Veterans Viewpoint: Leyburn

Leaving Catterick Garrison – the Eastern Gateway to the Yorkshire Dales, the journey to Leyburn begins to work on you almost immediately. Head west along Range Road, passing the athletics track before starting the steady climb uphill. Forestry blocks line both sides of the road like a corridor, and with every rise the Garrison behind you quietly falls away.

Then the countryside opens up and begins to breathe.

Fields widen, hedges thin, and the sense of space grows with every mile. As you reach the top of the incline, where the road bends sharply to the right, the Dales open up right in front of you, suddenly and without warning. As you round the bend, the land reveals itself in full. To your left, the view stretches for miles out towards Leyburn; straight ahead, Wathgill rolls away below, with the high ground of Ellerton Moor rising quietly beyond. To your right, the open sweep of the training area runs out toward the horizon, wide, still, and expansive.

It’s a moment that catches you off guard, even if you’ve driven it before. You ease off the accelerator without thinking, the road briefly becoming a balcony over the land, a place to pause, breathe, and take it in.

The descent from here feels unhurried. The road curves with the shape of the landscape rather than cutting through it, carrying you gently onward through open country and on through Bellerby, where stone houses and farmland sit comfortably side by side. By now, the noise and urgency of the Garrison feels a long way behind.

Leyburn reveals itself calmly. A proper market town with a wide, open centre, offering space to park, space to walk, space to linger. At the top end of the main car park stands a modest memorial to those who served in the First and Second World Wars. It’s easy to pass without ceremony, but it quietly sets the tone. This is a place that remembers.

From a veteran’s viewpoint, Leyburn works because it asks very little of you. You can grab a brew without fuss, sit for a while, or simply watch the town go about its business. Step beyond the streets and you’re quickly into open ground, long views, and the gentle pull of Wensleydale beyond. Town and landscape meet without friction.

Veterans Viewpoint isn’t about ticking places off a list. It’s about journeys that reset you. Sometimes that reset happens before you even arrive, easing off the accelerator at the top of a rise, as the land opens out and reminds you how much space there still is.

Leyburn does that quietly and very well.