Top ideas for rainy days out in Yorkshire

On the surface, it looks like just another Yorkshire hillside, dark and barren throughout much of the year. Underneath though at White Scar Caves, Ingleborough, it seems just like liquid gold has been discovered

The good old British weather can spoil the best plans for adventure. It’s always good to have a plan B in your back pocket for when rain falls – which it has in buckets for the past month.

From intriguing museums to art galleries and aquariums, Yorkshire is well-equipped with tons of indoor attractions and stay-dry activities.

We look at some of the best.

White Scar Cave, Ingleton, Carnforth

Located inside the Yorkshire Dales National Park, White Scar Cave is one of Yorkshire’s finest natural wonders. Leave the weather behind and enter an underground world of waterfalls, stalagmites and stalactites on a guided tour.

With tight squeezes, echoing chambers and slate beds that are up to 400 million years old, expect to be wowed. The tour is a mile long and lasts 80 minutes, making this one of the longest cave tour in the country.

The Escapologist, White Rose Shopping Centre, Leeds

The Escapologist has everything you need for a day out escaping stormy weather. It offers a host of fiendishly tough escape games but with a child-friendly focus.

The games are themed around Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, Sherlock Holmes and The Gunpowder Plot.

Your job is to solve a range of head-scratching puzzles and get out of your chosen room within 60 minutes.

When you are done, successful or not, you can debrief in the on-site cafe bar.

Ingleborough Cave, Clapham, North Yorkshire

Open from February to November, you can take a guided walk through a series of underground passages, peppered with natural rock formations and artefacts that date back millions of years.

The impact of the Ice Age can be viewed from within this marvel of nature, as you discover underground lakes, pitch black potholes and have fun scrambling to give your drizzly day out a real sense of adventure.

National Coal Mining Museum, Wakefield

Yorkshire has a rich mining history and you can spend the perfect rainy day exploring it. Above ground at the National Coal Mining Museum, you can walk through the interactive displays and discover what life was like as a miner.

You will see the very machinery that was used and find out why all the family sometimes had to venture beneath the surface. Then, it’s time to get kitted out with a hard hat and descend 140 metres below the ground.

You will spend an hour meeting miners and discovering the subterranean chambers these workers called home.

Entry to the museum is free.

Middleton Railway, Moor Road, Hunsley, Leeds

Middleton Railway is run by volunteers and the main attraction is a steam locomotive, which pootles along to nearby Middleton Park and back.

Your voyage is best followed up with a visit to the next-door museum where you can get up close to artefacts, old photos and even more steam locomotives.

Entrance to the museum is free with your train ticket.

Stump Cross Caverns, Greenhow Hill, Pateley Bridge

Caverns, carvings and cake are perfectly combined at this Nidderdale wonder. You can explore the warren of walkways and chambers at your leisure, descending the 65 steps to the limestone formations formed by underground streams many millions of years ago.

Then, make your way to the cafe for good food and the visitor’s centre to eye up the remains of wolverines discovered within the cavern.

SEA LIFE, Scarborough

Jellyfish, penguins and turtles … the indoor attraction is home to more than 2,500 creatures. There are talks and animal feeding sessions plus a Tropical Ocean Tunnel, where sharks and stingrays swim over your head.

You can also catch the otters zooming around their pool and go on a rainforest adventure where you’ll meet all sorts of cool creepy crawlies.

Xscape, Colorado Way, Castleford

Xscape is your one-stop Yorkshire shop for indoor attractions on miserable rainy days. You may need a couple of rainy days to work your way through everything on offer.

There’s the ever-popular Gravity trampoline park, Snozone indoor ski slopes, tenpin bowling, LazerZone, a 4D cinema, escape rooms, glow-in-the-dark golf and, for the really little ‘uns, a soft play centre.

If all that indoor adventure sounds like hungry work, you are catered for with loads of restaurants on-site.