Best places in Yorkshire to see autumn colours

Migrating birds such as redwing, waxwing and fieldfare can all be seen arriving for the winter.

Here are some of the best places to experience the colours of autumn.

Hardcastle Crags, West Yorkshire

During autumn, Hardcastle Crags is transformed with an explosion of colour. The trees begin to drop their leaves, carpeting the woodland floor with a sea of greens, oranges, reds and golds, and sunlight peaks through the bare branches.

Throughout the woodland, and in the surrounding hay meadows, there’s lots of different types of weird and wonderful colourful fungi to discover too.

Thorp Perrow, North Yorkshire

Come and take a stroll in the Arboretum, watch your children let off steam in the adventure playground, enjoy the wonderful bird of prey displays, or hand feed the wallabies in the mammal centre.

Thorp Perrow has a lot to offer the whole family - keep your eyes peeled for the seasonal trails, family event days, open-air concerts, workshops, lunches, and guided tours.

Thorp Perrow is the home of one of the UK's finest collections of trees, including five National Plant Collections, and a leading centre for raptor conservation.

North York Moors

Some of the best places to see purple heather in Yorkshire are the National Parks of the North York Moors and the Yorkshire Dales to moorlands of West Yorkshire and the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding beauty.

Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden

The evocative ruins of the Cistercian abbey are set beside the grounds of Studley Royal, a medieval deer park in Yorkshire.

It has been declared Yorkshire’s first World Heritage Site.

Studley Royal deer park is a much-loved part of the estate and is home to more than 500 wild red, fallow and aika deer.

The deer park once contained the Tudor manor house known as Studley Royal House – but this wasdestroyed by fire in 1716 and so was rebuilt about 50 years later in the grand Palladian style.

This house too was damaged by fire in 1946. The building was entirely demolished shortly afterwards.

The landscape is peppered with ancient limes, oaks and sweet chestnuts, which you can explore via the miles of footpaths and trails that take you into the woodland on the High Ride path, or down through the high-sided Seven Bridges Valley.

Himalayan Gardens, Ripon

Home to more than 80 contemporary sculptures set within 45 acres of woodland gardens, the award-winning Himalayan Gardens are the perfect place to witness the arrival of autumn.

The valley has scenic woodland walks, a pagoda, a Himalayan shelter and arboretum, with three lakes, a contemplation circle and a Norse hut.

It is widely considered to have the largest collection of rhododendrons, azaleas and magnolias in Yorkshire and children will love exploring the gardens, the 20th-century thatched summerhouse and the distinctive red Pagoda – built in Bali and overlooking one of the lakes, home to a floating magnolia sculpture.

With more than 300 different types of trees, the arboretum covers 12 acres and includes 52 varieties of oak, 25 limes, 20 birches, 17 acers and some more unusual species such as chitalpa, a hybrid of the cigar tree and sesert w illow, and the Broussonetia which is a paper mulberry.

There is also an oak which is directly descended from the King Alfred’s Oak at Blenheim Palace, which is more than 1,000 years old.

Yorkshire Arboretum, Castle Howard, North Yorkshire

The Yorkshire Arboretum, a 120-acre woodland landscape on the Castle Howard estate, is home to a collection of more than 6,000 trees from around the world.

Created thanks to the enthusiasm of Lord Howard and James Russell over a period of 18 years between 1975 and 1992, the arboretum site was formerly parkland around Castle Howard, and the original bastion wall still forms much of the arboretum’s southern boundary.

There are also a number of mature, statuesque parkland trees, especially oaks and sweet chestnuts, dating from the 1780s.

Friendly expert guides are often on hand to explain the collection to visitors.