A towering, curved cliff of brilliant white limestone rising 70 metres from the valley floor, topped by one of the finest limestone pavements in Europe and famous from Harry Potter and The Witcher. Malham Cove is one of the most spectacular natural sights in England, and one of the very few that genuinely lives up to the hype. Here’s how it formed, what it’s like to climb, and how to plan your visit to dodge the crowds.
Everything you need to visit Malham Cove: the 400 steps, the limestone pavement, nesting peregrines, parking and how to beat the crowds.
This is part of our Natural Wonders of Yorkshire series.
Malham Cove is special because it’s a towering, curved cliff of brilliant white limestone shaped like a vast natural amphitheatre, the kind of sight that makes you stop walking and simply stare. The first time we saw it we genuinely did exactly that, gawping like a couple of tourists, which, to be fair, is precisely what we were.
Malham Cove is a sweeping wall of white limestone rising 70 metres above the valley floor, so sudden and dramatic that it feels almost unreal. According to the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, it’s a “70 metre (230ft) high, gently curving cliff of white limestone” that “has amazed visitors for centuries,” formed along the line of the Middle Craven Fault (Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority).
Back in 1779, the antiquary Thomas West described it rather wonderfully as being “like the age-tinted wall of a prodigious castle,” and honestly, nearly 250 years later, we’re not sure anyone’s improved on that.
Malham Cove is famous both for its sheer natural drama and for its many screen appearances. You may well recognise it even if you’ve never been, because it has starred in:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (where Harry and Hermione camp on the run).
The 1992 film of Wuthering Heights.
An episode of The Trip with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon.
The Witcher, more recently.
Add the world-class limestone pavement on top and the pair of nesting peregrine falcons, and it’s no wonder this is one of Yorkshire’s most photographed natural sights.
Malham Cove was shaped by ice and water: glaciers and their meltwater wore the great limestone cliff backwards from a fault line over hundreds of thousands of years, and it was once a waterfall taller than Niagara. The story begins, like so many of Yorkshire’s natural wonders, in the Carboniferous period, when this part of northern England lay beneath a warm, shallow tropical sea and the shells and skeletons of countless marine creatures compacted into thick beds of limestone.
The real sculptor, though, was ice:
The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority explains that Malham was probably buried beneath huge ice sheets at least three times.
They plucked rock clean off the face of the Cove and carried it away.
Vast floods of meltwater hammered and eroded the rock face, wearing the Cove backwards from the Middle Craven Fault.
Yes, and an enormous one. At the end of the last Ice Age, more than 12,000 years ago, a colossal river of glacial meltwater poured over this cliff edge in a single cataract believed to have been taller than Niagara Falls. As the climate warmed, the water found an easier route underground, and today it emerges quietly from the base of the cliff as Malham Beck. The dramatic Watlowes dry valley above the Cove shows exactly where that ancient river once ran.
On 6 December 2015, after the torrential rain of Storm Desmond overwhelmed the underground system, water briefly poured over the top of Malham Cove as a waterfall again, for what's believed to be the first time since 1824. People travelled from miles around to witness it, and we're still slightly gutted we missed it.
The limestone pavement is a surreal, almost lunar expanse of flat rock slabs (called clints) divided by deep fissures (called grikes), and it’s one of the finest examples in Europe. It was carved out over thousands of years as slightly acidic rainwater seeped into cracks in the rock and gradually widened them, and the grikes now shelter rare ferns and alpine plants.
Getting to the foot of the Cove is the easy and wonderful bit. From Malham village, a good, well-surfaced footpath leads you gently up the dale for about a kilometre, with the Cove revealing itself ahead in increasingly impressive fashion. This stretch is suitable for most people and even manageable with a sturdy pushchair to the base.
There are two ways to reach the top of Malham Cove, and the choice depends on how much walking you fancy:
The direct route: A flight of around 400 irregular stone steps on the west side, part of the Pennine Way. It's a proper leg workout, and the steps are uneven, so you'll be glad of a breather or two.
