The first time I came to Knaresborough was on a school trip
to visit Mrs Shipton’s Cave and the Dropping Well where you could, at the time,
petrify your handbag on the little waterfall.
The tour guide took great pleasure in telling us 10 year olds about how
people used to get hung, drawn and quartered, with their bodies being left on
display by the river as a lesson to others.
I’m not sure many of us had pleasant dreams that night, but that piece
of knowledge has stuck with me ever since.
This time, we had just visited nearby Wetherby and so
decided to go to Knaresborough. There is
supposed to be a B road route between the two towns, but as ever I missed the
right road and ended up doing a detour via the A1. When we got there we found a little car park
behind the main shops on Chapel Street - £1 for 2 hours.
Knaresborough is a pretty little town packed full of
characterful buildings, dating back hundreds of years. One thing I did notice about many of the
buildings was that they had three floors which gave the place a more imposing
presence. I liked the fact that the
centre of town was pedestrianised with car access for disabled parking. It is also a pet friendly town and we kept
seeing posh pedigree pooches all over the place, which is always nice to see.
There are so many independent shops in Knaresborough and I did
notice there were plenty of vintage style shops selling clothes, knickknacks and
upcycled furniture. Definitely a place
to go to get vintage stuff and style ideas.
I also love to visit stationery shops and I found two here which is
always great to see in this digital day and age.
Neil is a fan of daft shop pun names and he remembered on
our last trip there was a shop called “Mungo Deli”. Thankfully it was still open and Neil managed
to get a picture of it for his Facebook album of silly shop signs.
There are plenty of places to eat and drink here – lots of
cosy old pubs, cute cafes and gastropubs.
We had already eaten in Wetherby, but as we are greedy we did pick up
cake from the friendly and down to earth Hurst’s Bakery. I have to recommend the chocolate cream cake,
especially as it had a surprise layer of black cherries in it and tasted great
too.
As ever we checked out the charity shops. Other people had the same idea and we kept
bumping into them in every shop. There
was a hospice charity shop which was really overpriced – although in fairness, with
the proximity of so many vintage shops, they probably have a policy to mark up
the stock so the vintage shops don’t profit on their donations. Neil managed to get locked in one charity shop
when he was browsing through the records upstairs. I was a bit panicked and tried to phone
him. Thankfully the shop assistant
checked the shop before she left and Neil managed to get out. A practical point to note is that most
charity shops in Knaresborough close about 4.00 pm so it’s better to get there
earlier than we did.
Knaresborough is a great little place to go, and one to
consider for a weekend away as it’s close to the countryside, especially when
it’s only a short drive from Harrogate too (fab place, you must visit). Our only advice is to get there earlier in
the day, as it begins to close around 4ish – otherwise it’s another fab
Yorkshire town to visit.