Where The Lakes Meets The Dales

Just beyond the northern Lake District lie the Yorkshire Dales, a picture-postcard patchwork of green valleys and high heather moorland dotted with traditional villages and some of the best cycling and walking trails in all of England. Although most of the dales are enclosed within the confines of Yorkshire Dales National Park, nature’s gift hardly recognises county lines and some of its most handsome towns, notably Kirkby Lonsdale and Sedbergh, are actually in Cumbria.
 
The dales – from the old Viking word ‘dalr,’ which means ‘valley’ – is rich in both culture and heritage. The heather-rich moorland and flat-topped hills rising from the green valley floors have remained largely unspoilt for thousands of years, its traditions still very much in evidence, from the drystone walls and old-fashioned barns to its ancient farming villages with its gorgeous pubs and – in some cases – sheep that still graze on the village green.
 
Here you’ll also find the picturesque Lune Valley, a favourite subject of Turner and Constable, and exalted by John Ruskin as the most naturally divine place in all of Europe. Ruskin clearly made an impression – there’s a spot in Kirkby Lonsdale (from which Turner painted the valley) now called ‘Ruskin’s View.’