The castle and gardens are now closed for the winter . We are opening on Saturday 2nd March 2024 and our last day of opening is Friday 1st November 2024.

We are delighted to confirm that our lovely country gardens, castle and tearoom, near Leyburn, North Yorkshire, are open until Thursday 2nd November. We look forward to welcoming visitors to enjoy our gardens, including our maze, vineyard and superb views across the glorious Wensleydale valley and our impressive medieval castle and shop which has lots of locally produced gifts and souvenirs. Our castle tearoom with quality freshly made cakes, quiches, sandwiches and other homemade food along with hot and cold beverages is open every day. The falconry displays will be taking place twice a day as well as our daily archery demonstration and Wild Boar talk and feed.

We look forward to welcoming you back!

If possible, please book tickets online ahead of your visit here Online Bolton Castle Tickets Visitors who have already booked will be given priority on arrival. This will enable us to monitor visitors’ arrival and limit cash transactions. If you do not have a pre-booked ticket, please be patient if you are asked to wait for as minimum amount of time as possible. Please note, if you have any discount cards as listed on our ticket section please show your cards on arrival, you do not need to pre book a ticket.

We’re a Travellers Choice Award Winner, which means we’re ‘in the top 10% of visitor attractions WORLDWIDE! We ‘stood out by providing great service and experiences to our guests’ – all part of our everyday commitment to our visitors. Congratulations team! #TravelersChoice

What our visitors say about the castle

YorTours – Breathe in Yorkshire

Another brilliant experience on Friday with my pre booked 2 clients from Ohio

Birds of prey on arrival for 3pm falconry display; followed by castle and boars feeding - whilst I had time to feed in your cafe too

Just brilliant - thanks and we always get a genuine warm welcome from all you staff and the ladies in the cafe too !

Warmest regards,

Nick

Emma Benny

To Bolton Castle staff,

My father and I visited Bolton Castle today (Friday 21st July) and I wanted to express our gratitude for the wonderful experience we had. The Castle staff were all so friendly and welcoming.

I was most impressed with the Lad who facilitated the Falconry and Archery. His knowledge on the birds was phenomenal and his presence and confidence during his time showing the birds was wonderful to watch, we were really impressed.

We really appreciated his time spent answering questions and chatting with us and the other Castle guests.

Thank you so much for a great experience.

Dom Bristow

I rarely write emails like this but feel compelled to in this instance. We visited the castle on 29^th July, on a weekend when there were a number of volunteers demonstrating and talking about life in a Tudor household. It was absolutely brilliant. The patience of each person to talk us through different aspects of life and the amount of passion they had for the history was astonishing. The few hours we spent there was fantastic and we really want to come back.

I think it was Keith in the kitchen that mentioned they do this on four weekends a year, two for the Tudors and two for another period. Would it be possible to find out when they will be at the castle again?

Keep up the good work and please pass on our praise to the volunteers.

Emma Rieley

I visited yesterday and just wanted to say thank you for a lovely day, it was my first time visiting and it was brilliant.

I especially really enjoyed the falconry display and Luke was fantastic. Do the falconry team have their own social media showing their work with the birds? I couldn't find anything but please pass on my thanks to Luke, if it wasn't such a scorching day, I would have loved to have spoken to him more about the birds.

Hope you're well and thanks again.

A Visitor

Best castle I've EVER been to

Absolutely loved it here, we were lucky enough to come when people were in costume. Master David provided a GREAT tour, very very interesting, extremely knowledgeable, and humorous. I would recommend it to anyone

Download the Bolton Castle app

Download our new audio App from Apple's App Store or Google Play Store and hear the stories of the castle brought alive. Our easy to navigate App is a fun way to find out about our turbulent history, our castle incumbents and their way of life through the ages. There's an audio tour for each room of the castle, so you can dip in and out as much as you wish, with voices from our Living History team who know and love the castle. Find out about Mary Queen of Scots' captivity, how Lord Scrope's army prepared for war, and how the servants made sure life included some luxuries as well as day to day chores to keep this home functioning, amongst other sneak peeks on life in a castle. It's time to immerse yourself in our history and find out more than you ever thought you needed to know! Free with entry, the audio App lets you unlock the stories behind the castle walls.

Bolton Castle in Wensleydale provides a huge range of exciting things to do in Yorkshire. From family days out to educational trips and historic tours you will find a raft of sights, sounds and smells which bring the castle to life and make for a truly memorable trip.

Bolton Castle is one of the country’s best preserved medieval castles; originally built as one of the finest and most luxurious homes in the land, the castle bears the scars of over 600 years of fascinating history. The castle is still in the private ownership of Lord Bolton, the direct descendant of the castle’s original owner Sir Richard le Scrope.