Pickering
Pickering is Yorkshire’s time-travelling capital, home to the world-famous North Yorkshire Moors Railway, with its iconic 24-mile steam trains journey, and ‘Harry Potter’ train station, ‘Hogsmeade’.
An annual highlight is the Pickering Wartime Weekend in October, where the entire town turns the clock back to the 1940s in the largest festival of its kind in Britain. There’s also living history museum Beck Isle Museum, the towering ruins of Pickering Castle (English Heritage), and in the local church are magnificent wall paintings considered to be a masterpiece of European medieval art. Not surprisingly, Pickering’s shopping experience has a distinctly vintage flavour, including the North’s premier Antique Centre, and tea-rooms specialising in traditional recipes.
With the North York Moors and Dalby Forest on the doorstep, Pickering is also a great base for outdoor adventure with shops, bike hire, and some of the region’s leading guides and adventure experts including Forest Holidays, Trailblazer and Gone Mountain Biking.