14 Best Sights in Yorkshire, England

The most evocative of Haworth's Brontë sights is this somber Georgian house dating back to 1778, the sisters' family home where you can see original furniture (some bought by Charlotte after the success of Jane Eyre), portraits, and books. The Brontës moved here when the Reverend Patrick Brontë was appointed vicar of the local church, but tragedy soon struck—his wife, Maria, and their two eldest children died within five years. The museum explores the family's tragic story, bringing it to life with a strong collection of enchanting mementos of the four children. These include tiny books they made when they were still very young; Charlotte's wedding bonnet; and the sisters' spidery, youthful graffiti on the nursery wall. Branwell, the Brontës' only brother, painted several of the portraits on display. Admission is by timed slot only; it's best to book ahead.

This museum documenting the life of the famous mariner and those who sailed with him is located in a 17th-century house owned by the captain to whom Cook was apprenticed and where he lodged from 1746 to 1750. Exhibits devoted to Cook's epic expeditions display the legendary explorer's maps, diaries, and drawings.

Standing in the Howardian Hills to the west of Malton, Castle Howard is an outstanding example of English baroque architecture, with a distinctive roofline punctuated by a magnificent central dome. It served as Brideshead, the home of the fictional Flyte family in Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh's tale of aristocratic woe, in both its 1981 TV and 2008 film adaptations, and more recently provided locations for Clyvedon, the residence of the Duke of Hastings in the hit Netflix show Bridgerton. The house was the first commission for playwright-turned-architect Sir John Vanbrugh, who, assisted by Nicholas Hawksmoor, designed it for the third Earl of Carlisle, a member of the Howard family. The central structure was started in 1701 and took 25 years to complete (with a Palladian wing added subsequently), but the end result was a stately home of audacious grandeur.

A spectacular central hallway with soaring columns supports a hand-painted ceiling that dwarfs all visitors, and there's no shortage of splendor elsewhere: vast family portraits, intricate marble fireplaces, immense tapestries, Victorian silver on polished tables, and a great many marble busts. Outside, the neoclassical landscape of carefully arranged woods, lakes, and lawns led 18th-century bon vivant Horace Walpole to comment that a pheasant at Castle Howard lived better than a duke elsewhere. Hidden throughout the 1,000 acres of formal and woodland gardens are temples, statues, fountains, and a grand mausoleum—even a fanciful children's playground. There are also three cafés, two shops, and a garden center.

Whitby's landmark church, where Captain James Cook once worshipped, overlooks the town from the top of East Cliff, with the striking ruins of Whitby Abbey looming beyond. Bram Stoker lived in Whitby briefly and later said the image of pallbearers carrying coffins up the 199 stone steps that lead to the church inspired him to write Dracula. The oldest parts of St. Mary's (the quire and nave) are Norman, dating back to 1100, while the tower and transepts were added in the 12th and 13th centuries. The nave's interior is late 18th-century Georgian while the unusual enclosed box pews and triple-decker pulpit were added in the 19th century, although you can still see Norman widows and stonework in the chancel and the Tudor altar. The churchyard, a setting in Dracula, is filled with the weather-beaten gravestones of former mariners and fishermen. Rather than walking, you can drive to the hilltop and park in the abbey's lot for a small fee. Otherwise, you can take the hourly Esk Valley Bus 97.

A jewel box built in 1788 and today an active community playhouse, this theater and museum is Britain's most complete Georgian playhouse still in its original form, retaining authentic features such as the wooden seating from which patrons watched 18th-century leading man David Garrick perform Shakespeare. You can see Britain's oldest painted scenery dating back to 1836 and try on theatrical costumes during the hourly tours, which run from Monday to Saturday between 10 and 4 mid-February through October. There's also an extensive theatrical archive that contains scripts, playbills, and images.

