Farndale Store reopened in Low Mill in the summer of 2023, restoring a shop the hamlet had gone without for more than twenty years. It sells Yorkshire-made food and the work of local makers, with takeaway coffee and something sweet to carry into the garden. The store sells its own Farndale-reared beef and pork, which also goes into its homemade ready meals, and the shelves carry Roost Coffee, Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil, Wass Farm charcuterie, and local gin, cider and beer. Naomi and Nicola were the faces behind the counter when it opened.
Low Mill is the lower of Farndale's two hamlets, a cluster of stone buildings beside the meandering River Dove. Pasture and woodland fill the dale floor, and heather moorland rises on both sides. From the car park at the edge of the village, beside the river, most visitors set off on the same walk.
It runs three and a half miles to Church Houses and back, following the Dove upstream. The riverside line is largely surfaced and mostly level, with two short inclines, gates but no stiles; the optional return across farm fields is steeper and does have stiles. Either way can be muddy, so bring boots, and keep dogs under close control, preferably on a lead.
The reason for the walk's fame arrives for about a month each spring. Native wild daffodils, Narcissus pseudonarcissus, flower along the riverside meadows and woodland from mid-March to mid-April. They are protected within the Farndale Local Nature Reserve, established in 1955, and a byelaw prohibits picking them. Up to 40,000 people come to see them during the short season, in a dale of roughly 200 residents, which explains the warnings about parking and gates. Spaces at the Low Mill car park are very limited then, and a neighbouring field opens as an overflow. The car park has public toilets, including an accessible one that needs a RADAR key. Out of season the route is quieter and still worth walking.
There is no pub in Low Mill itself. The one you reach is the Feversham Arms at Church Houses, built around 1836 to serve the Feversham Estate, with a stone-flagged bar, a snug and open fires in winter. Rachel Forster manages it, dogs are welcome in the bar, and the large garden looks south down Farndale. The kitchen leans on game and local suppliers.
Back at Low Mill stands a corrugated-iron hall, built in 1922 for the Farndale Silver Band and now an intimate venue for folk, roots and Americana. Cerys Matthews, David Gray and Kate Rusby have played it. The American duo The Handsome Family called it "the greatest small venue on Earth." The same hall seats 120, keeps a small kitchen and hosts music nights, bingo and the local beading and countrywomen's groups, and it marks the entrance to the daffodil walk.
Some of the dale's grander plans came to nothing. Hull Corporation bought about 2,000 hectares of Upper Farndale in 1932 for a reservoir, a lake two and a half miles long behind a 130-foot dam at Church Houses. War delayed it, a revived bill reached Parliament in 1970, and a select committee rejected it after some 10,000 people signed against a reservoir in a national park.
There is no public transport to Farndale. The car park sits on Daleside Road, four miles north-east of Hutton-le-Hole, reached by narrow lanes rather than an A-road, so plan to arrive by car, taxi or pre-arranged lift. At the end of August the village fills again for the Farndale Show, now in its 117th year, with sheepdog trials, terrier racing, a pony gymkhana and vintage tractors.