Dales Countryside Museum and National Park Centre

This is an award-winning museum, managed by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, housed in Hawes railway station in the north of the National Park. The Museum explores how our ancestors survived in the beautiful but sometimes harsh environment of the Yorkshire Dales. Interactive exhibits, exciting displays, video and CD-Roms bring alive the story of the Yorkshire Dales and the people that have lived in this unique landscape.

The museum has several galleries, the largest one being in the Victorian goods shed that once housed the goods waiting for collection by the steam trains of the Midland railway. This building has been converted into a fascinating exhibition hall that reveals life in the rural villages of Yorkshire at the turn of the century.

Adjoining the goods shed exhibition hall is the purpose-built museum which houses a gift shop and information centre, public toilets, education and study rooms, an outside amphitheatre and the John Baker Exhibition Hall. The Museum's time tunnel takes you onto the platform of the old station, where a series of railway carriages house the video viewing room and artefacts from Dales life throughout the centuries.

The Dales Countryside Museum hosts a number of events, workshops and demonstrations throughout the year and there is also an exciting programme of changing exhibitions, which can be seen free of charge in the John Baker Exhibition Hall.