We decided on a trip to the Yorkshire Dales in October and the theme turned out to be a little unusual.

Day 1 – Getting there.

It was a rather long drive for us of about four hours so we decided to break the outward trip into two segments with a stop about 4.5 miles south-west of Congleton, Cheshire at Little Moreton Hall. This is a National Trust property and a stunning one at that.

The people that built this were obviously working on the premise “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”

The first part of this building was built between 1504 and 1508 the Long Gallery on the top floor was added later. You may notice that the Hall is rather wonky. That is probably because the original foundations were not designed to cope with the additional weight of the Long Gallery extension.

The house is surrounded by a moat.

One of the many interesting features of this house is this conjunction of these three staircases as, at first glance, it rather boggles the mind but, with care, it can be visually sorted out.

One of the other main features is, of course, the Long Gallery on the top floor which was added about 1554. The last major extension was added in 1610.

This is a truly astonishing building and more detail is available on the main web site.

We then drove on to Settle in the Yorkshire Dales which was to be our base on this trip.