Limestone village, wooded gorge, open moor
Lockton
Lockton pairs a tiny creative community with a serious medieval church, generous food stops and access to the landscapes around Levisham Beck.
- Best for
- Food, church details and moorland walking
- Give it
- A village half-day or a full day with the moor walk
- Don't miss
- St Giles's medieval saddleback roof
The Fox verdict
A small village with unusually rich contrasts
Come for local art and Yorkshire cooking, then choose between medieval craftsmanship, a wooded railway valley and open moorland.
Lockton is compact, but its useful stops are varied: the tea room doubles as a gallery for village artists, St Giles's preserves work from several centuries, and the Fox & Rabbit sits beside the A169 at the edge of Dalby Forest. The nearby Levisham Moor circuit supplies the demanding half-day option.
Where to go
Places in Lockton
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesLockton Tea Rooms & Gallery
An independent tea room serving breakfasts, savoury dishes and scones, with work by the nine-member Lockton Artists displayed on the walls.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 75 minutes
- Locality
- in Lockton village
The Fox & Rabbit Inn
A traditional country pub serving dishes including Whitby haddock, venison burger and steak-and-ale pie, with a range of hand-pulled ales.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- on the A169 at the edge of Dalby Forest
Levisham Moor and Hole of Horcum Walk
An official circuit across archaeologically rich Levisham Moor, through rocky Dundale Griff and back through the natural amphitheatre of the Hole of Horcum.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 3 hours for the 5-mile/8km circuit
- Locality
- from Saltergate car park on the A169
- Access
- The official route flags mud, poor visibility, slippery rock and falling-rock risk; check conditions before setting out.
History & heritage
2 placesChurch of Saint Giles
A Grade II* church with a 13th-century nave and chancel, a 15th-century tower, a medieval saddleback roof and furnishings spanning several centuries.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 35 minutes
- Locality
- in Lockton village
- Access
- The building is on the Heritage at Risk register; check current access before travel.
Levisham Station
The closest railway stop to Lockton, set in a steep wooded glacial valley on the heritage North Yorkshire Moors Railway.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 40 minutes
- Locality
- in the wooded Levisham valley
- Access
- This is a heritage railway halt rather than an ordinary year-round National Rail connection; check services before travel.
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Three ways to explore Lockton
Signature outings
Walk the Horcum circuit
Follow the official eight-kilometre circuit over Levisham Moor, through Dundale Griff and into the Hole of Horcum.
Meet the heritage railway
Visit Levisham Station in its steep wooded valley, remembering that it is a heritage halt rather than an everyday rail connection.
Look up at St Giles's
Explore a Grade II* church where a medieval saddleback roof, 13th-century font and late-17th-century pulpit survive together.
The village story
Lockton Village Guide
Local art and ambitious breakfasts meet limestone, medieval craftsmanship, wooded valleys and the open North York Moors.
Tea, Art and a Limestone Village
Lockton Tea Rooms & Gallery serves a breakfast it calls the Lockton Loaded, alongside Yorkshire rarebit made with three Yorkshire cheeses, Turkish eggs, a Reuben, a mushroom melt, a barbecue pulled-pork toastie, and fruit and cheese scones. The gallery on the walls shows work by the Lockton Artists, nine members working in painting, photography, textiles, ceramics, jesmonite and metalwork. There are fewer than 175 permanent residents here, which makes nine practising artists a reasonable proportion of the village. Dogs get their own order: a pup plate of sausage bites and biscuits.
The village itself is limestone, just off the A169, running roughly parallel to the steep-sided, wooded valley of Levisham Beck. The road rises and falls as it curves through, and beyond the houses are Dalby Forest, pasture, glacial channels and open moor.
The A169 Inn and Its Earlier Life
The Fox & Rabbit Inn sits directly on the A169, at the edge of Dalby Forest rather than in the village core. Brothers Charles and Toby Wood have run it since 2004, and David Owuor has led the kitchen for more than a decade. The menu runs to Whitby haddock with homemade chips and mushy peas, a venison burger with red-onion marmalade and Yorkshire blue cheese, steak-and-ale pie, lamb's liver with parsley mash, bacon and red-onion gravy, Whitby scampi, and a wild-mushroom and spinach risotto. The hand-pulls include Timothy Taylor's Boltmaker, Wainwright Gold, Theakston Best Bitter and Old Peculier.
The building started life as Keld House, named for a Scarborough surgeon, Thomas Keld. It was advertised to let in 1788 as well placed for an inn, and began as a beer house.
Medieval Craft and Open Moor
St Giles's church is Grade II* and was for a long time listed under the name St Mary. The nave and chancel are 13th-century, the tower 15th. Inside are a 13th-century tub font, a finely carved late-17th-century octagonal pulpit, 17th-century altar rails, and east-window glass of 1925; the 1809 porch door still hangs on a strap hinge. The medieval saddleback roof is formed as a ribbed tunnel vault beneath interlocking stone flags. The building is on Historic England's at-risk register, its condition assessed as poor, decaying slowly with no solution yet agreed.
The best walking starts a few miles north at Saltergate, where an eight-kilometre circuit takes about three hours across Levisham Moor, dropping through the rocky cleft of Dundale Griff and returning through the Hole of Horcum. The Hole is a natural amphitheatre roughly 400 feet deep and more than half a mile across; the tidier explanation is spring-sapping, though the local one has the giant Wade scooping out the earth by hand. Adding the diversion to Skelton Tower makes it eleven kilometres. The moor holds Bronze Age barrows, Iron Age boundary dykes, and the traces of a medieval monastic sheep farm.
Rail Across the Gorge and a Community Orchard
Levisham station, in its own steep wooded valley, is the nearest railway stop, though it is a heritage halt on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway rather than an everyday connection. For ordinary trains, Malton is the interchange, with the 840 bus linking through, so it is worth checking times before you go. Lockton and Levisham face each other across the gorge; the footpath down to the station is a little over two miles, hilly and largely off the road.
Behind the cemetery, residents have planted a community orchard of apple, plum and pear, with wildflowers sown among the trees; the native hedging is still to go in, part of a quiet biodiversity plan for the space.
Stay around North York Moors
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around North York Moors, linked directly to their property pages.
A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Lockton Tea Rooms & Gallery — locktontearooms.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Church of Saint Giles — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- The Fox & Rabbit Inn — foxandrabbit.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Levisham Moor and Hole of Horcum Walk — visitnorthyorkshire.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Levisham Station — nymr.co.uk other published source