Go for: Gothic allure and stargazing delights
With world-conquering Barbie actor/producer Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi (Euphoria, Frankenstein), and Saltburn director Emerald Fennell teaming up for a daring, sexy, “aggressively provocative” take on Emily Brontë’s classic Wuthering Heights, it’s little wonder there’s a frisson of excitement rippling through North Yorkshire, where it’s set. The film was primarily shot in Swaledale and Arkengarthdale in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, including Old Gang Lead Mines, Surrender Bridge, Old Bouldershaw House, Lady Mary Hut, windswept Booze Moor and Melbecks Moor, and the time-capsule village of Low Row. Simonstone Hall, which hosted cast and crew, including Robbie and Elordi, during filming, is now cannily offering romantic packages with Champagne, chocolates, candle-lit dinners—and hopefully less doomed endings. It isn’t North Yorkshire’s only major film outing recently—Redmire, Embsay and the Bolton Abbey Railway were key locations in the post-apocalyptic 28 Days Later outing, The Bone Temple.
But there’s even more local buzz among outdoors-loving Yorkshire folks for the opening of the popular Coast to Coast Path as a newly minted National Trail in March. Years of work has gone into improving footpaths, bridleways, signposts, stiles and gates across the 192-mile route, which runs from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood’s Bay in the North York Moors, taking in both Yorkshire Dales National Park and North York Moors National Park, with lakeland fells, limestone dales, river valleys, heather-coated moorland, coastal cliffs, historic villages, wildlife (red squirrels, deer, birds of prey…), and inviting places to stay, from shepherd’s huts to B&Bs. Such vast open spaces also make for inspirational stargazing, with a new, state-of-the-art observatory opening in North York Moors National Park, an International Dark Sky Reserve, during this year’s Dark Skies Festival (February 13-March 1). The Dark Skies Station will sit within the riverside surroundings of Danby Lodge National Park Centre, which, along with Sutton Bank National Park Centre, turns 50 this year.
It’s a big birthday too, for Scarborough, the seaside resort, celebrating the 400th anniversary of its official designation as a spa town with a Scarborough 400 program of summer events, outdoor activities, heritage trails and the unveiling of a permanent new £95,000 (approximately $130,000) sculpture. Graeme Green