The thing everyone knows about Ilkley is that you shouldn’t go up its hill baht tat unless you want to get a cold t’ed and go reet off your tripe and vinegar. For those of you not fluent in Yorkshire that means, one is recommended to wear an appropriate head garment to prevent a chill whilst partaking of the local environs. And for those of you not as posh as Blighty that means, wrap up you silly arse it’s bloody freezing up there!

A wise man remembers his tat on Ilkley Moor

What people don’t generally know about Ilkley is that it is a smaller version of Harrogate, with its parade of grand shop frontages and regiment of tea drinking biddies. It even has its own Betty’s Tea Rooms, only with shorter queues. Indeed, it was because the queues from Harrogate often stretched to Ilkley that the latter establishment came into being.

Ilkley is another spa town of course - it’s a wonder we’re not all bouncing around the place on erupting springs. It was the Victorians who decided Ilkley was a spa town, although there is a bath at White Wells reputed to be Roman. Many locals are skeptical, however, as it has stainless steel taps and ‘Armitage Shanks’ stamped upon it.

Ancient Britons lived on Ilkley Moor and that was before the invention of hats, which meant they were a grim, irritable lot. It was either getting a head cold or drowning in the valley swamps. Business at Betty’s was slow during these years. Many artifacts have been found in the area including a tooth from a bronze age whippet and a Roman pasta machine.

Nowadays Ilkley is mainly known as the gateway to the Dales, which means it’s full of middle aged, jolly women with chunky legs bounding about the place in their big boots with men a short distance behind smoking a pipe and looking at a map. They’re commonly known as ramblers and are best avoided if you’re feeling at all depressed.

Other sights to see while in the area include a grade two listed red post box where you can post a letter of any quality, even a postcard to your nan, Bolton Priory, home to the Wanderers, and The Cow and Calf, a pair of old stones up t’ill.

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