Ironstone on the moor
Rosedale East
A dale of community inns, priory traces and monumental kiln ruins, with firm, gently graded former railway paths and heather-moor views.
- Best for
- Industrial archaeology and moorland walking
- Give it
- A full day with time for the East Mines
- Don't miss
- The calcining kilns and surviving priory belfry
The Fox verdict
A quiet dale with an outsized industrial story
Come for the scale of the East Mines, then slow down among old railway paths, priory stones and village hospitality.
Rosedale East brings an unusually legible iron-mining landscape together with a firm former railway trackbed, a church threaded with medieval remains and a small choice of independent places to eat. It rewards visitors who treat the dale as a linked landscape rather than a quick roadside stop.
Where to go
Places in Rosedale East
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesRosedale East Mines
A nationally important iron-mining complex with two monumental kiln banks, mine portals, engine beds, workshop ruins and a ventilation chimney.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- on the east side of Rosedale
- Access
- Explore from the concessionary former-railway route and respect all site access restrictions.
Rosedale Bank Top
A firm, gently graded stretch of former railway trackbed beside kiln ruins, with broad views across the dale and heather moor.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- at Rosedale Bank Top
- Access
- The route is graded For Some because parts of the aggregate surface exceed 4 cm.
Hanging Stones Walk
A booking-essential six-mile walk that connects rebuilt Northdale farm buildings as a single Andy Goldsworthy artwork.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 3 hours 30 minutes
- Locality
- through Northdale
- Access
- Booking is essential; check the Official site before travel.
Food & drink
3 placesWhite Horse Farm Inn
A 16th-century country inn with beams, fireside corners, hand-pulled ales, meals and a dog-friendly welcome.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- at the foot of Chimney Bank
- Access
- Dogs are welcome; check the Official site before travelling for current food service.
Coach House Inn
A country inn and community pub with local-supplier cooking, changing real ales, events and dog-friendly bar areas.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Rosedale Abbey village
- Access
- Dogs are welcome in the bar areas; check the Official site before travelling for current food service.
Graze on the Green
An independent café with indoor and outdoor seating, homemade cakes, locally roasted coffee and a regularly changing menu.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- on the village green
History & heritage
1 placeChurch of St Mary and St Laurence
A Grade II church built in 1839 with a reused medieval window, a bishop's chair made from priory stones and the surviving belfry of a Cistercian nunnery.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 40 minutes
- Locality
- Rosedale East Side churchyard
- Access
- The surviving medieval belfry is in the churchyard.
Things to do
1 placeRosedale Abbey Golf Course
A relaxed pay-and-play nine-hole course with short holes, equipment hire and no membership or dress code.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- at Rosedale Abbey
- Access
- Under-12s need an adult, and the sloping course is unsuitable for visitors who find walking difficult.
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Three ways to explore Rosedale East
Signature outings
Walk beneath the kiln banks
Follow the former mineral railway to the East Mines, where kiln banks, mine remains and the tall ventilation chimney still explain how the dale worked.
Look for the last belfry
In the churchyard, find the surviving medieval belfry of the small Cistercian nunnery that gave Rosedale Abbey its misleading name.
Taste the dale at the White Horse
Pause beneath Chimney Bank for hand-pulled ale and hearty Yorkshire cooking among the inn's beams and fireside corners.
The village story
Rosedale East Village Guide
Village hospitality, priory fragments and a nationally important ironstone landscape meet below Rosedale's heather moors.
Two inns below Chimney Bank
At the foot of Chimney Bank, where the road climbs at one in three toward the moor, the White Horse Farm Inn keeps its beams, its fireside corners and a real fire. Black Sheep Best Bitter is the regular ale, with two changing beers alongside it. Among the menu highlights: braised lamb shank in local-ale gravy, a double-crusted steak-and-ale pie, Yorkshire pork sausages with mash and ale gravy, haddock in beer batter, and sticky toffee pudding. Dogs are welcome and there is a garden.
