 Tickets for the Wensleydale Railway are now on sale, and prices have been held at their 2023 levels - despite rising costs. Impressive!
The season begins on 2 March, when travellers can enjoy spectacular scenery, visit restored historic stations and learn more about the 1900s way of life while enjoying free guided tours with costumed living history interpreters. Fish and chips too! Visit wensleydale-railway.co.uk.
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 If you're coming by car (or by camper, or motorbike) we've some handy tips for you on our Useful Links page:
• Parking in Richmond: a map of car parks, and details of rates and free disc parking. • Circular drives: free, downloadable FAQsheet. • Electric car charging: rapid, medium-speed and slow options. • Roadworks: live map of works, blockages and holdups in the area. (None, we hope.) From our pod in the Market Hall you can also pick up a free leaflet on parking options in Richmond, and a parking disc - also free - which is needed for parking in some parts of town. Enjoy your visit. Toot toot!  If you're planning an event, you can list it, at no charge, in What's On Richmond.
Published every two months for free distribution in shops, Post Offices, pubs and other outlets around Richmond, What's On Richmond is an A5-format, full-colour guide of 16 pages or more to as many events, concerts, shows, exhibitions, markets, parades (etc., etc., etc....) as can be squeezed in. It is the What's On guide to our area - and placing an entry is so easy: 1. Go to the Richmond Information Centre website at richmondinfo.net 2. Click Planning an event? on the Home Page... After review, your event is guaranteed an online entry. If it's submitted in good time and there's room, your event will then also appear in the appropriate print edition. Print editions are published in January, March, May, July, September and November. Simple. What are you waiting for?  Richmond MayFest takes place every early-May Bank Holiday, with loads of great music and other activities in and around Richmond Castle and the town centre. And many events are free!
2024 highlights will include a three-day fair in the Castle, with music, dancing, storytelling, craft stalls, traditional games, circus fun and food and drink. There'll be a ceilidh, folk and choral concerts, medieval minstrels, morris groups, living history combats, a retro dance with music from the 50s and 60s, a May parade. Exhausted already..? There's much more! Ever fancied clog-dancing? Or drum circles? Or tarantella? Come and have a go! We don't have all the details yet, but that sounds pretty exciting to be going on with. You can follow MayFest here, plan ahead and book tickets.  There are some wonderful walking clubs in the Dales. One such is the charity Access the Dales - for people who 'walk' by wheelchair. The motto of the team behind the venture is "Making the Inaccessible Accessible". The photo says it all.
If you're coming to the Dales with a wheelchair, or if you need to hire an off-road chair, you really should visit the Access site. You could also take a look at our previous post, Wheelchair-walks-in-the-dales, to see a few of the recommended wheelchairable walks. NB that we stock the excellent book Walks without Stiles in the Information Centre, as well as a free, downloadable FAQsheet called Accessible Richmond. Get some mud on those wheels!  For two weeks every year, in May and June, the Swaledale Festival returns to the northern Yorkshire Dales and Richmond. The artists are of the highest international standard, and come from all over the world. With over 50 events of all kinds (talks, guided walks, classical music, folk music, brass bands and jazz, art exhibitions, poetry and comedy) the Festival is reason enough to book a stay in the Dales - and many people do!
The full programme is at swalefest.org. Booking opens 11 March, but be warned... Festival Friends will have had two weeks of advance booking by then, so if you're not a Friend you should prepare your shopping list now and move fast on the 11th - because some events can sell out very fast! All the events are individually priced, so you can drop in and out as you like. Venues range from tiny chapels to 400-seater auditoriums, from the giddy heights of upper Swaledale to the broad acres of lower Wensleydale. Need somewhere to stay? Take a look at our Accommodation section, for hotels, inns, B&Bs and snug cottages in some of England's loveliest countryside. Nothing, but nothing, can beat the experience of leaving an evening concert at St Andrew's Church in Grinton, to see the summer sun setting on the Swaledale fells. Magic...  There's always a lot going on in our little town. Much of it is described in the calendar section of our two-monthly What's On Richmond publication (free from most Richmond shops and the Information Centre).
Because there's so much activity, we can't squeeze every event into the calendar. That's why we have a separate section in the back of What's On, for regular and recurrent events. Look out for it! Here's a little selection. Whether you're local or just passing through, you'll be made very welcome at all these events. (Most of them have links you can click for further details.)
 Richmond Castle is currently opening at weekends only, but will offer extended opening over the coming half-term holiday (hooray!).
From 10 February to 18 February the magnificent Norman castle will be open from 10:00 to 16:00. Let your imagination run riot as you explore the huge building, or climb to the top of the keep, or look across the rushing River Swale to the jousting fields on the far side... Tickets can be bought at the door, but advance online bookings at englishheritage will save you a handy 10%. Family tickets could save you even more. If you're an English Heritage member, you get in free. (You can even sign up on the day.)  The Museum's been closed for winter maintenance, and re-opened to visitors on Monday 5 February.
The current special exhibition is Great Escapes, which runs until 20 April; the exhibition looks at the plight of captured soldiers during WWII, and highlights how luck, courage and the kindness of strangers could affect their fate if they were determined to be free. Entry is included in the price of Museum admission. Later in the year a new exhibition will mark the 80th anniversary of the Normandy Campaign in 1944. The Museum offers fascinating insights into Yorkshire's celebrated 'Green Howards' regiment and into Richmond's history as a military town. Details and tickets are at greenhowards.org.uk. |
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September 2024
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