Clapham Tourist Information

Enjoying a peaceful, riverside location, Clapham has much to offer. There are pleasant walks to suit all abilities. If a stroll around the village is not strenuous enough, why not climb Ingleborough - one of the Three Peaks? It can be approached from the village by at least three recognised routes and offers stunning views from its incongruously flat summit. Alternatively, the Ingleborough Cave is nearby. This spectacular attraction lay undiscovered until 1837 but now you can take guided tours through it.

In addition to outdoor activities, shops and places of interest, Clapham also has inns, cafés, a range of accomodation and a tourist information point.

Clapham is in Limestone Country. There are miles of dry stone walls enclosing the fields. Great grey cliffs stand above the dales and below Ingleborough. Weathered limestone pavement provides a home for ferns and other damp loving plants. A variety of bird life can be seen from buzzards and lapwings to dippers which run and swim up the becks.

Melt waters of the Ice Age created the spectacular Trow Gill ravine. It makes a good turn-around point for a short walk. Alternatively, you can pass through it to reach Gaping Gill where the waters of Fell Beck drop 104 metres into a chamber said to be large enough to hold York Minster. On the two main Bank Holidays, local caving clubs offer to winch members of the public down, and up!

Back in the village, The Ingleborough Estate Nature Trail leads you from the old sawmill, past the lake, and up the valley through woodland and wild flowers, until you come into open space below Thwaite Scars. Since the trail's creation in 1970, it has continued to mark the conservation of woodland and celebrates Reginald Farrer (1880-1920) who introduced many alpine species from China, Tibet and Upper Burma. The trail includes an amazing collection of rhododendrons.

If not driving, there is a rail service from Leeds or Lancaster to Clapham North Yorkshire, while bus route 581 from Horton in Ribblesdale, Settle and Ingleton will also bring you here.

Description by David Kingsley