67 Best Sights in Yorkshire, England

Southwest of the town center, these 17 acres of formal gardens include a children's boating lake, tennis courts, skate park, adventure playground, miniature golf course, paddling pool, zip lines, and a little café.

This museum in a working dairy documents how the famed local cheese—so beloved by the popular animated characters Wallace and Gromit—developed over time. You can watch production (best seen between 10 am and 4:30 pm ) from the viewing gallery and then taste (and buy) over 20 varieties of the output in the excellent cheese shop. A restaurant serves plenty of samples—try Wensleydale smoked with ginger or apricots.

Set high on the East Cliff, the strikingly Gothic ruins of this once grand church are visible even from moorland hills miles away. The abbey, one of the very few founded by a woman (St. Hild, aka St. Hilda, in AD 657), was populated by a mixed community of monks and nuns. The Vikings sacked it in the 9th century, but it was refounded by the Benedictines in the 11th century. It was later enlarged (the headland is dominated by the shell of the abbey's 13th-century church) and flourished until it was destroyed by Henry VIII. The excellent visitor center has exhibits on St. Hild and Dracula author Bram Stoker, Anglo-Saxon artifacts, and interactive displays about the medieval abbey.

Exhibits in this quirky museum—notable for its old-school displays that use handwritten cards—cover everything from geology and natural history to archaeology, whaling, and trade routes in Asia. There's also an exceptional collection of marine fossils.

When it comes to conveying the darker side of York's history, this attraction takes a tongue-in-cheek approach. Lurid lighting, lots of fake blood and other special effects, a soundtrack of screaming or moaning, and costumed actors enliven episodes from the lives of highwayman Dick Turpin, revolutionary Guy Fawkes, Viking king Eric Bloodaxe, and other infamous citizens. As you might imagine, it's popular with kids, though it's not suitable for those under age nine. Admission is by pre-booked time slots only.

Located on a 22-acre former World War II RAF Bomber Command base, this independent museum showcases more than 60 historic vehicles and aircraft, many of which are still in working condition. The collection includes early-20th-century biplanes and gliders, such as the Eastchurch Kitten (the only surviving one in the world); Spitfires, a German Messerschmitt, and other World War II–era planes; and contemporary fighter jets like the Mirage 4. There are also exhibits devoted to military vehicles, aircraft weaponry, and Royal Air Force uniforms. The museum is home to a memorial and gardens commemorating British and Allied service members who lost their lives in conflict.

The ecological and archaeological history of the county is the focus of this museum in an early-19th-century Greek Revival–style building with massive Doric columns. Themed galleries focus mostly on prehistoric, Roman, Anglian, Viking, and medieval periods, with nearly 1 million objects, including the 15th-century Middleham Jewel, a pendant gleaming with a large sapphire; a Paleolithic hand axe; and an extremely rare copperplate helmet, a 1,200-year-old Viking artifact. The oldest working observatory in Yorkshire (from 1833) is in the gardens. Another exhibition documents Yorkshire during the Jurassic period, with a kid-friendly emphasis on dinosaurs.