Pictures of Rosedale Abbey

About Rosedale Abbey

This is a lovely village hidden in a lush green valley landscape of sweeping hillsides, meadows and breathtaking scenery. It is utter delight, a wonderful destination for walkers or for those enjoying touring the moors by motor car.

The village takes its name from a former 12th-century Cistercian Priory. Today, this is naught but a romantic ruin, but once it was home to a group of nuns, the first to set up commercial sheep farming in the area. Under the stern direction of a Prioress, the order flourished until the Dissolution of the Monasteries brought about by Henry VIII's desire to marry Anne Boleyn in 1535. The abbey remained much as it was until the mid 19th century when it was purloined of its stone for building materials. Later, what was left was used for the building of the small village church on the site of the original chapel.

Rosedale Abbey gives visitors scope for tramping the lonely, heather-clad landscape of the moors, and for enjoying a wide range of tourist attractions. It is close to the sparkling River Seven and to Pickering, the start of the North Yorkshire Moors Steam Railway which runs through magnificent Newton Dale to Beck Hole and Grosmont. En-route the train passes Goathland, a wonderfully scenic place, which is noted as the location for the hugely successful TV series "Heartbeat". The diverse beauty of the Yorkshire coast is but a few miles away, and just a little way from Pickering is Flamingo Land.

In the moors visitors will come across old inns for refreshment, quaint shops here and there, and an excellent range of holiday accommodation which ranges from friendly bed and breakfast to the more luxurious country house hotels and delightful traditional stone-built holiday cottages.