The family seat of the Earls of Harewood (cousins of the King), Harewood House (pronounced har-wood) is a spectacular 1759 neoclassical mansion designed by York architect John Carr and the period's leading interior designer, Robert Adam (the money, sad to say, came from sugar plantations and the slave trade). Highlights include important paintings by Gainsborough and Reynolds, fine ceramics, and a ravishingly beautiful collection of Chippendale furniture (Chippendale was born in nearby Otley), notably the magnificent State Bed. There are tours of the Private Apartments (£10) periodically in June, July, September, and October, where you can see a notable collection of watercolors by JMW Turner and works by modern artists like Egon Schiele. The Old Kitchen and Below Stairs exhibition illustrates life from the servants' point of view. Capability Brown designed the handsome grounds, and Charles Barry added a lovely Italian garden with fountains in the 1840s. Children will love the bird garden with over 40 rare and endangered species and the adventure playground. The house is seven miles north of Leeds; you can take Harrogate and District Bus 36.

A must for train lovers, Britain's biggest railway museum houses part of the national collection of rail vehicles. Don't miss such gleaming giants of the steam era as the Mallard, holder of the world speed record for a steam engine (126 mph), and a replica of the prototype steam engine, the Rocket. Passenger cars used by Queen Victoria are on display, as is the only Japanese bullet train to be seen outside Japan, along with railway-related art, posters, and memorabilia. You can climb aboard some of the trains and occasionally take a short trip on one. There's also a miniature railway, very popular with kids (£3.50). Admission is by pre-booked ticket only.

Built in the 1690s by Sir Christopher Wren with 18th-century additions and interiors by Robert Adam, this country house, still home to the original family, is one of Britain's finest examples of 18th-century interior decoration. Of particular note is the ornamental plasterwork, Chippendale furniture, the domed Sculpture Hall devoted to Roman statuary, and the Tapestry Hall, which boasts priceless Gobelin tapestries. The 25 acres of gardens are justifiably famous; a double herbaceous border running down to the river separates garden "rooms," each flowering during a different season. A miniature railroad, playground, dollhouse and teddy bear exhibitions, and pedal boats amuse kids. Entry to the house is restricted to one-hour guided tours, which run from April to September.

One of the three oldest stone-built castles in England and considered to be one of Britain's finest examples of a Norman fortress, Richmond Castle sits in a commanding position 100 feet over the River Swale. If you climb the 130 steps to the top of the 12th-century great keep, you are rewarded with sweeping views over the Dales. Originally built around 1071 by the first Earl of Richmond to subdue the unruly inhabitants of the North, the castle retains much of its curtain wall as well as three chapels. There's also an even earlier, two-story structure known as Scolland's Hall, which was built in the 11th century and is believed to be the oldest great hall in England. During World War I, conscientious objectors were imprisoned in the castle, and you can still see the graffiti they inscribed. A path along the river leads to the ruins of golden-stone Easby Abbey. A historical note: when Henry Tudor (son of the Earl of Richmond) became Henry VII in 1485, he began calling his palace in southwest London after the site of his family seat, leading to that part of the city becoming known as Richmond.

The perfect marriage of architecture and landscape, Rievaulx (pronounced ree-voh) Abbey sits in a dramatic setting two miles northwest of Helmsley, its soaring arches built to precisely frame the forested hillside rushing down to the River Rye. Founded in 1132 by a French Cistercian sect (there's a 13th century shrine containing the remains of the first abbot, William, at the entrance to the Chapter House), Rievalux soon became one of the most powerful monasteries in Britain. By the end of the 13th century, the abbey was massively wealthy thanks to the monks involvement in the wool trade. The evocative ruins still give a good indication of how vast it once was, from the church's huge 13th-century presbytery (one of the finest examples of Early English architecture in northern England) to the imposing refectory (dining hall). You should also get a glimpse of the 12th-century cloisters with their (reconstructed) symmetrical columns.

By the time of the suppression of the monasteries in 1538 under Henry VIII, the abbey had shrunk dramatically, with only 23 monks still living there. The new owner, the Earl of Rutland, subsequently dismantled what was left of the abbey, sending off the roof leads and bells to the king and allowing villagers to cart away the abbey's stones to build their houses. What remains is a beautiful ghost of the magnificent building that once stood here. From Rievaulx Abbey it's a short climb or drive up the hill to Rievaulx Terrace, an 18th-century escarpment with a magnificent view of the abbey. At either end of the woodland walk are two mid-18th-century follies in the style of small Palladian temples.

