Leave Station car park 9.15am. Park at Demesnes in Barnard Castle (free car park, accessed via Gray Lane off Thorngate) (GR: NZ 050 160, What3Words: ///beeline.bring.speedily) at 10.00am. 9 Miles. Moderate. £7

In some ways a companion piece to our Wednesday walk W15, today covers further sections of the Teesdale Way and the Railway Path to the south. Starting in Barnard Castle, we follow the Teesdale Way for the first part of our walk, passing the Castle which gives the town its name. We cross the Tees and walk to Pecknell Wood and on to Cotherstone. Here, we pick up the southern section of the Tees Railway Path and into the lovely grounds of the Grade II* listed Lartington Hall.  Reaching the village of Lartington, we follow the course of a further dismantled railway. An impressive bridge abutment marks the line’s crossing of Deepdale Beck. We follow the Beck back to its confluence with the Tees, and then back into Barnard Castle.

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The Station, Richmond, DL10 4LD | 10:00am | £25 | café, bookstall, disabled access

Join us for a gentle walk …with a sketchbook! We will be taking a 3-hour stroll, with plenty of sketching stops where you will be guided by artist Liz Harvey. Liz is an experienced artist & tutor whose own work is inspired by natural forms and the landscape. She will share sketchbook ideas and approaches with you and help you to create interesting, mixed media sketches based on your observations. All materials & a sketchbook will be provided.

Suitable for all abilities and levels of experience.

We will start and end our walk at The Station.

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The Station, Richmond, DL10 4LD | 1:30pm | £25 | café, bookstall, disabled access

Join us for a gentle walk …with a sketchbook! We will be taking a 3-hour stroll, with plenty of sketching stops where you will be guided by artist Liz Harvey. Liz is an experienced artist & tutor whose own work is inspired by natural forms and the landscape. She will share sketchbook ideas and approaches with you and help you to create interesting, mixed media sketches based on your observations. All materials & a sketchbook will be provided.

Suitable for all abilities and levels of experience.

We will start and end our walk at The Station.

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Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond DL10 4DW | 7:30pm | £15 | from www.georgiantheatreroyal.co.uk | bar | bookstall | disabled access

Lady Hale retired as President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in January 2020, after a varied career, as an academic lawyer at the University of Manchester (also qualifying and practicing for a while as a barrister), then as the first woman member of the Law Commission, and finally as a Judge. She has taken part in many notable cases, but most famously the ‘prorogation case’ in September 2019. In retirement she has spent her time on good works, speaking and writing – Spider Woman, A Life (2021), With the Law on Our Side (2025), and Do We Have a Right to Die? (2026). Lady Hale with be interviewed by Chris Lloyd, who is no stranger to the Richmond Walking and Book Festival. A prominent local journalist, author and local historian in his own right, Chris appeared at the Festival in 2025 to talk about his latest book on The Stockton and Darlington Railway.

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Leave Station car park at 9.00am. Start Buckden National Park Car Park (Charge) (GR: SD 942 774, What3Words: ///baking.tomato.confirms) at 10:00am. 11 miles, 1,400’ of climbing. Hard. £7

The highlight of our walk today is the ridge of the fells separating Langstrothdale from Littondale, and we will get great views each way during our walk. We start in gentle fashion as we make our way alongside the youthful River Wharfe via Hubberholme to Yockenthwaite.. From here we follow The Dales High Way, climbing steeply to the ridge, with a quick visit to Horsehead (1,985’), before we start the ridge walk to Birks Fell (2,001’) and Firth Fell (1,991’). Then it is a steep but easy descent back to the valley to the banks of the River Wharfe, and Buckden. 

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Leave Station car park 9.15am. Start at parking opposite CB Inn, Langthwaite DL11 6EN (GR: NY 999 031, What3Words: ///push.prom.swarm) at 10.00am. 8.5 miles. Moderate. £7

We will visit some of the many sites in Arkengarthdale where volunteers from the Sustainable Swaledale Group have carried out work to increase biodiversity, and to develop a natural method of flood management. We will be accompanied by Rob Macdonald from the Group, with opportunities to ask questions about our own gardens/land and about the work of the Group. From our start we follow the valley down to Heggs Farm where Liz Sutcliffe will provide a guided tour of the Heggs-Castle renaturing project (https://heggscastlecluster.org). After the tour there is a steady climb up to Low Moor, providing a bird’s eye view of the area covered by some of the projects, before turning downhill to Eskeleth Bridge and a final section north along the valley.

Supported by both Sustainable Swaledale & The Heggs-Castle Renaturing Project

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Richmond Town Hall, DL10 4QL| 4:00pm | £15 includes tea and scones | refreshments | bookstall | disabled access

Two writers present their recent books on the importance of trees in this double presentation.

Jonathan Mullard is an author, biologist, and was Britain’s first senior officer for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. He is the author of the New Naturalist titles Pembrokeshire, Brecon Beacons and Gower, and he is also a keen photographer. Jonathan will discuss his new book Forgotten Forests: Twelve Thousand Years of British and Irish Woodlands, drawing on the latest scientific understanding of our natural history, as well as a fascinating journey through the forests, landscapes and human history of Britain.

