Grassington

Grassington is a picturesque stone-built village set in Upper Wharfedale, deep in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Its cobbled square, narrow lanes and weathered limestone cottages make it one of the most photographed settlements in the Dales, and it serves as a natural base for walkers exploring the surrounding fells and riverside paths.

The village grew up around lead mining, which flourished on Grassington Moor from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Traces of the industry still pepper the moorland above the village, including ruined smelt mills, flues and bell pits that can be explored on a marked heritage trail. Down in the village, the Upper Wharfedale Museum on the square fills two former lead-miners' cottages with displays on local geology, farming life and the mining era. The Devonshire Arms and the Black Horse, both old coaching inns on the square, remain at the centre of village life.

Grassington has gained wider fame as the filming location for the Channel 5 remake of All Creatures Great and Small, with the square standing in for the fictional Darrowby. Visitors come for the television connection but stay for the walking: the River Wharfe runs just below the village, with a footbridge leading across to the meadows of Linton Falls, while longer routes head up to Grass Wood, Conistone Pie and the dramatic limestone scenery of Kilnsey Crag.