The White Shire

Michael Palmer
3 hours ago
4 min read

The White Shire: Exploring Yorkshire First-Hand

Yorkshire is full of places worth discovering. Some are well known, others are tucked away in villages, along canal paths, beside reservoirs or down roads we might never have had a reason to travel.

That is really how The White Shire has grown.

We’re Michael and Lyn, and much of what you see on The White Shire comes from us getting out and exploring Yorkshire ourselves. We walk the routes, visit the attractions, stop in the towns and villages and find places along the way that we think are worth sharing.

The website now brings all of that together — Yorkshire walks, places to visit, events, independent businesses, places to stay and our Out & About trips.

Lyn and Ally at the Keighley Agricultural Show

Yorkshire Walks

Walking is a big part of The White Shire, and our Yorkshire Walks section contains routes across West, North, East and South Yorkshire.

These are walks we have done ourselves.

Some take us through open countryside, while others follow canals, reservoirs, woodland, old railway lines, villages and Yorkshire’s industrial past.

We include the practical information we would want ourselves before setting off, including distance, terrain, difficulty, parking and what to expect along the route.

We also provide GPS routes where available and have brought the walks together on our interactive maps, making it easier to find somewhere new to explore.

Places to Visit in Yorkshire

Our Places to Visit in Yorkshire section is another part of the site that will continue growing as we travel around the county.

Yorkshire has everything from castles and museums to country parks, historic buildings and reminders of its industrial past.

We concentrate on places we have actually visited, so the articles are based on what we found rather than simply repeating information from a tourism brochure.

Sometimes these are places we deliberately set out to see. At other times we discover them while doing something completely different.

Those unexpected finds are often the most interesting.

What’s On in Yorkshire

There is always something happening somewhere in Yorkshire, but finding it isn't always easy.

Our What’s On pages bring events together from across the county, with separate guides for West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, East Yorkshire and South Yorkshire.

We deliberately include smaller community events alongside the major ones.

Village shows, local markets, heritage weekends and community events deserve to be discovered just as much as the big festivals.

Our What’s On This Month page provides a wider look at what is coming up, while our weekly What’s On This Weekend guide gives people a selection of ideas for the coming Saturday and Sunday.

The aim is that when you're wondering what to do this weekend, The White Shire is somewhere useful to start looking.

Out & About With Michael and Lyn

Not every trip we make needs to become a walking guide or an attraction article.

Sometimes we just go somewhere.

We might visit a town or village, call somewhere for a coffee, go to an event or discover somewhere interesting while we're already out.

Our Out & About posts give us somewhere to share those trips.

They are less about producing a formal guide and more about showing some of the places we actually come across while exploring Yorkshire.

And quite often one trip gives us the idea for another.

Yorkshire Businesses

Yorkshire's independent businesses are also part of what makes the county what it is.

Our Yorkshire Business Listings bring together local businesses from a wide range of categories.

The aim isn't to create another enormous national directory filled with businesses we've never heard of.

We want it to remain Yorkshire-focused and useful.

As we discover businesses ourselves, we can also feature some of them through our Out & About articles, particularly cafés, places to eat and other businesses we encounter while travelling around Yorkshire.

Places to Stay in Yorkshire

Some trips deserve more than a day.

A walk, event or attraction might introduce you to an area of Yorkshire that you want to explore properly, and our places to stay section adds another part to that journey.

Over time, we want the different sections of The White Shire to work together.

You might start by finding a walk and then discover an attraction nearby. There might be an event taking place the same weekend, somewhere interesting to eat and somewhere to stay for the night.

Rather than simply finding one thing to do, The White Shire can help you discover more of the area around it.

Discovering Yorkshire Along the Way

One of the things we enjoy most is finding something we didn't know was there.

It happens regularly.

We might notice an unusual building while walking through a village, find the remains of an old industry beside a canal or come across a piece of local history that makes us want to know more.

That is why history sometimes becomes part of our articles.

We're not trying to turn The White Shire into an encyclopaedia of Yorkshire. If we feature the history of somewhere, we want there to be a reason we've become interested in it — usually because we've walked through it, visited it or discovered it while we've been out.

It keeps the website connected to what we're actually doing.

Explore More of Yorkshire

The White Shire has grown considerably, but the basic idea behind it hasn't changed.

We get out and explore Yorkshire and share what we find.

You can start with our Yorkshire Walks, see what's coming up in What’s On This Month, discover somewhere through Places to Visit, or browse our Yorkshire Business Listings.

There will always be another route to walk, another place to visit and somewhere we've never been before.

That's what keeps us going out.

About Michael and Lyn

The White Shire is created by Michael and Lyn, who travel around Yorkshire walking routes, visiting places, attending events and discovering what is around the next corner.

The photographs, experiences and first-hand observations throughout the site come from those trips around Yorkshire.

We haven't explored every part of Yorkshire yet.

But we're working on it.

The White Shire — Yorkshire First-Hand.