4 Mountain Peaks to Explore in North Yorkshire

The Howardian Hills stretch from Helmsley and Coxwold, on the edge of the North York Moors National Park, down to Kirkham Priory and the River Derwent. It form 79 square miles of well-wooded undulating countryside between the flat agricultural Vales of Pickering and York. It has habitats including lowland broadleaved woodland, wood pasture, veteran trees, limestone and neutral grasslands and fen meadows.

Ingleborough is the second-highest mountain in the Yorkshire Dales, England. It is one of the Yorkshire Three Peaks and is frequently climbed as part of the Three Peaks walk. A large part of Ingleborough is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and National Nature Reserve and is the home of a new joint project, Wild Ingleborough, with aims to improve the landscape for wildlife and people.

Pen-y-ghent is the perfect hill with which to give young children a taste of an outdoor challenge. The circular walk to the summit from Horton-in-Ribblesdale is under six miles – perfect for little legs or when the days are short and time is squeezed. The summit ridge divides streams flowing east to the North Sea from those that flow west into the Irish Sea and is at the end of a whaleback ridge that includes nearby Plover Hill.

Sutton Bank is one of the most spectacular inland cliffs anywhere in Britain. The platform at the top of the bank is made of hard limey gritstone formed in the Upper Jurassic period. At the foot of Sutton Bank lies the village of Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe; at 27 letters long, it has the longest hyphenated placename in England.