An hour's drive apart, York and Middlesbrough get most of the attention — but tucked between them, about 26 miles from York and 34 from Middlesbrough, sits Kirkbymoorside, a small North Yorkshire market town with a big claim: it's the official "Gateway to the Moors." The name isn't just marketing. The town once had actual gates leading into the moors, and today it sits right on the edge of the North York Moors National Park.

Kirkbymoorside's roots run deep. It appears in the 1086 Domesday Book and was granted a Royal Charter in 1254, and it has kept its weekly market going ever since. Every Wednesday, the town centre fills with stalls selling fresh produce, crafts and clothing, with a changing lineup week to week. Around the market you'll find independent shops — Looking Glass, voted the best gift shop in North Yorkshire, stocks everything from jewellery to kitchenware, while The Gallery sells work by local artists. Thomas the Baker's Yorkshire curd tarts are the local treat, but go early; they sell out.

History is layered into the town and its surroundings. The name Kirkbymoorside means "the church at the head of the moors" — an earlier church was destroyed in a Viking raid, and the current All Saints Church dates to the 13th century. A short drive away in Kirkdale, St. Gregory's Minster, an 11th-century church, holds one of Yorkshire's rare surviving Anglo-Saxon sundials. Rievaulx Abbey, northern England's first Cistercian monastery, is less than 10 miles off in Helmsley, a walkable town with good food and shops.

The real draw, though, is what's on the doorstep. The North York Moors National Park covers 554 square miles of heather moorland, ancient woodland and coastline. Dalby Forest, about 20 miles away, offers 45-plus miles of cycling trails and holds Dark Sky Discovery Site status — some of England's darkest skies, visible with the naked eye or through its observatories. The Cleveland Way National Trail, 109 miles from Helmsley to the Victorian seaside town of Filey, threads through moorland, castles, abbey ruins and coast. Walkers rate it highly, though the coastal sections are a proper workout.

For travellers, Kirkbymoorside works as a calmer base than the usual Yorkshire hotspots. You get a live market town, pubs and bakeries within a few steps of each other, and immediate access to one of England's most varied national parks — plus easy day trips to Helmsley, Pickering with its medieval castle, or the coast at Filey. Come for a weekend of market browsing and gentle walking, or use it as the launch point for a longer stretch of the Cleveland Way.

Credit: Islands