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Help Planning a British Road Trip?
RMS Oceanic
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I live in Northern Ireland and recently got a new car, and I figured what better way to break it in than getting a ferry to mainland Britain and visiting some places?
I have a rough idea of where I want to go, but I'm not sure how much time I should budget for each part, and am open to recommendations, but I'm not sure how long it will take. I can budget anything between five and nine days for this depending on how I play it. My vague outline looks like this
Ferry from Belfast to Cairnryan
Look for a good section of the Antonine wall to visit
Head to Edinburgh, spend one or two days there
Head south on A1, stop in Alnwick
Look for a good section of Hadrian's wall to visit
Head to York, spend one or two days there
Drive through Yorkshire Dales because pretty
Visit sister in Manchester
Head into Wales
Visit Talyllyn Railway
Up to Anglesey
Ferry from Holyhead to Dublin, visit Brother and Nephews
Newgrange?
I guess the big parts are what are the can't-miss's of Edinburgh and York for a history fan? And whether this circular route is viable?
I have a rough idea of where I want to go, but I'm not sure how much time I should budget for each part, and am open to recommendations, but I'm not sure how long it will take. I can budget anything between five and nine days for this depending on how I play it. My vague outline looks like this
Ferry from Belfast to Cairnryan
Look for a good section of the Antonine wall to visit
Head to Edinburgh, spend one or two days there
Head south on A1, stop in Alnwick
Look for a good section of Hadrian's wall to visit
Head to York, spend one or two days there
Drive through Yorkshire Dales because pretty
Visit sister in Manchester
Head into Wales
Visit Talyllyn Railway
Up to Anglesey
Ferry from Holyhead to Dublin, visit Brother and Nephews
Newgrange?
I guess the big parts are what are the can't-miss's of Edinburgh and York for a history fan? And whether this circular route is viable?
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One point is that for most of the accessible antonine wall sites there isn't much to see - the best preserved are the foundations of a couple of forts, but most of the rest are the exposed stone foundation on which the turf wall was built, and maybe a ditch.
Depending on when you get in to cairnryan you could make a day of the drive to Edinburgh and stop off briefly to take a look at the sites.
I don't know nearly as much about Edinburgh or York.
Google mapping suggests I'd be driving for around 15-16 hours in total with my proposed route, which doesn't feel too bad.
York Castle is nice, but it's not huge and probably won't take you that long to look around. The Cathedral's a similar story. The York Dungeon and the Jorvik Viking Centre are both worth a look, although the queues for them can be fucking obscene if you're going during summer.
For food and drink, the Evil Eye Lounge is - no joke - one of my favourite bars in the whole of the UK. Some delicious Thai food and a ridiculous selection of cocktails is well worth braving the crowd that inevitably starts forming.
I'd also suggest just wandering around and soaking up the scenery. It's not a big city, and you can always walk along the city walls to get a good overview - though this is also worth doing to see the gatehouses!
(1) Beer
(2) Cheese
(3) Stunningly lovely scenery and walking around in that scenery.
Then you should absolutely and without fail stop over a night in Wensleydale. Now by all means briefly stop by Aysgarth and walk upon and down the river a bit there because it's great, but then get a few miles up the road and stop in Hawes. In Hawes you can buy a fuck of a lot of kinds cheese, I am not even joking the co-op cheese counter has like 70 or 80 different kinds of locally produced cheeses. And extremely good beer. Then you should pop over the hill and walk along Upper Swaledale which is so lovely you will think you're in middle earth (the nice bit with the hobbits, not the early industrial orky bit)
At the top of the walk along Upper Swaledale is this: (I have been to this exact place)
Glasgow can be as interesting as Edinburgh if you're interested in Art, Architecture or Industrial history.
Lindisfarne, Newcastle, Durham, etc. are also worth a visit (although you'll have run out of time already)
On to York:
Try to schedule to avoid horse race days, traffic can be pretty bad then.
Yorkshire museum - Traditional museum with some fantastic Anglo Saxon jewellery and other museumy things. Also is in a garden/park that contains the ruins of an abbey and a Roman wall.
