Ash Tree Cottage

About this stay

Ash Tree Cottage is a 4-star hotel in York, England.

Ash Tree Cottage is a well-rated 4-star hotel in York, England, popular with guests who want comfort and a strong location near central York.

Book Ash Tree Cottage through app.impt.io at the same live rate you would find anywhere else, with free cancellation on most rooms. Every completed booking funds one verified tonne of carbon removal — paid from the standard commission the hotel already covers, never added to your bill.

Where Ash Tree Cottage really is

The listing says York, but the address points somewhere rather more interesting: High Hagg on Starfitts Lane at Kirkbymoorside, on the southern edge of the North York Moors. That is roughly twenty-five miles north of York itself, so it is not a city break base — it is a moorland base, and once you accept that, the position is close to ideal. Helmsley, Pickering, Hutton-le-Hole, Lastingham and the Ryedale villages are all within a fifteen-minute drive, and York, Whitby and the coast are each about forty-five minutes to an hour for a day out.

Ash Tree Cottage is a four-star cottage rather than a serviced hotel: kitchen, washing machine, parking and, in this case, a horse-riding connection that makes it unusual among the holiday lets in the area. Pets are allowed and Wi-Fi is provided, so the practical boxes are ticked for a walking or riding week with a dog in tow. If you want a reception desk, room service and a bar downstairs, this is not that — and for most people who book here, that is exactly the appeal.

What to do from the doorstep

Kirkbymoorside itself is a small market town with a broad main street, a couple of good pubs and the church of All Saints with its Norman doorway; it is the kind of place where you buy your bread in the morning and eat it on a bench. Two miles north is Kirkdale, with St Gregory's Minster — a Saxon church with a famous sundial over the door — and the path up Kirkdale Slack through the woods. Hutton-le-Hole, with the Ryedale Folk Museum, is a few minutes east, and Lastingham's crypt is one of the oldest surviving pieces of church building in the north of England.

Helmsley, four miles west, gives you the castle and the walled garden at Duncombe Park, plus the Cleveland Way starting from the market square. Rievaulx Abbey, the great Cistercian ruin in its wooded valley, is just beyond. Pickering to the east has its castle, the Beck Isle Museum and the southern terminus of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, whose steam trains run up through Levisham, Goathland and Grosmont to Whitby — easily the best day out in the area and one you should book ahead for in school holidays.

Further afield, Castle Howard is twenty minutes south past Slingsby, Malton's food market is half an hour, and the coast at Whitby, Robin Hood's Bay and Sandsend is an hour's drive over the moor by the A169, past the Hole of Horcum. Sutton Bank, where the A170 climbs the escarpment in a 1-in-4 against a view over the Vale of York, is about twenty minutes away, with the Yorkshire Gliding Club at the top and the White Horse of Kilburn cut into the hillside below.

Getting here

A car is essential. The nearest railway station is Malton, twenty-five minutes south on the York–Scarborough line, or the North Yorkshire Moors Railway station at Pickering for a steam arrival without the drive. Bus services on the moors are thin outside summer, when the Moorsbus network runs weekend routes across the moor. By road, from York take the A64 then the A169 at Malton; from Teesside the A19 and A170 through Helmsley; the A170 crosses the moors east–west between Thirsk and Scarborough.

Parking at the cottage is one of the reasons to book it: Kirkbymoorside's streets are narrow, and having the car off the road takes the sting out of an evening out in Helmsley or Pickering. Fill up before you come — petrol stations up here are few and far between, and the nearest 24-hour options are on the A64 or in Malton.

Best time, and how many nights

Spring and early summer are hard to beat: the bluebells in Beck Dale and the gardens at Duncombe Park, long light evenings and lambs in the fields. Late September and October bring the moorland heather at its last and a good chance of clear, cold mornings on the tops. High summer is busiest around Pickering, Goathland and Whitby, and the steam railway sells out — book that first and plan around it.

Three nights is the sensible minimum here, because the pleasure of the moors is not rushing. One day for Helmsley, Rievaulx and Duncombe Park; one for the railway and Whitby; one for walking or riding from the door. A week is better still if you want York, Castle Howard and the coast without squeezing them in. Check the rate's minimum-stay rules and any cleaning charge before you pay: holiday cottages in Ryedale vary a lot, and the headline nightly figure is not always the final one.

Facilities

• Bathroom
• Dishwasher
• First aid
• Free Wifi
• Free car parking
• Horse back riding
• Internet access
• Kitchen
• Non smoking rooms
• Parking
• Pets allowed
• Smoke detector
• Washing Machine
• Wifi

Location

High Hagg Starfitts Lane_X000d_Kirkbymoorside_X000d_, York, United Kingdom.

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