Helmsley Walled Garden

Allow at least an hour and a half. This is a place to sit, read labels, and take ideas home for your own plot, not a ten-minute photo stop.

• Intimate garden rooms rather than one big vista, so the space unfolds slowly as you walk it
• Deep flower borders and vegetable beds, with fruit trained along the warm brick walls
• Glasshouses, including an Orchid House, plus apple orchards, wildflower areas and community allotments
• Chickens in the garden, popular with children
• A cafe, plant centre and gift shop, all of which can be visited without going into the garden itself

Most of the moors' set-piece attractions are about wide open ground or ruins. This is the opposite: enclosed, sheltered, horticultural and detailed. It pairs naturally with Helmsley Castle or a wander around the market town, though they are separate visits with their own arrangements, and the Cleveland Way itself starts from town if you want to add a walk.

Sun hat and water in warm weather, a layer for cooler days, shoes you don't mind on damp grass, cash or card for the cafe and plant centre, and a camera. If you garden yourself, bring a notebook or your phone for plant names.

The grass between the main paths can be uneven and soft after rain, so wheelchair and pushchair users should plan to stick to the surfaced routes. Parking is off-site and charged, and the car park can fill on fine weekends. There is an admission charge for the garden, and the space is compact, so if you are not interested in plants, food growing or the castle backdrop, an hour may be plenty. Late in the season the borders are past their peak and hours are shorter.

It also has a setting no other garden in the area can match. The walls sit directly below Helmsley Castle, so the ruin looms over the borders and glasshouses from almost every angle.