Hellifield

Once an important railway junction where the Midland Railway met with the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railways, Hellifield, with its grand station, still has a railway atmosphere, with lines of typical railway workers’ terrace houses leading down from the station to the village centre on the busy A65. Here you’ll find an attractive parish church, a shop, inn and café.

The station is still the village’s focal point, built as it is on a grand Victorian scale with elaborate cast iron supported glass canopies and a handsome refreshment room – now open as a café and souvenir shop. It’s a calling point for trains on the Settle-Carlisle and the Leeds-Morecambe lines and for Lancashire Dales Rail services, the only regular passenger trains on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Clitheroe line.

The station and its village makes a good starting point for both walkers and cyclists. Walkers have good linking paths to Langber Lane - the ancient green way to Settle, across moorland pasture into to Airton and Malham, and eastwards to Otterburn and Gargave. Cyclists can use the station to access Ribblesdale, and in particular some networks of fairly quiet roads and very attractive lanes into Ribblesdale, the Forest of Bowland or over to the Wenning Valley.

Bus times can be checked at the Transport Direct and Dalesbus websites.

Local services: pub, shops, café, toilets