Egton Bridge

Egton Bridge is one of the loveliest villages in the dale, set in a wooded bend of the Esk beneath the hilltop village of Egton. Two sets of stepping stones cross the river beside the road bridge, and the village has two fine pubs, the Horseshoe Hotel and the Postgate Inn.

The Postgate takes its name from Nicholas Postgate, the Catholic priest who ministered secretly on the moors for decades before being executed at York in 1679. Egton Bridge remained a stronghold of Catholicism, which explains the remarkable St Hedda's Church, built in 1866 and known as the 'Cathedral of the Moors' for its painted interior and relics of Father Postgate.

Every year on the first Tuesday in August the village hosts the Egton Bridge Old Gooseberry Show, held since 1800 and one of the oldest of its kind in the world, where growers compete to produce the heaviest berry.

Egton station, on the Esk Valley line, is at the western end of the village. A riverside path leads upstream through Arncliffe Wood to Beggar's Bridge and Glaisdale, and a steep lane climbs to Egton.