Discover National Parks Fortnight – a two-week celebration across the UK – starts today, Saturday 3rd April! The celebration aims to encourage and inspire people of all ages to go outside and learn more about our amazing National Parks. We’re so lucky to live in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, along with all of our cottages, and be able to enjoy and admire these wonderful spaces on a daily basis. With restrictions slowly easing, we’re so pleased to be able to welcome guests and tourist back to our National Park to celebrate these cultural cornerstones with us.
National Parks fortnight happens in springtime each year and coincides with the Easter school holidays across the UK, to champion all that is unique and special about National Parks. This spring it will be held Saturday 3rd to Sunday 18th April and will celebrate the countless opportunities to get outside and discover the beauty, history and wildlife of the UK’s 15 National Parks.
Our National Park – The Yorkshire Dales National Park
- The Yorkshire Dales was designated as a National Park in 1954.
- The Park covers 2,179 square kilometres (841 square miles)
- The Yorkshire Dales National Park straddles the central Pennines in North Yorkshire and Cumbria and also includes a small part of Lancashire.
- There are more than 15 individual dales in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
The 6 main and more familiar Dales are:
- Dentdale: once farmed by Viking settlers.
- Malhamdale: with the dramatic Malham Cove above its tranquil Tarn.
- Swaledale: where the swift River Swale winds through pastures dotted with field barns.
- Ribblesdale: famous for the Three Peaks walk.
- Wensleydale: a familiar name for cheese, host to famous waterfalls and Castle Bolton.
- Wharfdale: the home of Bolton Abbey and some breathtaking countryside
If you’re coming to visit us in the near future, there is plenty to see and do throughout the Yorkshire Dales to celebrate and enjoy our National Parks. If you are planning on heading out into our national park, the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority ask that you ‘Respect the Land, Respect the Community, and Respect each Other.’
See their COVID-19 Guidance here: https://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/category/covid-19/
About the National Parks
- There are 15 National Parks in the UK, spanning the length and breadth of the country. 10 in England, three in Wales and two in Scotland.
- 2019 celebrated the 70th Anniversary of the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act that paved the way for the establishment of National Parks in the UK.
- The oldest National Park is the Peak District, founded in 1951 because of its impressive gritstone edges, steep limestone dales, moorland, farmland and caverns famed for rare Blue John stone.
- The South Downs is the newest National Park, established in 2010 for its hundreds of square kilometres of woodland, bustling market towns, rolling chalk uplands and river valleys.
- The Broads is the smallest National Park at around 305 square kilometres, which is just a little bigger than Edinburgh at 263 square kilometres!
- The largest National Park in the UK is the Cairngorms. Covering 4,528 square kilometres, it’s bigger than the whole of Luxembourg.