Wensleydale Creamery

Hawes is where Wensleydale cheese is actually made, and the creamery on Gayle Lane is the reason people drive up the dale. The cheese carries PGI protection, and the creamery makes the case that this is the only Wensleydale still handcrafted in the dale it takes its name from. It trades as the Yorkshire Wensleydale Cheese Experience and sits under Dairy Crest Ltd, and it runs as a proper visitor attraction. There is a demonstration, a tasting room, a viewing gallery over the vats, and a long-running association with Wallace and Gromit that children spot before their parents do. At under 6 a head it is the best-value ticket for miles.

From Tea Time Cafe at 87 Market Place, head west for the A1(M), come off for Bedale and Leyburn, then follow the A684 the length of Wensleydale to Hawes. Allow about 70 minutes, which makes this the longest drive of any day trip we send people on. The creamery is on Gayle Lane in Hawes, postcode DL8 3RN, and parking on site is free.

It fills on summer weekends, so arrive before midday if you are coming in July or August. There is a bus to Hawes and a short walk from it, but connecting to it from Thirsk is not realistic in a day. The Moorsbus M5 that runs from Thirsk on summer weekends goes east towards Helmsley, not west into the Dales, so treat this as a driving trip and plan the route accordingly.

The demonstration is the heart of the visit. You watch cheese and butter being made, and the delivery is entertaining enough that adults stay for the whole thing rather than drifting off after five minutes. From there, the cheese-making viewing gallery is new, with the first phase open, and it puts you above the working vats.

Then the tasting. The Taste of Yorkshire room lets you work through the range, which is how most people find out that Wensleydale covers more ground than the single wedge they buy at home. There is a Wallace and Gromit area and a set of children's games to keep younger visitors going, and the shop at the end is where the money actually gets spent. Calvert's Restaurant serves lunch, and the cheesy afternoon tea they do there has a following.

The value is the headline. Under 6 for an adult, free entry for children at weekends and in school holidays, and a shop and restaurant you can walk into without a ticket at all. The demonstration is the part visitors rate most highly, and the new viewing gallery adds a second look at the working side. Being almost entirely indoors makes it the reliable choice on a wet day in the Dales, when the walking plans have fallen apart. And the cheese itself is the point: buying it at the source, from the dale it is named after, is a different experience from picking it off a supermarket shelf.

Bring children at a weekend or in the school holidays and they go in free, bank holidays excepted. Buy your cheese while you are there, since the online shop has closed and this is now the direct route to it. Park early on a summer weekend. Above all, do not drive 70 minutes for the creamery on its own: pick it up on the way back from Aysgarth Falls, which is a quarter of an hour east along the same road, and the day makes far more sense. A dog can come into the coffee shop and garden, but the rest of the visitor centre is assistance dogs only.