🥾 A PERFECT DAY OUT IN THE NORTH YORK MOORS: WALKING, HISTORY AND HERITAGE
🏡 If you're looking for a really rewarding day out in the North York Moors, here's an idea worth considering. Combine a five-mile circular walk from Hutton-le-Hole through Lastingham and Spaunton with a visit to the Ryedale Folk Museum. At a steady pace, the walk takes around two to three hours, leaving plenty of time to explore the museum properly.
🌿 Hutton-le-Hole is one of the most beautiful villages in Yorkshire. Hutton Beck winds through the centre of the village, crossed by little footbridges, while moorland sheep graze freely along the long, winding village green. The village has 29 listed buildings, most dating from the 18th century, and features regularly on lists of the prettiest villages in the UK. The Crown is the village pub, a traditional country inn serving food and real ales, and St Chad's Church is the local parish church.
🗺️ From the village, the route heads east across fields and farmland to join a quiet road, then continues along a moorland footpath in a north-easterly direction. After reaching the top of a hill, a stone track descends and becomes a tarmac road that leads you down into Lastingham.
🍺 Lastingham is a gem of a village, and well worth taking your time over. The Blacksmiths Arms is a lovely stone pub, sitting in a conservation village and popular with walkers, locals, and visitors alike. It serves excellent food, including local game dishes in season, alongside real ales, and makes a perfect halfway stop. Directly opposite the pub is St Mary's Church, one of the most remarkable churches in England. Beneath it lies an 11th-century Norman crypt, thought to be the oldest of its kind in the world and the only one in England with a nave, aisles, and an apsidal chancel. The site has been a place of Christian worship since 654, when St Cedd of Lindisfarne founded a monastery here. Descending the steep steps into the crypt, you are immediately struck by its stillness and atmosphere. It is a genuinely special place.
🌲 From Lastingham, the route continues south through woodland and up to a minor road, then heads west through the beautiful village of Spaunton. A footpath across open countryside and farmland eventually brings you back down through woodland to the southern end of Hutton-le-Hole, and from there north through the village to the Ryedale Folk Museum.
🏛️ The museum is an open-air living history museum spread across six acres, with over twenty historic buildings rescued from surrounding villages and rebuilt stone by stone on the site. Together, they tell the story of everyday life in the North York Moors from the Iron Age to the 1950s. There is a huge amount to see, from rural workshops and a Victorian schoolroom to an Iron Age roundhouse and a remarkable collection of 40,000 objects. It is the kind of place where you could easily spend two or three hours without rushing.
📅 The museum opens for the 2026 season on 9 March, which is just over a week away. I have written a detailed blog post about it on my website, with lots of photographs, opening times, and admission prices. It is always worth checking the museum's own website too, just to make sure everything is up to date before you visit.
📸 There are many other walks in the area, but this one gives you a great combination of countryside, history, and heritage in a single day. I can highly recommend it.
🌐 To read about the museum and see lots of photographs, visit my website:
Visit Ryedale Folk Museum in Hutton-le-Hole and discover rural crafts, historic homes and centuries of North York Moors ordinary life.
🔎 To check the latest opening times and visitor information on the official museum website, visit:
https://www.ryedalefolkmuseum.co.uk
