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Five Town Walks

Five Town Walks

Date Posted: Monday 22nd May 2023

Take one of our town walks and discover its hidden corners, historical story or its artisan spirit and see one of our towns in a new way.

Take your pick from a trail of sculptures that celebrate the stunt pilots of the natural world or a tour of historical buildings and landmarks. It’s so easy to visit a town and just find the main shopping street and miss the character and intrigue that makes all towns different.

Let our town walks guide you to explore the interesting secrets held in these special places.

Boroughbridge Town Tour

Find the real Boroughbridge with this short tour. You will explore the short canal that helped create a navigable route along the River Ure during the industrial revolution and discover the three prehistoric standing stones – known locally as the Devil's Arrows.

Boroughbridge grew from its small origins as a coaching town, conveniently positioned halfway between London and Edinburgh. That tradition of welcome and hospitality still runs deep through the town's character.

Boroughbridge Town Trail

Pateley Bridge Heritage Trails

This pair of walks provide you with the best of both worlds: The inner loop comprises a tour of Pateley Bridge’s significant buildings and the tell-tale signs of its forgotten history such as the outline of the old turntable at one of its two lost railway stations.

The outer loop explores the broader history of Pateley Bridge and its role as the hub for Nidderdale. This loop includes a long climb up the valley side and passes by the ruins of the first church in Pateley Bridge, St Marys. The walk explores the quarry above the town where rock was carved from the ground before being transported down the hill to be loaded onto trains and used across the country.

Pateley Bridge Heritage Trails

The Knaresborough windows

Knaresborough is home to a collection of public artworks spread throughout the town and known as Trompe-l’œil. This roughly translates to ‘trick of the eye’ and describes the playful illusions these paintings create by repainting the bricked-up windows on buildings. The canvasses are a mix of windows that were blocked up to avoid the infamous ‘window tax’, or in some cases are a decorative feature used to give balance and symmetry to the design of a building.

The artists have taken inspiration from Knaresborough's history and the wry Yorkshire sense of humour to create this series trail of fascinating scenes around the buildings of Knaresborough. It is the perfect way to get to know this medieval town.

Knaresborough Windows

Harrogate Heritage Plaque Trail

Under the leadership of the Harrogate Civic Society over 90 plaques have been installed at significant buildings and locations in Harrogate’s history.

Many of these can be found in the town centre and there are four trails to follow, one for each point of the compass. These trails will guide you through Harrogate's history, draw your attention to some of the many points of interest and lead you to some of the less well-known curiosities of Yorkshire's spa capital.

The plaques tell the stories of mineral wells, lost railway stations and the leading figures in Harrogate’s growth from two small villages to a civic hub for Victorian high society.

In addition, a new mobile phone app will help you explore the plaques on the go.

Harrogate Heritage Plaque Trails

Masham Swifts Trail

With its Edwardian townhouses and its open market square, Masham may well have been designed for the graceful swift.

These incredible birds live their entire life on the wing, they are fast, agile and mesmerising. Their distinct and recognisable screams announce their presence as they race around the rooftops, down alleys and between obstacles with pinpoint accuracy.