Osmotherley

Before you go: the practical facts

Parking

there is no public car park in the village. Park considerately on the street, and never on the verges. At Cod Beck Reservoir, a mile north, there are small car parks on the north side (DL6 3AL) with no charge listed, and a two-mile clearway through Sheepwash where stopping brings a fine.

Mount Grace Priory, DL6 3JG

free parking for English Heritage members with a car sticker; everyone else pays, National Trust members included, and the amount is not published online. Busiest between 11am and 2pm.

Toilets

next to the village hall. The post office is in the village hall too, open Monday and Tuesday 9am to noon and Wednesday 1pm to 4pm by the Post Office's listing (the parish newsletter gives shorter hours, so check).

Shops

Top Shop, Monday to Saturday 9am to 5pm and Sunday 9am to 4pm; a fish and chip shop; a cafe.

Buses

Hodgsons 80 and 89 between Northallerton and Stokesley, Monday to Saturday, with six journeys each way in the published timetable. There is no Sunday service. Northallerton has the mainline station; village-to-station mileage was not confirmed.

Dogs

on a lead at Cod Beck Reservoir and in the priory grounds, and close to you on Scarth Wood Moor in spring, where lapwing, curlew and golden plover nest.

Mobile signal

poor in the dale. Take a map.

Mount Grace Priory

The priory was founded in 1398 under a licence to Thomas de Holand, Duke of Surrey, and dissolved in 1539. It is a Carthusian house, which means each monk lived alone in a two-storey cell with its own garden, meeting the others only in church; one cell has been rebuilt and furnished so you can see how it worked. The ruins passed to the National Trust in 1953, went into state guardianship in 1955 and are managed by English Heritage, with the Arts and Crafts manor house and gardens beside them.

2026 opening, as published: 28 March to 24 October daily 10am to 5pm; 25 October to 1 November daily 10am to 4pm; November to 23 December weekends only; closed 24 to 26 December; 27 December to 1 January daily; weekends in January, then daily 6 to 14 February, then Wednesday to Sunday to 16 March. Prices depend on the date: adults £10.79 on weekdays outside the summer and all winter, £12.32 on weekends and bank holidays in those periods and on summer weekdays, and £13.85 on summer weekends and bank holidays (summer being 23 May to 31 August); concessions £10.03 to £13.09; children £5.35 to £6.88. Booking online by midnight the day before takes a further 15 per cent off. English Heritage members free; National Trust members free on entry with the code on the English Heritage website, but they pay for parking. The Orchard Cafe is on site. It is 150 metres from the car park to the entrance, and English Heritage gives the walk from the village as four and a half miles.

The Lady Chapel

Half a mile above the village, up a lane off the Cleveland Way, is the Lady Chapel of Mount Grace, built before 1500 as a chapel for the priory, used by the hermit Thomas Parkinson from 1515, raided for recusants in 1614, served by Franciscans from 1665, and restored from 1959, with the re-dedication on 8 September 1961, after Ralph Scrope bought the site in 1952. It is a scheduled monument, open at all times, with Mass on Saturdays at 4pm and an annual pilgrimage that began in 1958. Park on the main road, not the lane.

The Lyke Wake Walk

The Lyke Wake Walk is 40 miles across the moors from Osmotherley to Ravenscar, to be done in 24 hours. Bill Cowley set the challenge in the Dalesman in August 1955; the first crossing was on 1 and 2 October 1955, when 14 set out and 13 finished. The start is the Lyke Wake Stone by the Sheepwash car park, or the trig point on Scarth Wood Moor above. Finish within the day and you can join the Club, which is open only to those who have crossed; the original club closed in 2005 and the New Lyke Wake Club carries on.

The Cleveland Way, the Coast to Coast and the drove road

The Cleveland Way passes through the village on its way from Helmsley to the coast; from here it climbs to Scarth Wood Moor and on over the Cleveland Hills. Wainwright's Coast to Coast uses the same path east of the village. The Hambleton Drove Road, which Scottish drovers used to walk cattle south in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, runs along the escarpment above; Sheepwash, where the drovers watered the beasts, is the ford at Cod Beck.