Jules Acton lives and breathes trees.  She works for the Woodland Trust and is currently a spokesperson for the Tree of the Year campaign. She encourages walkers to switch off their air pods and concentrate instead on the sounds of nature. Ancient woodlands now only cover 2.5% of the UK – and her book, Oaklore, is a clarion call to care for those we have left.  She also explores the incredibly diverse history of the oak tree: from a source of food and shelter to its use in literature as a plot device and muse, its role as an essential ingredient in ink, and in mythology from across the British Isles as a sacred plant and precious resource.

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Richmond Town Hall, DL10 4QL| 7:30pm | £10 | refreshments | bookstall | disabled access

A must for fans of crime fiction - this event will showcase the work of up and coming writers in this ever popular genre.

Further details of the authors and their works will be available on this webpage as soon as they are available.

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Leave Station car park 9.15am. Parking at Layby on A684 before West Witton (GR:SE 068 885, What3Words: ///mistaking.hobbyists.gasp). Start walk at 10.00am. 10 Miles. Moderate but with steep ascent. £7

Our walk takes us, by a steep ascent in places, to the top of Penhill with great views all around. From there we walk along Penhill Scar, Black Scar and across the moor to the Height of Hazely. We descend, again on a steep path, to Cote Bridge and make our way to the picturesque waterfall at West Burton. As we make our way back to the start we will pass the interesting remains of a Knights Templar Preceptory and Chapel dating back to the 12^th C. Then it is along the green Langthwaite Lane back to the village of West Witton.

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Leave Station car park 9.15am. Parking beside The CB Inn in Arkengarthdale DL11 6EN (GR:NZ 000 031, What3Words:///saying.televise.shiver). Start walk at 10.00am. 5 Miles. Moderate. £7

An invigorating walk to work up an appetite for Sunday lunch at the historic 18^th Century CB Inn, named after a descendant of physician Dr John Bathurst who bought the dale in 1656 and whose family did much to develop lead mining here.  We head for the imposing Scar House and climb up onto the top of the scar. Heading for the tiny hamlet of Booze, we will see signs of the lead mining industry and the location where scenes from Wuthering Heights were filmed. Heading down to Arkle Beck we follow the river back to the CB via Langthwaite which featured in the opening shots for the iconic series, All Creatures Great and Small.  Please bring a drink and a snack for a stop on route. Walk participants will be contacted prior to the walk for their lunchtime menu choices.

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The Station, Richmond, DL10 4LD | 10:00am – 4:00pm | free | café, bookstall, disabled access

Promoting Yorkshire Authors will be showcasing and selling books from a wide range of talented authors writing in a variety of genres, with interesting author talks being given in the Boardroom. Alongside the talks will be an exciting opportunity to contribute to a community poem about Richmond. Throughout the day, people can write a couple of words, which will be collated at the end of the event into a poem by our talented poets. There’s something for everyone, from fiction to non-fiction, crime to historical fantasy, delightful children’s books to gripping adult fiction, memoirs to poetry and much more. A great chance to find your new favourite author.

Further information on the featured authors and titles will be available on this webpage as soon as these are finalised.

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Richmond Town Hall, DL10 4QL| 4:00pm | £15 includes tea and scones | refreshments | bookstall | disabled access.  

Another event showcasing the work of two authors.

Presenting his memoire, Across Mountains, Land and Sea, Mir Rahimi describes an extraordinary and true story of hope, courage and survival, of one boy’s journey across the world to find safety.

Mir was born in Afghanistan and came to Britain in 2001 at the age of 14 years. He entered secondary school for the first time that year with very limited English and a decade later graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science. His is a truly remarkable story.

In Tawseef Khan's Determination, a fictional work describing another side of the immigrant experience, Jamila Shah is twenty-nine and exhausted. An immigration solicitor tasked with running the precious family law firm, Jamila is prone to being woken in the middle of the night by frantic phone calls from clients on the cusp of deportation. Working under the shadow of the Government’s ‘hostile environment’, she constantly prays and hopes that their ‘determinations’ will result in her clients being allowed to stay. In this assured and character-driven debut, we meet the staff of Shah & Co Solicitors, who themselves arrived in the UK not too long ago, and their clients, more recent arrivals – all trying to achieve some semblance of normality. 

Tawseef is a qualified immigration solicitor and holds a doctoral degree from the University of Liverpool, where he examined the fairness of the British asylum system. He is also a prize-winning graduate of the Creative Writing Programme at the University of East Anglia.

 

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Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond DL10 4DW | 7:30pm | £15 | from www.georgiantheatreroyal.co.uk | bar | bookstall | disabled access

1973. Hours after a mysterious phone call is made to the police, a train pulls into Sunderland station with a dead body on board. Cause of death: strangulation. Victim: unknown. Witnesses: none. Undeterred by this baffling set of circumstances, newly promoted Police Sergeant Aline James vows to crack the case and prove her critics wrong! But when her famously ruthless investigation tactics yield no results, she is forced to seek help from unlikely allies: unassuming assassin John Brown and calamitous actor Tony Davies. As the bodies pile up, can this unusual trio thwart a devilishly complex plot, before one of them, actually, becomes a corpse?

Well-known for his beloved books and television adaptations of The Horrible Histories, Terry Deary has always loved reading murder mysteries. For his 350th book he finally decided to write his own, titled ‘Actually, I’m a Murderer’. He now follows up with the second title in the series ‘Actually, I’m a Corpse’

‘Extraordinarily fun and oh-so-gripping’  - The i Paper

‘[A] smart, funny and deftly executed page turner’  - The Guardian

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