You can easily spend a day at this UNESCO World Heritage Site, an 822-acre complex made up of an 18th-century water garden plus a deer park, an elegant Jacobean mansion, and Fountains Abbey, the largest set of monastic ruins in Britain. The landscape's neoclassical vision of an ordered universe—with spectacular terraces, classical temples, and a grotto—blends with the majestic Gothic abbey founded in 1132 and completed in the early 1500s. It housed Cistercian monks, known as "White Monks" after the color of their robes, who devoted their lives to silence, prayer, and work. Of the surviving buildings, the lay brothers' echoing refectory and dormitory are the most complete. Fountains Mill, built by the monks in the 12th century to grind grain for the monastery and one of the oldest buildings on the estate, was in operation until 1927. The mansion, Fountains Hall, is partially built with stones taken from the abbey, and there are two apartments in the Hall available for short stays. The water garden and Fountains Abbey are 9 miles northwest of Knaresborough, 4 miles southwest of Ripon.

These distinctive, slightly skewed concrete blocks by architect David Chipperfield form the largest purpose-built gallery in the United Kingdom outside London. Overlooking the River Calder, they house an impressive permanent collection of important works by 20th-century British artists, notably sculptors Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, as well as L. S. Lowry and Ben Nicholson. Rolling exhibitions devoted to contemporary artists are displayed in the Calder gallery. It's in the down-to-earth West Yorkshire town of Wakefield, 12 miles south of Leeds off the M1.

The city's focal point, this vast cathedral is the largest Gothic building north of the Alps and attracts almost as many visitors as London's Westminster Abbey. Inside, the effect created by its soaring pillars and lofty vaulted ceilings is almost overpowering. Binoculars may be helpful for viewing the loftiest of the 128 dazzling stained-glass windows. While mere numbers can't convey the scale of the building, the central towers are 200 feet high while the Minster itself is 519 feet long, 249 feet across its transepts, and 90 feet from floor to roof. Among the especially notable contributions to the building's uplifting splendor is the ornamentation of the 14th-century nave: the east window, one of the greatest pieces of medieval glazing in the world; the north transept's Five Sisters windows, five tall lancets of gray-tinged 13th-century glass; the enormous choir screen depicting stylized images of every king of England from William the Conqueror to Henry VI; and the masterful tracery of the Rose Window, with elements commemorating the 1486 marriage of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, a union which ended the Wars of the Roses and started the Tudor dynasty. Don't miss the exquisite 13th-century Chapter House, with its superb medieval ribbed wooden roof and fine traceried stained-glass windows; the Treasury; the Crypt; and the museum in the undercroft, where you can see the remains of a Roman barracks, the Minster's Norman foundations, stained glass, and the 10th-century Horn of Ulf carved from an elephant tusk and donated by a Viking nobleman. After exploring the cathedral at ground level, climb the 275 winding steps to the roof of the great Central Tower, which offers both close-up glimpses of the cathedral's gothic grotesques and panoramic views over the city. Allow 45 minutes for the Tower tour, which is by timed admission only. Don't miss the restored great east window, Britain's largest expanse of medieval stained glass, with its 311 stained-glass panels dating back to the 15th century. To experience the cathedral at its most atmospheric, attend one of the evensong services with organ and choir.

This outdoor gallery near Wakefield is part of a former 18th-century estate encompassing more than 500 acres of fields, lakes, exotic trees, and rolling hills. The park, garden, and Underground Gallery—three galleries cut into a hillside—are filled with a carefully curated collection that includes works by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, as well as modern sculptors like Antony Gormley, Anthony Caro, and David Nash. A visitor center offers a café, a self-service restaurant, a table service restaurant, a gallery for temporary exhibitions, and information about the ecology and history of the estate. You can get here easily from Leeds by train or car.