🎈 Family days out
North Yorkshire Moors Railway
Eighteen miles of heritage steam railway from Pickering through Newton Dale to Grosmont and Whitby.
Town or village
Photo: Benjamin Smith, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
🎈 Family days out
🏰 History & heritage
🏰 History & heritage
🎈 Family days out
🍽️ Food & drink
🏰 History & heritage
🏰 History & heritage
Dates TBC
Dates TBC
Dates TBC
Dates TBC
Dates TBC
Pickering
Steam railway terminus with a castle and a medieval church
Pickering is the southern gateway to the moors and the home station of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. Steam trains leave from a platform that looks much as it did in the 1930s, heading north through Newton Dale to Goathland and Whitby.
The town has a motte-and-bailey castle, a parish church with rare 15th-century wall paintings, the Beck Isle Museum of rural life and a Monday market. It is also the nearest town to Dalby Forest.
Things to do around Pickering
🎈 Family days out
🏰 History & heritage
Pickering Castle
Well-preserved motte-and-bailey castle used by medieval kings as a hunting lodge.
🏰 History & heritage
Beck Isle Museum
Museum of rural life in a Regency house beside Pickering Beck, with a reconstructed street of shops.
🎈 Family days out
Flamingo Land
Theme park and zoo on the edge of the moors near Pickering, with roller coasters and 140 animal species.
🍽️ Food & drink
Great Yorkshire Brewery at Cropton
Village brewery behind the New Inn at Cropton, with tours, a tap room and a campsite.
🏰 History & heritage
Cawthorn Roman Camps
Four Roman military earthworks on the moor edge north of Pickering, with a waymarked trail.
🏰 History & heritage
St Peter and St Paul, Pickering
Parish church with a complete cycle of 15th-century wall paintings, whitewashed over and rediscovered in 1852.
Events in Pickering
Dates TBC 25–27 Sep 2026
NYMR Autumn Steam Gala
Intensive weekend of steam with visiting locomotives, freight trains and late-running services.
Dates TBC 9–11 Oct 2026
Railway in Wartime weekend
Pickering turns back the clock to the 1940s with re-enactors, vintage vehicles, big-band music and wartime trains.
Dates TBC 5–24 Dec 2026
Santa Specials on the steam railway
Steam trains through the winter moors with Father Christmas on board and a present for every child.
Dates TBC 23–25 Apr 2027
NYMR Spring Steam Gala
The railway's first big weekend of the season, with visiting engines and an intensive timetable.
Dates TBC 29–31 May 2027
Malton Food Lovers Festival
Yorkshire's food capital hosts a three-day feast of producers, chefs, street food and demonstrations.