Step into Brimham Rocks

With Harrogate nestled into the southern borders of the Yorkshire Dales National Park and Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, there are so many breathtaking day trips you can conveniently take from the doorstep of our Guesthouse!  Now we can finally be reunited with family and friends outdoors, it seemed the perfect time to plan a visit to nearby Brimham Rocks, which is a 20-minute drive from Harrogate.  On the journey, we got to spot lots of newborn lambs in the fields set amongst the stoned walls with hundreds of pheasants walking along the roadside! 

I'd been to Brimham Rocks once before with our two children, who loved exploring the climatic rock formations and caverns!  Today's visit brought my two dear friends from London, who had never seen this dramatic Yorkshire landscape before (they are members of the National Trust, so they had free car parking, which was a bonus!).  They were astounded by the sheer natural beauty and immense presence of this biological site - which is over a whopping 454 acres!  We wandered the site and mused for ages on how the rock formations gained their mysterious shapes and layers from wind and weather over 325 million years ago - boom, mind blown! 

Our next stop was a 20-minute drive north to Druids Temple, (during this journey a young doe bounded across the road, which was totally unexpected but thrilling to see!).  Now, we learnt Druids Temple is in fact not a real temple, but a nineteenth-century folly.  Nonetheless, it is still an atmospheric and intriguing location set amongst picturesque woodlands neighbouring the luxurious Swinton Estate.   Next door at Swinton Estate you can organise a whole array of outdoor activities, from horse riding to mountain biking and even falconry!  

Taking in these two destinations alone whilst you're in North Yorkshire, with their iconic landscape and lush river valleys will validate that Yorkshire certainly is "God's Own Country".