Knaresborough in North Yorkshire

Thursday, 22 February 2024 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: Great Britain / Großbritannien
Category/Kategorie: General Reading Time: 5 minutes

The town crier in the market place © Adrian Pingstone

Knaresborough is a market and spa town and civil parish on the River Nidd in North Yorkshire, England. It is three miles (five kilometres) east of Harrogate and was in the Borough of Harrogate until April 2023.

Knaresborough is mostly a commuter town but it also serves as a local centre for the surrounding rural villages. The town has a small tourism industry and service sector. There is a small industrial estate on Manse Lane in the east of the town. Knaresborough has a local weekly newspaper; the Knaresborough Post, although it borrows content heavily from neighbouring publications. Flying Colours Flagmakers, who hold a Royal Warrant to supply flags to the Royal Household, are based in Knaresborough. The town has a large supermarket, Lidl, which is located on the site of a former Co-Op store in Chain Lane, as well as smaller supermarkets in the town centre. The St James retail park on the outskirts of the town, off Wetherby Road, has retail chain units. The town has fifteen public houses, a wine bar, two working men’s clubs and several restaurants. There are a number of national retailers with branches in the town centre, mostly around the High Street, Market Place and Castle Courtyard (a shopping arcade in the old Town Hall). The town has a small public swimming pool.

Knaresborough Railway Viaduct © Steveriley39/cc-by-sa-4.0

Statue of Blind Jack Metcalf in the market square © Mtaylor848/cc-by-sa-3.0

Museum at Knaresborough Castle © Supergolden/cc-by-sa-3.0

Former Knaresborough Town Hall © Mtaylor848/cc-by-sa-3.0

Knaresborough Castle ruins © flickr.com - Redvers/cc-by-2.0

Knaresborough Castle ruins © Simon Burchell/cc-by-sa-4.0

Knaresborough Railway Viaduct © Callmecheez

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Knaresborough House on the High Street houses Knaresborough Town Council and the Yorkshire Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs. Knaresborough hosts the annual Bed Race, organised by the Knaresborough Lions Club. It is held on the second Saturday of June. The event was first staged in 1966. An annual town centre arts summer festival, the Festival of Entertainment and Visual Arts, has run since 2001. Knaresborough hosts a parkrun, Conyngham Hall parkrun, which started in May 2019. It takes place every Saturday at Conyngham Hall, with the exception of Bed Race day. The town was used in the opening election sequence in the first episode of the ITV comedy series The New Statesman and some exterior shots for the series were filmed around Knaresborough. The town also featured in the 2019 American television film A Very British Christmas, for which it was a principal shooting location. The Frazer Theatre is just off High Street.

Sights in the town include the remains of Knaresborough Castle, the Courthouse Museum in the castle grounds, Mother Shipton‘s Cave, the House in the Rock, St Robert’s Cave (dating from the Middle Ages), and the railway viaduct over the River Nidd. The House in the Rock, also known as Fort Montague, is a local Knaresborough curiosity. In the early 19th century, a strange child appeared in the Hill family. This child had abnormal very blonde woolly hair resembling the fleece of a sheep and was known as the Woolly-Headed Boy of Fort Montague. He conducted visitors around the house and was a great curiosity himself. The Chapel of Our Lady of the Crag on Abbey Road is a Grade I listed shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It was built in 1408 by John the Mason after his son, who was presumed dead in a rockfall in a local quarry, was found alive, with the son’s escape having been attributed to the mason’s frequent prayers to Mary. Knaresborough is the site of the oldest chemist shop in England, opened in 1720. The principal areas of public open space are the Knaresborough Castle grounds, Horseshoe Field, the King George V Playing Field and Jacob Smith Park, a 30-acre (12-hectare) parkland on the edge of the town, bequeathed to Knaresborough by Miss Winifred Jacob Smith in 2003. Wildlife is protected in the former flooded quarry, Hay-a-Park Gravel Pit. Conyngham Hall is close to the town centre. Until the 1980s there was a small zoo in the grounds. Near to the castle are Bebra Gardens, formerly the Moat Gardens, renamed after Knaresborough’s twin town in Germany. The Commercial (formerly Borough Bailiff) public house, owned by the Samuel Smith Brewery, was the oldest pub in Knaresborough until it closed.

Read more on Knaresborough Town Council, VisitHarrogate.co.uk – Knaresborough and Wikipedia Knaresborough (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.

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