Two tiny treats in one: a pocket-sized orchestra and a bijou theatre!

Yes, Richmondshire's own chamber orchestra returns to the little jewel-box that is the Georgian Theatre Royal for an afternoon concert of colourful classical music from Northern Europe.

Warning! There are not many seats left!

The concert is at 3pm on 6 April - a great way to fill a Sunday afternoon! For details and tickets, visit the theatre's box office. 

This looks fun.

Visiting Richmond? Then be sure to visit The Station, our wonderful Victorian-era railway terminus, now a multi activity centre with three cinema screens, a cafe-bar, ice-cream parlour, craft shop, bakery, brewery, jeweller, fudge-maker and - the subject of this post - a wonderful art gallery.

The next show at the gallery is called Heather and Grouse, a hint that it's all about the Yorkshire Dales. You'll find atmospheric paintings, hand-thrown pottery, textile sculptures, traditional rope, nature-inspired stained glass, pictures made from the felted wool of Wensleydale sheep (see image), and much more.

It's all on sale - so you can take away a fabulous memento of your time in North Yorkshire!

​The exhibition runs 11 - 22 April, at The Station. Entry is free.

Two bits of news just in:

A number of footpaths and bridleways in Arkengarthdale, Calver Hill and Gunnerside Gill will be closed for "works to be executed" from now until September. The Yorkshire Dales National Park website offers a little more detail, and some alternative routes, but doesn't say what the "works" are. A mole suggests they may be not-unconnected to the shooting of Warner Bros' remake of Wuthering Heights...

• These works affect Walk no. 7, Calver Hill from Reeth, in our Pootling Round Richmond and Swaledale booklet. 

At the same time, we hear that the Coast to Coast route through Whitecliffe Woods, just before Richmond, will be diverted by North Yorkshire Council during repair works. The closure starts 1 April, and will continue until 30 Sept at the latest.

• These works affect Walk no. 4, Willance's Leap, in our Richmond Walks booklet. 

Some people say it's snowdrops that are the first sign of Spring. Others say it's the first cuckoo. But here, in the Richmond Information Centre pod, it's the arrival of the National Garden Scheme booklet, with its cheerful daffodil-yellow cover. And it's come!

​Gardens Open for Charity: Yorkshire 2025 is on our shelves now, and will start flying off the shelves very soon. Drop in and pick up your copy soon.

We dipped into What's On Richmond and pulled out... The Fibonacci Quartet. This Madrid-based string quartet, one of the leading young chamber-music bands in Europe, arrives with a whole host of international prizes. The artists wil be playing a programme of works by Mozart and by Schulhoff (who'll be new to many of us), as well as Schubert's staggering Death and the Maiden Quartet.

The recital takes place at Richmond School, at 19:30 on Saturday 29 March. Tickets are £20 on the door.

This is the fifth concert in the Richmondshire Concerts society's '24-'25 season. You can find more details of this, and the final concert, at rsconcerts.org.

A quartet? Surely with the name 'Fibonacci' this should be a trio or a quintet. (Sorry - that's a little maths-nerd joke...)

Richmond Market Place is supposedly the largest cobbled area in England. Hooray for us!

The down-side, apart from the occasional twisted ankle and ruined bicycle wheel, is that all those cobbles need looking after. So, several times a year, our Council sets up camp in the Market Place, digs up an acre or two of cobbles, and laboriously puts them all back again. Necessary work, but tedious and disruptive. And pity those poor blokes who spend several weeks on their knees, tapping the stones back, one by one.

Anyway - it's all about to happen once more. This time, the disruption will take place in two areas, over the period 10 - 31 March. We don't know where exactly, but it's bound to make parking in the Market Place that bit more difficult. Try Nun's Close car-park instead?

We stock an excellent little book called Walks WIthout Stiles. For anyone who has a disability, or a non-athletic dog, or is simply becoming older and stiffer, stiles can prove difficult. The book describes 32 of the very best stile-free walks in the Yorkshire and Cumbrian Dales.

That little book sells and sells - so a lot of our visitors will be interested in the work of Access the Dales, a charity which aims to improve accessibility in this area, and runs a very successful wheelchair loan system. Access the Dales also produces occasional blog items, and we particularly liked this one: 'Exploring Waterfall Walks'. Take a look!