page_title: Brimham Rocks
section_title: Tourist transport
hierarchical_section_title: Brimham Rocks / Tourism / Tourist transport
caption_attribution_description: Brimham Rocks visitors, a 19th century photograph.
context_page_description: Brimham Rocks, once known as Brimham Crags, is a 183.9-hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest and Geological Conservation Review site, 8 miles north west of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England, on Brimham Moor in the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The site, notified as SSSI in 1958, is an outcrop of Millstone Grit, with small areas of birch woodland and a large area of wet and dry heath.
  The site is known for its water- and weather-eroded rocks, which were formed over 325 million years ago and have assumed fantastic shapes. In the 18th and 19th centuries, antiquarians such as Hayman Rooke wondered whether they could have been at least partly carved by druids, an idea that ran concurrently with the popularity of James Macpherson's Fragments of Ancient Poetry of 1760, and a developing interest in New-Druidism. For up to two hundred years, some stones have carried fanciful names, such as Druid's Idol, Druid's Altar and Druid's Writing Desk.
context_section_description: By the Harrogate spa Season of 1838, the summer tourists were arriving in hired carriages, and this was a business opportunity for postmaster Christopher Deighton. However he neglected, not for the first time, to pay the excise duty on the hire of a horse and phaeton in February of that year, and was fined £5 with 17 shillings costs. Magistrate C. Oxley said, "Depend upon it if you go on in this way you will be convicted in the sum of £5 every time, therefore be careful, as it will take away all your profits."
  By the 1840s, many carriages were hired to take people from Harrogate to Brimham Rocks. With the coming of the railways and a rail station at Dacre in 1862, visitors during the Season at Harrogate spa could more easily take excursions to Brimham Rocks, so tourist numbers increased. By 1906 there was a motor bus service from Dacre Banks Station, although a four-in-hand carriage could be hired from Harrogate.
  During the 20th century and the early 21st century, visitor cars were parked among the rocks, but since 1970, the National Trust has maintained a car park near the entrance, and built an accessible pedestrian path to Rocks House (now called Brimham House or the Visitor Centre) from there.
caption: Carriages at the Rocks, 19th century
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