One of my more regular weekend activities is to head out into the countryside and look for good driving roads. In the year or so that I’ve been doing this, I have found some great roads here in County Durham, as well as in Northumberland, North Yorkshire, and Cumbria. Not wanting to keep the joy to myself, this site seemed like a good place to share some of the results of my searches.
Look for this, then, to be a more regular series from this point forwards. My plan is simple: give a bit of a description of the road and link to it on a map, briefly discuss what qualifies it a good driving road, and share some photos.
For example, there is a lovely road that you can pick up on the south side of the A66 just down from Barnard Castle, called Stang Lane. At just under 8 miles, it is not long, but with so much to explore in the Yorkshire Dales, it could easily form one leg of a longer drive. The road first climbs as you enter the Dales, and then weaves its way through some picturesque hills, as you see in the photo below,¹ before terminating at the Long Causeway. From there, you can head up to Tan Hill.
Whilst the road surface is not brilliant, it’s smooth enough to carry some speed, and a good number of bends of varying angles, especially in the first half of the road, make it a fairly involving drive. Additionally, as it is the Yorkshire Dales, you won’t be disappointed with the scenery either.
As they say, there is lots more where that comes from, so stay tuned.
¹Observant readers will note that this road also features in the header image of this blog.
