Help us keep The Dales special.

• Stay on rights of way, especially through fields and meadows, to reduce your impact on the landscape
• Use your car less and think about other means of getting around
• Stay overnight or shop locally rather than bringing food with you – this helps boost the local economy and ensures a sustainable future for those who live and work here.
• Respect the life and work of people who live here – remember much of the land is privately owned
• Please take all litter home with and keep our landscape beautiful.

Have a lovely stay in the Yorkshire Dales
Visitors

Green power at Kilnsey

Kilnsey Park prides itself on being one of the greenest, most environmentally friendly visitor attractions in the UK. We generate our own electricity, heat our buildings naturally and make sure that all of the cleaning products we use are eco-friendly. We want to keep the Yorkshire Dales as pure and pristine as it’s always been, and we work hard to minimise our impact on the environment.

The main hydropower turbine was was installed at Kilnsey Park in 2001. It was refurbished in 2010 to improve its performance. Today Kilnsey Park is self-sufficient in electricity and sells its surplus electricity back to the National Grid.   We are now able to generate enough power to supply the whole site including the shop, restaurant and fish farm.

Water from Sykes Beck spring that is used to generate the power serves a dual purpose.   As it emerges at the top of the Kilnsey Park site, the spring water goes through the trout fingerling raceways where the tiny trout are reared.  It is then channelled back into a header tank, and then travels down a pipe to the turbine and generates the electricity.  A sophisticated electronic control panel enables the electricity generated to be used anywhere on site, and any surplus can be diverted into the National Grid and used elsewhere.

Kilnsey Park makes use of other green technologies to supply eco-friendly energy. We have installed water heat pumps to produce warmth for Sykes Barn (now home of the Angel Retreat Spa) and the main building where the restaurant and Estate Farm Shop are located. So we don’t need to feel guilty when we turn up the heating! Photovoltaic panels on Sykes Barn are also another way that we reduce our carbon footprint.

Locally produced energy it isn’t new to Kilnsey Park.  Back in 1933 Kilnsey Park had its own hydro-electric generator. The original Turgo Impulse Turbine was commissioned by Mr W.D.Roberts, grandfather of the present manager of the Park. The power output was relatively small at 25.7 horse power at a speed of 600 RPM. The old turbine house and dam still remain from the original scheme.