Air
Travel

Rail
Travel

Road
Travel

Sea
Travel

Local
Weather

Telephone
Directories

For more than 2000 years, history has written a proud and fiercely independent story across the landscape, from the mighty castles of medieval England to the mills which mark the birth of the Industrial Revolution. A pageant of history for visitors, unsurpassed anywhere in Britain.

This was once the kingdom of the woad-painted warriors, the Brigantes, whose capital is now marked by the Roman town at Aldborough. The conquering Romans made their base at Eboracum which in turn became the Vikings' Jorvik and later, medieval York.

The Middle ages left their legacy standing in stone - a wealth of ancient abbeys and castles. Seeking solitude in the wilderness, the monks gave glorious settings to their abbeys, among them Bolton, Jervaulx and Rievaulx Abbeys and incomparable Fountains Abbey, a World Heritage site.

For centuries "he who held the north held the kingdom", a stark truth which speaks from the stones of castles such as Helmsley, Conisbrough, with its mighty Norman keep and tranquil Middleham in Wensleydale, once the power base of the infamous Richard III.

More peaceful ages poured their wealth into lavish stately homes, among them palatial Harewood House near Leeds and the opulent Baroque splendour of Castle Howard, near Malton, made famous by the television series, Brideshead Revisited.

More intimate but no less beautiful are the region's many smaller historic homes. They reach back through time from Victorian Carlton Towers near Goole and Edwardian Lotherton Hall near Leeds to the Elizabethan warmth of Burton Agnes Hall on the Wolds and the medieval memories of Shibden Hall near Halifax, the West Yorkshire Folk Museum.

How can we do justice to the region's 150 museums? Large or small, they offer a treasure house of discovery.

Excellent city museums include those in Leeds, Hull and Scunthorpe and the Yorkshire Museum in York, with its superb Middleham Jewel. Lively smaller museums include the award-winning Hornsea Museum and Scarborough's distinctive Rotunda Museum and do look in on museums with a special appeal such as Holmfirth's Postcard Museum, Ripon's Prison and Police Museum and Wilberforce House in Hull, dedicated to the fight against slavery.

Remember, too, our region's dynamic industrial museums - capturing centuries of working pride in textiles, mining, fishing and steel.

Places to Visit

More information and places to visit: