North York Moors National Park
Moors, river and steam.
Thirty miles of quiet villages, packhorse bridges and heather moor, strung along the River Esk from Castleton to Whitby, with a railway that stops at nearly every one.
Don't miss
All things to see and doBeggar's Bridge
A graceful 17th-century packhorse bridge built, so the story goes, by a sailor for the sweetheart the river kept him from.
Falling Foss and Midge Hall
A waterfall dropping some 30 feet into a wooded gorge, with a tea garden in a woodsman's cottage beside it and a hermit's cave nearby.
Mallyan Spout
The national park's best-known waterfall, a 70-foot curtain of water in a wooded gorge below Goathland.
North Yorkshire Moors Railway
One of the world's great heritage railways: 24 miles of steam through the moors from Pickering to Grosmont and on to Whitby.
The Esk Valley Railway
The little railway that makes the valley work: a 35-mile line from Middlesbrough to Whitby with a stop at nearly every village.
The Esk Valley Railway
Let the train take you up the valley
The Esk Valley line runs from Middlesbrough to Whitby with stops at Castleton Moor, Danby, Lealholm, Glaisdale, Egton, Grosmont, Sleights and Ruswarp. Walk from one station to the next, then ride back. At Grosmont it meets the steam trains of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.
Villages along the river
About the villages- Westerdale
- Commondale
- Castleton
- Danby
- Lealholm
- Glaisdale
- Egton Bridge
- Egton
- Grosmont
- Goathland
- Sleights
- Ruswarp
- Whitby
Villages marked have a station on the Esk Valley line.
Village
Egton
A hilltop village above Egton Bridge with a wide main street, a pub and one of the moors' biggest agricultural shows.
Village
Westerdale
A scattered farming hamlet at the head of the valley, where the Esk is little more than a moorland beck.
Station: Danby
Danby
Home to The Moors National Park Centre, a medieval castle and a beacon with views to the sea.
Watch the valley
All videos
Whitby from the air
The harbour, piers, abbey headland and old town in 4K drone footage.
Video by Motorhoming Fun on YouTube
Steam at Grosmont
North Yorkshire Moors Railway locomotives working through Grosmont in summer 2025.
Video by Bryan Monaco on YouTube
Goathland walk and Mallyan Spout waterfall
The falls in full flow after rain.
Video by Chris Shone on YouTube
Walks
All walksThe valley through the year
Spring
Lambs on the dale sides, wild garlic in Arncliffe Wood and the first swallows at Egton Bridge.
Summer
Agricultural shows, the heather turning purple in August and long evenings on the moor tops.
Autumn
Bracken gold in the woods, mist in the valley bottom and steam trains in low sun.
Winter
Snow on the tops, open fires in every pub and Whitby's goth and steampunk weekends.
In pictures
Full gallery
Beyond the valley
Exploring the wider North York Moors?
Our sister site, North Yorkshire Moors, covers the whole national park and its coast: the steam railway from Pickering, Robin Hood's Bay and Staithes, Rievaulx and the abbeys, Sutton Bank, Farndale's daffodils and dozens of walks and itineraries.