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The first time you stand on a limestone pavement, the question is always the same: who laid this? Neat slabs, dead-straight cracks, a surface so orderly it looks like someone's crazy paving on a giant's terrace. Nobody did. It's entirely natural — and the Yorkshire Dales has some of the finest examples in the country, a short hop from the Lake District.
The pavement above Malham Cove, the sweep across the flank of Ingleborough, and the wilder expanse above Attermire Scar near Settle are all easy to reach and all genuinely spectacular. Each has its own character, and each is one of the richest little habitats in northern England — you just have to know where to look.
Start with the flat surface. During the last ice age, a glacier sat over this ground and planed the exposed limestone bedrock smooth, the way a very patient bulldozer might, if bulldozers had a few thousand years to spare. That gave the Dales a series of flat limestone "tables" sitting just under the turf.
Then the rain got to work. Rainwater is slightly acidic, and limestone dissolves in acid — slowly, but relentlessly. Over roughly the last twelve thousand years, water has trickled into every hairline weakness in the rock and widened it into a crack, then a fissure, then the deep, narrow slot you see today. Those slabs are called clints; the gaps between them are grykes, typically 30–60cm wide and sometimes over two metres deep. It's still happening now — just far too slowly for anyone to watch.
Here's the part most people miss: the flat slabs are almost the boring bit. Stand on a clint and you're on bare, exposed rock, baked by sun and scoured by wind — not much wants to grow there. But peer down into a gryke and you're looking into a completely different world: a narrow, shaded, sheltered little canyon, humid and cool, protected from grazing sheep and biting wind alike.
Ferns thrive down there — hart's tongue fern unfurling like a fiddlehead, rigid buckler fern, wood sorrel with its clover-like leaves. In the deepest, shadiest grykes you can sometimes find genuine rarities: angular Solomon's seal, even lily of the valley, tucked away as if in a private garden nobody's supposed to find. Around the mouths of the grykes, where a bit more light gets in, the mood shifts again — bloody cranesbill and wild thyme, the tough little flowers of open limestone grassland.
It's this side-by-side mix — woodland plants a few inches from moorland plants, sorted by the geometry of the cracks themselves — that makes limestone pavement one of the most botanically rich habitats in Britain, acre for acre. It rewards getting down on your hands and knees rather more than it rewards staring at your feet.
Above Malham Cove — reached by a flight of steps up the eastern side of the cove. This is the classic: one of the largest and most complete pavements in the Dales, right above one of its most dramatic cliffs.
Southerscales, Ingleborough — a nature reserve on Ingleborough's western flank. Quieter than Malham, with outstanding plant life if you take your time.
Attermire Scar, Settle — the one most visitors never find. A wilder, more dramatic setting above the Ribble valley, and usually just you and the sheep.
Limestone pavements and Dales geology can be explored in depth on a bespoke tour — or seen in passing on the way to the Dales filming locations with All Creatures Great and Small.
The rock itself is around 350 million years old, but the pavement surface you see is much younger. Glaciers scraped it flat during the last ice age, and rain has been dissolving the cracks wider ever since — a slow, ongoing process of roughly the last twelve thousand years.
Clints are the flat slabs of a limestone pavement; grykes are the fissures between them, typically 30–60cm wide and up to 2 metres deep.
Above Malham Cove, on the flanks of Ingleborough at Southerscales, and above Attermire Scar near Settle.
Yes, on established routes, but treat it with respect. The slabs are uneven and can be greasy when wet, and the grykes are genuinely deep enough to turn an ankle if you misjudge a step. Sturdy footwear and a bit of care are all you need.
Yes. Limestone pavement has been a legally protected habitat in the UK since 1981, following decades of pavements being broken up and sold for garden rockeries. The best surviving examples are now nature reserves.
Yes — the two national parks are neighbours, around an hour to two hours apart by road depending on which pavement you're headed for. Limestone country can be built into a bespoke tour, and our All Creatures Great and Small tour also crosses this landscape on its way to the Dales filming locations.
We are an independent local tour operator. This article is provided for general visitor interest and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of the organisations listed. Access arrangements and site conditions can change — please check current advice before visiting.