North East England's Best Views

By Simon Jenkins

England's views are remarkable for their beauty and variety. In this illustrated, first-of-its-kind guide, bestselling author Simon Jenkins picks the very best views from North East England, including Bempton cliffs, Gordale Scar, Hebden Bridge, Richmond, Rievaulx, Saltaire, Whitby Harbour, Durham, Hadrian's Wall, Lindisfarne and Newcastle's Grey Street, and more - and explains the fascinating stories behind them. Jenkins' entertaining and erudite entries provide the rich historical, geographical, botanical and architectural background to North East England's breathtaking sights both iconic and undiscovered.

Filled with roman roads, cliff-tops, follies, mountains, ancient castles, rolling forests and heart-stopping moments, you'll soon wonder how you chose walks, mini-breaks or spontaneous diversions without it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Profile Books
• Release date: Oct 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781782830658

Simon Jenkins

Sir Simon Jenkins is an award-winning journalist and author of several books on the politics, history and architecture of England. He writes for the Guardian and the Sunday Times, as well as broadcasting for the BBC. He is the co-author of The Battle for the Falklands with Max Hastings. Jenkins was knighted for services to journalism in 2004.

Book preview

YORKSHIRE

Bempton Cliffs

Gordale Scar

Hebden Bridge: From Fairfield

Ribblehead: Towards the Viaduct

Richmond: The Market Place

Rievaulx: From the Terrace

Roseberry Topping: Towards Teesside

Saltaire: From Shipley

Swaledale: From the dale head

Whitby Harbour: From West Cliff

BEMPTON CLIFFS

Even the most ardent Yorkshireman would not claim the East Riding as blessed with England’s most beautiful coast. Despite patronage by David Hockney, the Yorkshire Wolds are a lost corner of England, a place of modestly rolling hills and sparsely populated valleys. The towns seem poor and the seaside resorts of Scarborough and Bridlington have seen better times. But where the wolds meet the sea they do so with a great roar of chalk.

The road from Hunmanby to Flamborough was, on my visit, deserted. Flamborough Head is ‘cul-de-sac’ England, a place through which no one passes to anywhere else. It is Philip Larkin’s land, where ‘removed lives’ are clarified by loneliness and ‘silence stands like heat’. A sign leads to the RSPB reserve of Bempton Cliffs, from where there is a short walk to the cliff edge, 130m above the sea.

East Riding chalk is less white than that of England’s south coast, being vividly layered in horizontal sheets, as if sediments of mud had mixed with the crustaceans on the sea floor. In places these layers are heaved and twisted, as at Lulworth in Dorset. Everywhere they are indented by erosion, creating deep gulleys, caves and passages, best appreciated from the sea (on the Yorkshire Belle out of Bridlington). This is a living, moving shoreline, with which the sea seems in perpetual combat.

The chief attraction of Bempton, indeed of much of England’s north-east coast, is ornithological. The RSPB has helpfully located decks at strategic points along the cliff edge, overlooking rocks and inlets with such names as Noon Nook, Scale Nap and Nettle Trip. They offer a clear view down to the sea and its caves. One cliff ends in a sculpted arch, except that the chalk is so angular as to look more like a woman in a skirt with one leg in the sea. Locals known as ‘climmers’ used to descend these cliffs on ropes to collect much-prized guillemot eggs, dozens at a time, until banned in the 1950s.

Wild Bempton’s great roar of chalk

Birds swarm over these cliffs in what is the busiest nature reserve in England, with 200,000 birds arriving