20,000 acres to explore

We have a vast area of beautiful countryside to explore at Swinton Estate, a true walkers and runners paradise.

The parkland is divided from the castle by the serpentine stretch of water, Home Lake, designed to give the impression of a river. It supports a herd of approximately 100 fallow deer, including 10 stags. Some of these are very pale in colour – commonly mistaken for albino!

The moorland Dales comprise 8,000 acres of heather on the Estate, and rise up to a height of 540 metres above sea level. The scenery is breath taking, and from here you can see east to the North Sea and North Yorkshire Moors to the east, and westward the moorland landscape continues across the Pennines.

There are 665 hectares of mixed woodland on the Estate, which is managed commercially for timber, conservation, green energy and for the Estate’s sporting interests. All the timber is Forestry Stewardship Council accredited and is certified as being from a renewable source under the UK Woodland Assurance Scheme.

The River Ure runs along the boundary of Swinton Estate, and flows the length of Wensleydale. It is 74 miles long, and feeds into the River Ouse which flows through York, draining into the Humber Estuary where it reaches the North Sea. The bridge at Masham was built in 1754, and there are records of an earlier ford further downstream.

The River Burn flows through the heart of the Estate, rising on Masham Moor and flowing down through Colsterdale, past the villages of Healey and Fearby and joining the River Ure just south of Masham.