Ryedale Folk Museum

The Ryedale Folk Museum is an open-air museum set across six acres in the village of Hutton-le-Hole, deep within the North York Moors National Park. Founded in 1964 by local farmer Bertram Frank, it brings together more than twenty historic buildings rescued from across the region and rebuilt on site, including thatched cruck cottages, a Tudor manor house, an Edwardian photographer's studio, blacksmith and cooper workshops and a working village shop stocked with period goods.

Visitors follow a circular route around the site, stepping inside furnished interiors that span medieval times to the mid-20th century. Costumed interpreters and demonstrations bring traditional rural crafts to life, from iron forging to baking in a clay oven, and the museum's heritage gardens grow heritage vegetables and herbs used by Ryedale's farming families.

Hutton-le-Hole itself is one of the prettiest moorland villages in Yorkshire, with a wide sheep-grazed green and the chattering Hutton Beck running through. The museum makes an excellent base for exploring the moors, and is within easy reach of Lastingham, Rosedale Abbey and the steam trains of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.