Right on the doorstep
The town of Hawes offers a good selection of shops, cafe's, pubs and restaurants, the Wensleydale Creamery, Rope makers and Countryside museums as well as Gayle Mill. Watch Richard Fawcett, a world famous sheep dog handler, sheep dog trials, every Thursday at 6.30pm in t' Summer just after Haylands Bridge, one mile North of Hawes
The rugged and majestic limestone Karst scenery with its unusual features such as the 'Buttertubs', deep and strangely shaped sink holes on Buttertubs Pass North of Hawes, (made more famous recently as a major climb on the Tour De France, or the Yoredale series, layered limestones interspersed with shales and sandstones causing the unique "stepped" landscape of the Upper Dales.
Other features well worth seeing are Wensleydale's waterfalls. The highest unbroken waterfall in Britain, Hardrow Force at The Green Dragon Inn at Hardraw, 100 feet high, an easy walk from Hawes. Further down the Dale are Aysgarth Falls, three of them, Upper, Middle and Lower.
Semerwater, is a lake formed by glacial action from which flows into the shortest English river, the river Bain, hence the village of Bainbridge. The walk around the lake is quintessentially outstanding and was visited by Turner.
A few miles to the South West (10mins drive on the beautiful Hawes to Ingleton road) is the famous Ribblehead Viaduct, made up of twenty-four arches built 1870 - 1874, 440 yards (400 m) long, which carries the Settle to Carlisle railway across Batty Moss, made famous by being saved from closure in 1989. Surrounded by the three peaks, Ingleborough, Pen-Y-Ghent and Whernside, truly it is a sight to behold with high and lower level walking around the area, or just an amble to experience The Viaduct and The 3 Peaks.
Market Place, Main Street, Hawes