Photo: Jo and Steve Turner · CC BY-SA 2.0Almost everyone in Masham lives within a 5-minute walk of a park
The Nidderdale National Landscape begins 0.4 mi from the village’s edge. Parks and playing fields in Masham add up to 3.7 ha for every 1,000 residents; the typical UK town has 2.1. Footpaths add up to 23 km in the village and the kilometre around it, 3.0 for every square kilometre. Masham grades A+ for the outdoors. A character grade: it isn’t part of the overall grade.
What kind of outdoors village is Masham?
Read from the data: what stands out first, good and bad.
Masham’s strongest suit is parks close to every home, followed by protected countryside on the doorstep.
Masham grades A+ for the outdoors
Each chart is every UK town of 1,000 or more on one measure: the green bar is Masham, the dashed line the typical town. The number is the share of towns it beats; the five are averaged and the average ranked again.
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Graded, never part of the overall grade (like History and Civic life). It measures what is mapped: OS Open Greenspace leaves out woodland and open-access land that isn’t a park, and OpenStreetMap’s rural paths are more complete in some places than others.
Masham is 5th of 60 UK villages its size for the outdoors
The 60 UK towns and cities of 1,000 to 1,200 people with an Outdoors Grade. Hover a dot for its figures; tap one for its page.
Against villages its size, Masham stands out most for park space per resident: only 14 of the other 59 have more.
Show as a table
| Town | Outdoors | Green space | Near a park | Path per km² | Protected | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Illogan Cornwall | A+ | 3 | 100% | 3.2 | 7% |
| 2 | Polgooth Cornwall | A+ | 7 | 100% | 2 | 13% |
| 3 | Fairlands Surrey | A+ | 2.8 | 100% | 5 | 11% |
| 4 | Chagford Devon | A+ | 4.7 | 100% | 2.5 | 98% |
| 5 | Masham North Yorkshire | A+ | 3.7 | 100% | 3 | 44% |
| 6 | Tolvaddon Cornwall | A | 11.9 | 24% | 4.5 | 9% |
| 7 | Ditchling East Sussex | A | 7.4 | 77% | 4 | 57% |
| 8 | Leigh Kent | A | 3 | 100% | 2.6 | 49% |
| 9 | Moston Cheshire | A | 7.8 | 100% | 3.8 | 0% |
| 10 | Charnock Richard Lancashire | A | 29.8 | 100% | 3.3 | 0% |
| 11 | Barns Green West Sussex | A | 6.6 | 100% | 3.5 | 0% |
| 12 | Horsted Keynes West Sussex | A− | 2.2 | 100% | 2.3 | 83% |
| 13 | Mayfield Staffordshire | A− | 1.9 | 100% | 3.3 | 14% |
| 14 | Wenvoe South Glamorgan | A− | 5.9 | 100% | 2.9 | 0% |
| 15 | Chatburn Lancashire | A− | 1.7 | 100% | 2.6 | 59% |
| 16 | Boosbeck North Yorkshire | A− | 2.9 | 100% | 1.9 | 22% |
| 17 | Grange Moor West Yorkshire | A− | 4.3 | 100% | 2.8 | 0% |
| 18 | St Erth Cornwall | B+ | 0.9 | 100% | 2.5 | 4% |
| 19 | Llanddulas Clwyd | B+ | 1.7 | 100% | 2.4 | 0% |
| 20 | Grassington North Yorkshire | B+ | 1.3 | 79% | 4.1 | 100% |
| 21 | South Bents Tyne and Wear | B+ | 4.9 | 62% | 2.6 | 0% |
| 22 | Borth Dyfed | B | 3.1 | 74% | 1.2 | 0% |
| 23 | Oakley Buckinghamshire | B | 2.9 | 100% | 2.5 | 0% |
| 24 | Cropston Leicestershire | B | 3.1 | 100% | 2.2 | 0% |
| 25 | Jacobs Well Surrey | B | 1.4 | 77% | 4.7 | 8% |