Walks from the village

• Mount Grace religious heritage walk: three miles, taking in the priory and the Lady Chapel, from the National Park's Osmotherley page.
• Cod Beck Reservoir: a level 1.5-mile circuit, part of it accessible, with dogs on leads. The reservoir was completed in 1953; no swimming or paddleboards.
• The Lady Chapel: a little over half a mile uphill from the village.
• The North York Moors Cycleway: nine miles east to Hawnby.
• Scarth Wood Moor: the start of the Lyke Wake Walk and a short climb for the view west over the Vale of York.

The village

Osmotherley was Asmundrelac in the Domesday Book. The market cross and the stone barter table beside it are both Grade II listed; John Wesley first preached here in 1745 and came back many times, and the Methodist chapel dates from 1754. The population was 668 at the 2011 census.

Eating, drinking and staying

Hours from CAMRA, October 2026; all three pubs are under light management early in the week, so check before you rely on them.

• The Golden Lion, 6 West End: closed Monday; Tuesday 5pm to 11pm; Wednesday to Friday noon to 11pm; Saturday noon to midnight; Sunday noon to 11pm. Food Tuesday 6pm to 8.30pm, Wednesday to Sunday 12 to 2.30pm and 6pm to 8.30pm. Rooms.
• The Queen Catherine, West End: open Saturday and Sunday noon to 11pm only; food Saturday noon to 9pm, Sunday noon to 3pm. Rooms. Same owners as the Three Tuns.
• The Three Tuns, 9 South End: closed Monday to Wednesday; Thursday to Sunday noon to 11pm; food Thursday to Saturday noon to 8pm, Sunday noon to 6pm. Rooms.
• YHA Osmotherley at Cote Ghyll Mill, DL6 3AH, and Cote Ghyll Caravan and Camping Park beside it, open 1 March to 31 October.
• The chip shop and the cafe in the village.

When to come

Spring for the nesting birds on Scarth Wood Moor and the daffodils at the priory, August for Osmotherley Show at Thimbleby (1 August in 2026, the 116th), autumn for the drove road in low light. The Summer Games were on 4 July 2026 and the Harvest Supper on 20 September.

Four honest cautions

1. No public car park, and the Sheepwash clearway is enforced.
2. On a Monday none of the three pubs is open; on a Tuesday only the Golden Lion, from 5pm.
3. Hodgsons 80 and 89 run Monday to Saturday, with no Sunday service.
4. National Trust members get into the priory free but pay to park.

Nearby

• Mount Grace Priory
• the Cleveland Way
• the Lyke Wake Walk
• Helmsley
• Sutton Bank
• Roseberry Topping
• Villages and towns

Osmotherley FAQs

Where does the Lyke Wake Walk start?

At the Lyke Wake Stone by the Sheepwash car park above Osmotherley, or at the trig point on Scarth Wood Moor, and it ends 40 miles east at Ravenscar.

Can you swim in Cod Beck Reservoir?

No. Yorkshire Water does not allow swimming or paddleboards. There is a level walk round it.

Is Mount Grace Priory free for National Trust members?

Entry is free with the code on the English Heritage website; parking is charged for everyone except English Heritage members.

Is there a bus to Osmotherley from Northallerton?

Hodgsons 80 and 89 serve Osmotherley Monday to Saturday. The published timetable has six journeys each way; there is no Sunday service.

Which pubs are open on a Monday?

None of the three. The Golden Lion opens at 5pm on Tuesday.

Sources: North York Moors National Park Authority, Osmotherley page (updated 25 August 2026), agricultural shows (19 June 2026); English Heritage, Mount Grace Priory prices, opening times, directions and group information 2026 to 2027; Lady Chapel of Mount Grace, history booklet (January 2026); Historic England, list entries 1004169, 1150866 and 1188761; Lyke Wake Club, history, and the New Lyke Wake Club; Post Office branch finder; Methodist Heritage, Osmotherley chapel; Yorkshire Water, Cod Beck Reservoir; CAMRA listings for the Golden Lion, Queen Catherine and Three Tuns; YHA Osmotherley; Osmotherley parish newsletter, issue 192, July 2026; bustimes.org for Hodgsons 80 and 89 (9 October 2026); Yorkshire Post, 1 August 2026, on the show; the 2011 census. Checked 10 October 2026.

Sources checked October 2026: Hodgsons 80/89; Council 80/89 timetable; English Heritage directions.