and eat it on the summit of Roseberry
Topping. That’s the hill that inspired me to be a mountaineer. A sheer cliff
falls away on one side, giving it a strange, hook-nosed silhouette; they
call it the Yorkshire Matterhorn.
“You can reach the top in an hour from Great Ayton village, where Captain Cook
went to school, and the reward is vast views across the moors to Whitby and
the sea, with Cook’s Monument in the foreground. It’s a popular summit,
though, so I suggest setting off at twilight on a moonlit evening. Magical.
Sometimes people stop me up there and say, ‘Aren’t you that bloke who
climbed Everest?’ I say, ‘No, I prefer it up here, mate.’ ”
Details: Lewis & Cooper is at 92 High Street (www.lewisandcooper.co.uk
). For the Roseberry Topping walk, you need OS Explorer map OL26.
SALLY ROBINSON
In 1999, this farmer’s wife decided to diversify – with a double D: she set
up the internet bra company Amplebosom.com
“The view from my window is the finest in Yorkshire: we’re above Rievaulx
Abbey and Ryedale – it’s glorious. The drive to Rievaulx and Helmsley from
the national park centre at Sutton Bank is sensational – but the trick is to
swing off the A170 and come through Old Byland. I’d start at Kilburn, which
has the ‘Mousey’ Thompson furniture workshop – his trademark is a little
mouse carved on every table and chair. Sweet, but not cheap. Rievaulx Abbey
is a nice place to pause: a ruin surrounded by rambling woods.
“But the biggest treat is at the end, in Helmsley, where the Castlegate Bakery
makes the best Yorkshire curd tart in the county. Their steak pies are
fabulous too, oozing with gravy – how do they manage that? Eat them hot in
the tearoom and take the date-and-walnut cake home. Oh, dear. I’m supposed
to be on a diet.”
Details: the Mouseman Visitor Centre (01347 869102, www.robertthompsons.co.uk
). Rievaulx Abbey, 10am- 6pm; £4.50 adults, £2.30 children (www.english-heritage.org.uk
).
MARTIN CARTHY
The godfather of English traditional music and head of the Waterson-Carthy
folk dynasty lives at Robin Hood’s Bay
“What I love about the moors is the sledgehammer contrast between the endless,
vacant plateaux – heather and gorse for miles and miles – and the intimate
dales that pierce them. Suddenly, you come across these neat green scoops
down through the purple stuff, with maybe a few cottages, some woods and a
stream.
“The loveliest example is a tucked-away spot called Littlebeck, at the bottom
of a deadend lane south of Sleights. The valley is so steep that when we
first moved here in 1975, they didn’t even have telly; and we were invited
to play a concert at the village hall – as a welcome, really. The locals
turned up with their instruments and played along. It was organic and
wonderful. It felt like time-travelling. You can drive from Littlebeck to a
‘secret’ waterfall called Falling Foss, where there’s an old bridge, and
bluebells in spring. You have to pinch yourself to believe it’s real. We
even thought of buying a farmhouse nearby, but it had a combine harvester
parked in the sitting room. It’s that kind of area...”
Details: Falling Foss is part of Sneaton Forest (01751 472771, www.forestry.gov.uk
).
Reeth is wonderful. Have you seen the view from Reeth Green, looking back across moors and hills? Fabulous.
Carol, Derby,
Thornton le Dale and Ellerburn and Dalby Forest are all worth visiting for real country life and charm. Ellerburn with its Saxon Church and pieces of old carvings in the outside walls and which was a resting place for monks walking from Whitby Abbey to York.
JOHN W BARNES, Staplecross, England