The Yorkshire Dales is an area of great natural beauty in northern England, a large part of which has been designated as a national parks.
Much of the landscape here is limestone country - lush green valleys ("dales") with white limestone cliffs ("scars") and limestone pavements cutting through wilder uplands beneath towering fells of dark millstone grit.
The dales, fields and pastures are bounded by the very distinctive white drystone walls which criss-cross the hillsides. Today these walls (which were originally built by sheep farmers in days gone by) look almost a natural part of the limestone scenery.
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 The Yorkshire Dales National Park is an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB). Its true beauty is best appreciated by leaving the roads and taking the footpaths through its meadows and over its high fells. The YDNP covers many different types of locations ranging from peaceful farming country in the valleys to the rugged, windswept high fells of Ingleborough, Whernside and Penyghent. |
 The south west corner of the Yorkshire Dales National Park is limestone country. The action of glaciers and their melt waters on this limestone has created some of our greastest scenery - the breathtaking 260 feet high amphitheatre of Malham Cove, the awe-inspiring gorge of Gordale Scar and the brooding overhang of Kilnsey Crag. |
 Malhamdale is the name given to the upper reaches of the valley of the River Aire, famous for spectacular limestone scenery at the head of the valley at Malham. Villages in Malhamdale include Kirkby Malham, Airton and Bell Busk, south of which the infant River Aire flows on to Gargrave and Skipton, and from where the valley is better known as Airedale |
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