A short way off, the Coach House Inn runs as the village community pub and took York CAMRA's Town and Country Pub of the Season in autumn 2019. Four beers change around a regular Theakston Best Bitter, often arriving from Helmsley, Jolly Sailor or Rudgate. The food leans on local suppliers: black-pudding fritters with Rosedale apple-and-chilli jam, a "Desperate Dan" steak pie, beef carbonnade in Theakston Old Peculier sauce, herb-crusted haddock with lime-and-chilli butter, and Coach House chicken in a garlic, herb and mushroom sauce. Dogs are allowed in the bar.
Closed doors and daytime tables
The Milburn Arms, built in 1776 as the house of the manor bailiff John Page and later the Crown Inn, is closed for the long term now, so plan on the other two.
For daytime supplies, Abbey Stores and Tea Rooms sells groceries, bakery bread, milk, maps and gifts, and does breakfasts, cream teas and light lunches; the cakes and scones are made on the premises and the bacon and sausages come from a local butcher. Graze on the Green, with seating indoors and out on the green, keeps homemade cakes, locally roasted coffee and sandwiches, and changes its menu often.
Priory stones and ironstone
The church of St Mary and St Laurence went up in 1839 to a design by Lewis Vulliamy, on the site of a 14th-century priory chapel; one medieval window was kept and reused. Inside are pews by Thompson of Kilburn, made in 1907, a Dutch carved-oak lectern given by George Leeman, and a bishop's chair built from priory stones. In 1886 the sexton uncovered a stone coffin. A belfry in the churchyard is the last of a small Cistercian nunnery, founded before 1158 and dissolved in 1536 with a prioress and eight nuns. That belfry is why the settlement is called Rosedale Abbey, though it was never an abbey; the name Rosedale itself probably comes from a Viking word for horse rather than from roses.
The east side of the dale carries a different history, written across the hillside. From about 1860 ironstone was cut here from seams up to fourteen feet thick and roasted in calcining kilns before it went out by rail. In 1866 the East Mines shipped more than 168,000 tons; output doubled in the early 1870s and did not stop until after the 1926 General Strike, the branch line closing in June 1929. Two banks of kilns, each close to ninety metres long, still stand with mine portals, engine beds and a tall ventilation chimney, and Historic England rates the surviving complex among the best iron-mining landscapes known nationally.
Trackbed, art and hill-climb legend
A concessionary path follows the old mineral railway around the dale, level and firm along the former trackbed past the kilns. The Bank Top stretch is a Miles without Stiles route, graded For Some for its aggregate surface, with wide views over the heather moor. Further out, the Hanging Stones walk is a booking-only six miles through Northdale, linking rebuilt farm buildings into a single Andy Goldsworthy artwork.
Chimney Bank's one in three has its own following. In 1987 it hosted the National Hill Climb Championship, won by the local rider Paul Curran, who pushed Chris Boardman into second.
Arrivals, recreation and the seasons
Getting here means minor moorland roads and, on that gradient, some care in poor weather. The nearest railway station is Castleton Moor, unstaffed and without parking; the seasonal M6 bus runs through from York by way of Pickering, and on Mondays the 173 comes up from Pickering. The nine-hole golf course is pay-and-play, its holes between seventy and a hundred and twenty yards, clubs and trolleys for hire, no membership and no dress code. Around the green there are public toilets and parking up at Bank Top, and Hutton-le-Hole with its Ryedale Folk Museum is about three miles away.
In spring the hay meadows carry native wild daffodils and the moor edge holds ring ouzels. Every August the Rosedale Show, held since 1871, brings the dale's farmers and gardeners back together, as it has for a century and a half.
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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.
- White Horse Farm Inn — whitehorserosedale.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Coach House Inn — coachhouseinn.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Graze on the Green — grazeonthegreen.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Church of St Mary and St Laurence — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Rosedale East Mines — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Rosedale Bank Top — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Hanging Stones Walk — hangingstones.org operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Rosedale Abbey Golf Course — rosedaleabbeygolf.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation