The National Trust and Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) are the lead partners of sixteen organisations who have come together to deliver the Skell Valley scheme, which will create a sustainable future for the Skell Valley. Over the last five years partners, farmers, landowners and communities living, working and visiting the valley have worked together to develop and shape the scheme.

We're focusing on the 12 short but glorious miles of the River Skell, descending from the wild remote moorland of Dallowgill Moor to the Vale of York and the historic City of Ripon, while traversing at least six millennia of human history. Some of the most ancient human objects in this living landscape are the names of the rivers, the Skell name may have come with the Vikings and their word skjallr, meaning ‘resounding’ from its swift and noisy course.

The upper and middle stretches of the river lie wholly within Nidderdale AONB and include the National Trust’s Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal estate, inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1986. The lower stretches flow through  farmland and the open grasslands and wooded banks of Hell Wath before reaching the bustling historic city of Ripon.