Sip back and discover North Yorkshire and explore the striking moorland rock formations of Brimham Rocks a 450-acre plateau location overlooking the Nidd valley and regarded as one of the most scenic sandstone natural outcrops in the North of England.
Brimham Rocks is only a 16Km drive on the B6165 from the historic spa town of Harrogate to the car park at the National Trust visitor centre at Brimham Rocks. If you wish to walk explore the fourth and final stage of the Nidderdale Way a 22.5Km route between Ripley to Pateley Bridge. You may wish to also explore the area off-road by mountain bike taking in the 15.5 Km Brimham Loop and 15Km Brimham Blast cycle routes that are graded moderate to difficult respectively.
Brimham Rocks is part of the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) because of its geology, upland woodland, and acidic wet and dry heath habitats and managed by the National Trust.
Brimham Rocks is a standout destination to visit and take the circular walkabout with friends and family or simply take walk the dog (on a lead) to acquaint yourself with the pedestal rocks, anvil forms and rocking stones that resemble animals, human faces, and other objects that all have names like Mushroom Rock, Dancing Bear, Eagle Rock, Rocking Stone, Druid’s Writing Desk and The Sphinx.
Brimham Rocks are not man made but are an ancient relic of a sedimentary coarse-grained sandstone of compressed and lithified silt, sand, and gravel known as Millstone Grit. This sediment was initially carried by rivers and laid down as part of an extensive Carboniferous Period River delta during the Namurian Age dated to between 326 and 313 million years ago.
The Millstone Grit Group includes over 30 named sandstones some of which are regional and others are local in name. The type of Millstone Grit found at Brimham Rocks is known as the Kinderscout or Kinderscoutian Grit and is regarded as the Pennine delta's topset deposit making up larger and heavier sediments deposited first as the river lost its energy within the Pennine Delta system.
The Namurian Age was a time when the Rheic Ocean was closing through continental tectonic activity and sea levels dropped across Britain exposing the uplands of Northern England, northeast Wales and northwest Ireland to erosion.
The erosion of these uplands created vast amounts sediments of silts and sands containing feldspar and quartz that were carried away in the bedload of rivers until it settled over vast areas such as the Pennine Delta system including North Yorkshire. The thickness of gritstone within the Pennine Delta varies but some areas can reach up to 1,225 meters in thickness.
Brimham Rocks have also been heavily influenced the abrasion of ice from the glacial advance and retreat across the landscape during the Devensian British-Irish Ice Sheet. This was a large mass of ice that covered approximately two thirds of Britain and Ireland around 27,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum. This ice sheet retreated and shrank until it completely disappeared 11,300 years ago.
Once the glacier had retreated Brimham Rocks was then exposed to the differential erosion where rainwater, wind, and temperature. The Brimham Gritstone was eroded at different rates and softer rock was eroded quicker than harder and more resistant areas giving Brimham Rocks their unusual appearance of protective overhanging capstones, supporting narrow stems and prominent horizontal fractures and joints.