Goathland

Goathland is a village and popular torist attraction located in the Scarborough district of North Yorkshire. It has a station on the steam-operated North Yorkshire Moors Railway line.

Goathland is 500 feet above sea level. It has been the location for the TV series Heartbeat and the station was used in the movie series Harry Potter.

In 1109, King Henry I granted land to Osmund the Priest and the brethren of the hermitage of Goathland, then called Godelandia, for the soul of his mother Queen Matilda, who had died in 1083. This is recorded in a charter held at Whitby Abbey.

The village was a spa town in the 19th century. There are many hotels and guest houses in the village. The largest, the Mallyan Spout Hotel, is named after a nearby waterfall.

Much of the surrounding land is owned by the Duchy of Lancaster. The Duchy's tenants have a common right extending for hundreds of years to graze their black faced sheep on the village green and surrounding moorland.

The village was the setting of the fictional village of Aidensfield in the Heartbeat television series set in the 1960s. Many landmarks from the series are recognisable. The pub is called the Goathland Hotel, but in the series is the Aidensfield Arms.

Goathland railway station is on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. The railway is run by a charitable trust with some paid staff but is mostly operated by volunteers, running nearly all the year including Christmas. It links Grosmont in the north with Pickering in the south, along the route of the Whitby - Pickering line built by George Stephenson in 1835, then upgraded in 1865. Goathland railway station was used as the location for Hogsmeade railway station in the Harry Potter films, and the line filmed for Harry's journey.