| 26 | Bedlinog Mid Glamorgan | B | 4.1 | 100% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 27 | Goudhurst Kent | B | 1.5 | 100% | 1.2 | 65% |
| 28 | Shipham Somerset | B− | 1.2 | 63% | 4 | 55% |
| 29 | Harpur Hill Derbyshire | B− | 3.1 | 31% | 2.3 | 60% |
| 30 | Roydon (South Norfolk) Norfolk | B− | 4.3 | 50% | 4 | 0% |
| 31 | Beaumaris Gwynedd | B− | 2.7 | 30% | 0.8 | 18% |
| 32 | Easton on the Hill Northamptonshire | C+ | 2.5 | 100% | 1.7 | 0% |
| 33 | Castlethorpe Buckinghamshire | C+ | 3.5 | 72% | 2.9 | 0% |
| 34 | Gainford County Durham | C+ | 2.6 | 100% | 1.4 | 0% |
| 35 | Whimple Devon | C+ | 5.2 | 70% | 0.9 | 1% |
| 36 | Brinklow Warwickshire | C+ | 1.7 | 100% | 2 | 0% |
| 37 | Three Legged Cross Dorset | C | 1.5 | 77% | 2.6 | 1% |
| 38 | Ashchurch Gloucestershire | C | 2 | 59% | 2.2 | 21% |
| 39 | Bow Street Dyfed | C | 3.1 | 33% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 40 | Bow Devon | C | 1.9 | 100% | 1.1 | 0% |
| 41 | Baldwin's Gate Staffordshire | C− | 1.3 | 100% | 1.5 | 0% |
| 42 | Milverton Somerset | C− | 2.1 | 70% | 2.4 | 0% |
| 43 | Maiden Newton Dorset | C− | 1.1 | 27% | 2 | 100% |
| 44 | Wetheral Cumbria | C− | 3.8 | 51% | 1.9 | 0% |
| 45 | Beachley Gloucestershire | C− | 0.3 | 0% | 1.2 | 14% |
| 46 | Bildeston Suffolk | C− | 0.5 | 100% | 1.3 | 0% |
| 47 | Farmborough Somerset | C− | 2 | 38% | 2.6 | 0% |
| 48 | Cawston Norfolk | D | 2.7 | 71% | 0.8 | 0% |
| 49 | Broad Oak (Wealden) East Sussex | D | 0.1 | 0% | 1.4 | 96% |
| 50 | Chawley Oxfordshire | D | 0.3 | 0% | 3.8 | 0% |
| 51 | Wattstown Mid Glamorgan | D | 3.1 | 26% | 0.8 | 0% |
| 52 | Landrake Cornwall | D | 0.9 | 0% | 0.6 | 38% |
| 53 | Reawla Cornwall | D | 0.2 | 0% | 2 | 3% |
| 54 | Stickney Lincolnshire | D | 2.4 | 0% | 1 | 0% |
| 55 | Pilton Somerset | D− | 1.2 | 28% | 1.9 | 0% |
| 56 | Moulton Chapel Lincolnshire | D− | 1.5 | 60% | 0 | 0% |
| 57 | Kentford Suffolk | D− | 1.9 | 0% | 0.5 | 0% |
| 58 | Llanfyllin Powys | D− | 0 | 0% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 59 | Great Horwood Buckinghamshire | D− | 0.8 | 0% | 1 | 0% |
| 60 | Whaplode Lincolnshire | D− | 0.4 | 0% | 0.2 | 0% |
Parks, footpaths & countryside
Tap a number to zoom to a park. Tap a layer to hide it. The dashed line is Masham’s built-up area.
How close Masham’s homes are to a park
Each square is 1 in 100 residents: green lives within 400 m of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace).
Playing fields count, so a park within reach isn’t always one with paths or trees; 3 playgrounds are mapped in and around the village, about one for every 371 residents.
Nidderdale and Yorkshire Dales both start about 5 miles from Masham
Protected landscapes within 30 km, by direction and distance from the edge of the built-up area; circle size shows each one’s area. National Landscapes were called Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty until 2023.
Nidderdale
44% of the land within 5 km of Masham is National Park or National Landscape, more than 89% of UK towns. Yorkshire Dales National Park covers 2,185 km² and has been a National Park since 1954.