The longer circular: Climb the Cove, cross the pavement, head up the dry valley towards Malham Tarn, and loop back via Gordale Scar and Janet's Foss for one of the finest day walks in the Dales.
The reward at the top is the otherworldly limestone pavement and a sensational view back down the valley.
Those deep grikes between the slabs are exactly the right size to swallow an ankle, and the rock becomes lethally slippery when wet. Take your time, watch your footing, keep children close, and absolutely don't go near the cliff edge, where there's a sheer 70-metre drop and no barrier. We've watched people stride out in trainers and immediately regret it.
The star attraction is a pair of nesting peregrine falcons on the sheer rock face. During summer the RSPB runs a “Date with Nature” viewpoint with telescopes so you can watch them diving and wheeling at astonishing speed, alongside the house martins and jackdaws that also nest on the cliff. Watching a peregrine stoop is one of those nature moments that stays with you.
On a clear day the views from the top stretch right across the Dales. Pick your weather if you can, because a low cloud day robs you of half the experience.
Malham village sits in the southern Yorkshire Dales, a short distance from Skipton, and it’s the jumping-off point for the Cove.
The drive from Leeds takes around 1 hour 30 minutes. The final stretch is narrow and winding, with the occasional sheep-related traffic jam.
There is no parking at the Cove itself. You must park in the village car park and walk through, which is all part of the experience anyway.
Aim first for Skipton, a well-connected gateway to the southern Dales. Regular trains run from Leeds to Skipton in about 50 minutes.
From Skipton, the seasonal Malhamdale bus (service 75), running on weekends and during the warmer months, winds through the country lanes and drops you in Malham village, a short walk from the Cove.
Spring and early summer are the best time to visit Malham Cove, when the dale is lush and green, the verges are dotted with wildflowers, and the peregrine viewpoint is running:
Spring and early summer: Wildflowers (snowdrops, primroses and bluebells) and active peregrines.
Autumn: Beautiful light and thinner crowds.
Winter: Stark and lovely, but choose a settled, dry day, as the steps and pavement become hazardous in ice and wet.
Malham is a famous honeypot. Visit midweek or arrive early, because the car park fills fast on sunny weekends and bank holidays.
Allow an hour or so just to the base and back, two to three hours to climb the top and explore the pavement, or the best part of a day for the full Gordale Scar and Janet’s Foss circular.
The walk to the base suits families and less mobile visitors (Malham now even has a Changing Places accessible toilet). The climb and longer circular suit walkers and the reasonably fit. Wear proper footwear with grip.
Malham combines brilliantly with two other wonders in this series. You can comfortably link Malham, Aysgarth Falls and Ingleborough across a long weekend, basing yourself in Malham, Settle or Grassington.
Malham village is small but punches well above its weight, which is just as well after all those steps. Here’s where we’d head:
The Lister Arms: A handsome old coaching inn right on the green, doing very good food and local ales with rooms upstairs.
The Buck Inn: The other classic village pub, equally welcoming and reliable for a hearty post-walk meal.
Beck Hall: A lovely riverside spot famous locally for its scones and afternoon tea, with a gorgeous garden by the beck.
Town End Farm Shop and Tea Room: Just outside the village, excellent home baking and proper Dales produce.
For a base: Malham has characterful B&Bs, inns with rooms and self-catering cottages, plus well-run campsites. Skipton, Settle and Grassington make excellent larger hubs.
There is absolutely no camping permitted at the Cove itself, so please use the proper village campsites.
Malham Cove is, quite simply, one of the most spectacular natural sights in England, and one of the very few that genuinely lives up to its considerable fame. Whether you wander to the base for the headline view, haul yourself up the steps to the otherworldly pavement, or tackle the full circular with Gordale Scar, you’ll come away understanding exactly why this corner of the Dales has been inspiring artists, writers and walkers for centuries.
Our advice in a sentence: come early or midweek to dodge the crowds, wear shoes with proper grip for the steps and the pavement, save it for a clear day, and don’t rush.
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