Settle

From Settle station on Station Road, the 25-minute run north climbs past Horton-in-Ribblesdale to Ribblehead Viaduct — 24 arches, 104 feet high, built 1870-74 at appalling cost in lives. Get off at Ribblehead, walk under the arches, have a pint at the Station Inn and catch a later train back. Six or seven trains a day.

The path leaves from Constitution Hill just off the market square and zigzags up through trees to a limestone nose three hundred feet directly above the rooftops. Twenty minutes up, free, and the view takes in the whole town, Giggleswick Scar and Ingleborough. Slippery in the wet and unfenced at the top.

Victoria Street, in a wildly over-windowed seventeenth-century merchant's house that locals nicknamed the Folly. The collection covers lead mining, limestone, the railway navvies and rural life; entry is a few pounds and it opens most afternoons April to October, fewer days in winter. The building alone justifies the ticket.

Head east from the market square up Constitution Hill and Lambert Lane onto the limestone terrace. Attermire Scar is a wall of white cliff about two miles out; Victoria Cave, opened in 1837, produced hyena and hippopotamus bones and later Romano-British finds. Rough, open ground, boots essential, four hours out and back.

Kirkgate, a couple of minutes from the square. Built in 1853 and claimed as the oldest surviving music hall anywhere, it now runs a mixed programme of touring bands, comedy and cinema, usually £8 to £20. The interior is small, raked and atmospheric. Check the listings when you book your room — it is the town's only reliable evening out.

Fifteen minutes up the line. From Horton-in-Ribblesdale station the path to Pen-y-ghent's 694-metre summit is a steady three miles with two short scrambles near the top, and you can be back for a pot of tea at the Pen-y-ghent Café, the traditional Three Peaks clocking-in point. Check the day's train times both ways before you start.

Settle station is on the Leeds-Carlisle line: roughly 1h05 from Leeds, with connections from Manchester and Skipton, which is 25 minutes south. That makes this the easiest Dales town to reach without a car — the station is a five-minute walk from the market square, slightly uphill on the way back. Six or seven trains a day run north to Horton, Ribblehead, Dent and Kirkby Stephen. Buses link Settle with Skipton and, in summer, with Malham and Ingleton on DalesBus services that mostly run weekends. In town everything is walkable but steep. Drivers should use Whitefriars or Greenfoot car parks rather than the square, at around £4 for the day.

Yes, and many do, but note the classic circuit starts and finishes at Horton-in-Ribblesdale, not Settle. Take the first train up the line, or drive the six miles and pay the Horton car park charge. Allow ten to twelve hours for the 24-mile round. Book your Settle bed well ahead for spring and summer weekends and ask for an early breakfast.

Skipton has more shops, more restaurants and better rail connections to Leeds and Bradford, but Settle sits deeper in the limestone country and puts Ribblehead, Horton and Dent on your doorstep by train. If you want walking, choose Settle. If you want to eat well and shop, choose Skipton and day-trip up the line, which takes 25 minutes.

It is about eight miles by road, roughly 20 minutes by car through Langcliffe and Kirkby Malham. Public transport is limited to seasonal DalesBus services running mainly on summer Sundays and bank holidays, so check before relying on it. Walkers can reach Malham Cove over the tops in about four hours via Attermire and Malham Tarn's approaches — a serious day, not a stroll.

Market square parking is competitive on Tuesdays and summer weekends, but Settle never gets Grassington-level crowding. As for the weather, yes — this is the western Pennines and the annual rainfall is well above the Vale of York. Pack waterproofs in every month, treat a dry week as luck, and note that limestone paths above the town become genuinely slick when wet.