2 waymarked walks pass through or near Masham
23 km of footpaths, bridleways and rights of way are mapped in Masham and the kilometre around it, 3.0 km for every square kilometre (the typical UK town has 3.0). Bars show each route’s kilometres within 2 km of the village.
The regional route here is the Camino Ingles to Santiago.
Waymarked walks are OpenStreetMap walking routes. Public rights of way are only as complete as the map in each area.
The best walking months in Masham: May to September
The village’s 1991–2020 averages (Met Office HadUK-Grid) and the daylight at its latitude. Outlined months have 12½+ hours of daylight, highs of 15 °C or more and little rain for the town.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daylight (h) | 7.9 | 9.7 | 11.7 | 14.0 | 16.0 | 17.2 | 16.7 | 14.9 | 12.6 | 10.4 | 8.4 | 7.4 |
| High (°C) | 7 | 7 | 10 | 12 | 15 | 18 | 20 | 20 | 17 | 13 | 9 | 7 |
| Rain (mm) | 75 | 63 | 52 | 54 | 52 | 64 | 61 | 71 | 64 | 75 | 78 | 80 |
May is the driest month (52 mm) and July the warmest (highs of 20 °C). Winter days are short, about 7 hours of daylight in December, and 80 mm of rain falls in December, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 55 nights a year. The climate in Masham →
3 playgrounds and the nearest beaches
Mapped within 2 km of the village in OpenStreetMap, against the typical UK village its size per resident. Named places are listed with directions; unnamed ones are only counted.
The nearest beaches
Masham is inland. These are the nearest named beaches, measured from the edge of the village.
Check the water before you swim. The Environment Agency tests designated bathing waters from May to September and publishes a rating for each beach.
Every named place, with directions
Nature reserves 2
Playgrounds 3
Plus 3 playgrounds without a name on the map.
The outdoors in nearby towns
The nearest towns of 1,000+ within 12 miles. Tap a town for its outdoors page.
Masham grades higher for the outdoors than every neighbour in the table.
Questions about the outdoors in Masham
Is Masham near a National Park?
Yes. Yorkshire Dales National Park begins 4.7 mi north-west of the village’s edge. It covers 2,185 km² and has been a National Park since 1954. The nearest protected landscape of any kind is the Nidderdale National Landscape, 0.4 mi away.
What are the best walks near Masham?
2 waymarked walking routes pass within 2 km of the village, including the Ripon Rowel Walk and Camino Ingles to Santiago.
What is the nearest beach to Masham?
Pebble Beach, 6.9 mi from the edge of the village, then York Beach (29 mi). Masham itself is inland.
How many people in Masham live near a park?
100% of residents live within 400 m, about a 5-minute walk, of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace). The typical UK town is 83%.
When is the best time of year for walking in Masham?
May to September: the longest days, the warmest afternoons and the least rain of the year, from the Met Office 1991–2020 averages.
Is Masham good for walking?
About average for paths: 3.0 km of footpath and right of way per square kilometre, more than 58% of UK towns. For park space per person it beats 80% (3.7 ha per 1,000 residents).
How is the Outdoors Grade worked out?
From five measures, each placed among UK towns of 1,000 or more: public green space per resident, the share living near a park, National Park or National Landscape within 5 km, footpaths per square kilometre, and the sea within 5 km. It is a character grade and isn’t part of Masham’s overall grade.
Where Masham’s outdoors figures come from
- Parks and green space: Ordnance Survey OS Open Greenspace (parks and gardens, playing fields, play spaces, and their access points). Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- National Parks and National Landscapes: Natural England and Natural Resources Wales boundaries, areas and designation dates, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Footpaths, walking routes, beaches and things to do: © OpenStreetMap contributors, Open Database License (ODbL), via Geofabrik, 16 October 2026.
- Historic parks, listed buildings and monuments: Historic England, National Heritage List for England, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Rain and temperature: Met Office HadUK-Grid 1991–2020 averages for the town; daylight calculated from its latitude.
- The sea: ONS Countries (December 2024) boundaries clipped to mean high water. Residents near a park: ONS Census 2021 output areas.
- Grade: TownRatings’ Outdoors Grade, ranked against UK towns only.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.