Castle museum - more gimmicky museum with a preserved/re-created Victorian street, water mill, prison, currently has a world war one exhibition.
National Railway museum - does what it says on the tin, if you like trains why haven't you visited already?
York Minster - Magnificent stained glass and stone work.
York Walls - you can walk over most of these which is interesting in itself and a great way to see and move around the city, would at least recommend the part behind the Minster.
Yorvik viking center - currently closed due to flood damage. is an on rails recreation of viking era York.
City art gallery and national ceramic centre - recently expanded, has loads of pots, not yet visited post expansion, sounds like its great for ceramic fans. Just behind the Yorkshire museum.
tons of churches, pubs and what not, but I'll stop here as you've run out of time again, also money as the museums all have entrance fees these days
Leeds has a lot of stuff worth seeing like the Royal Armouries which has arms and armour from around the world. Is considered to be a pain to drive through though.
I'll leave Manchester to your sister, as its also got tons of stuff.
Like Glasgow, Liverpool is also stuffed with Art, Architecture and Industrial history.
Snowdonia and Caernarfon are worth a detour.
Also as we're on the PA forums you'll need to visit Wetwang in the Yorkshire Wolds (is totally off your route, and its just a tiny village, but....).
Anyway that's you sorted for a month or so. Hopefully someone can add something about roads, if not I'd recommend looking for a guide book or something, as the roads can be dull.
Edit: On second thought it would probably be best to just pick a few places that you really want to see and focus on them, as there's so much great stuff along that route.
Swaledale runs broadly from west to east, from the high moors on the Cumbria–Yorkshire boundary at the watershed of Northern England to the market town of Richmond, where the dale meets the lowlands. Nine Standards Rigg, the prominent ridge with nine ancient tall cairns, rises on the watershed at the head of Swaledale. To the south and east of the ridge a number of smaller dales (Birkdale, Little Sleddale, Great Sleddale and Whitsundale) join to form the narrow valley of upper Swaledale at the small village of Keld. From there, the valley runs briefly south then turns east at Thwaite to broaden progressively as it passes Muker, Gunnerside, Low Row, Healaugh and Reeth. The Pennine valley ends at Richmond, where an important medieval castle still watches the important ford from the top of a cliff. Below Richmond, the valley sides flatten out and the Swale flows across lowland farmland to meet the Ure just east of Boroughbridge at a point known as Swale Nab. The Ure becomes the Ouse, and eventually (on merging with the Trent) the Humber.
From the north, Arkengarthdale and its river the Arkle Beck join Swaledale at Reeth. To the south, Wensleydale, home of the famous Wensleydale cheese, runs parallel with Swaledale. The two dales are separated by a ridge including Great Shunner Fell, and joined by the road over Buttertubs Pass.
Pro-tip: if you want to do the Upper Swaledale walk, and I assure you that you do, then Muker (I don't know why they dont just call it Mucker, since that's how they say it) is the right jumping off point. There's some car parking there; you follow a path that cuts through a farm, cross a field, and you're in. Muker is about 15-20 mins drive from Hawes over Buttertubs Pass.
The Buttertubs are a bit disappointing btw.
If the answer is anything but "not", then check out Bede's World near Newcastle and Lindisfarne Abbey on your way down from Scotland. I did a York> Whitby> Lindisfarne> Bede's World road trip after university, so the reverse should be doable as well.
York has the Yorvik Viking museum, which is a bit tourist-trappy but a fascinating bit of well-preserved history.
Once I'm off mobile internet I'll check the York-Manchester route to see what's along it that I know.
There is a few neat views on the Ayrshire coast that are worth stopping at if its clear. Wrt Edinburgh if your going in the next month remember the fringe is on and the city is both great and awful.
Don't go down the a1 from Edinburgh, its boring, go to coldstream on the a697 and then skirt the Northumberland national park for some lovely scenery.
Yes. My parents came close to falling foul of this when visiting there and seeing the band of the same name the other week.
Technically the causeway was closed, but their car has good clearance