If you like sport and walking through beautiful countryside then you are in for a treat in Threshfield as you can combine the two.

One of the village’s most popular walking routes passes by ‘The Avenue’, a small stadium where you can watch a game of Rugby Union before setting off on your travels again.

The ground is home to Wharfedale RUFC, who ply their trade in the sport’s third tier National League One. It is one of the most loved small arenas in Yorkshire, holding 2,000 spectator, and was described as a ‘sporting nirvana’ by broadcaster John Inverdale. “If there is a more wonderful sporting venue in the country for serious sport, I’ve yet to visit it,” he wrote in a column for the Daily Telegraph.

After watching a game, you can pass through the wooden field gate near the ground’s entrance and head towards Skirethorns Lane. This will put you on the route of one of the area’s most popular walking paths which heads to the village of Linton and then back to Threshfield.

The walk only covers three miles but takes in a disused railway line, lush green fields and dense woodland.

That train line used to connect directly to the village, but as with many rural locations Threshfield’s locomotive past is firmly behind it. The station closed to passenger services in 1930 and freight trains stopped using the line in 1969. The platform and buildings were demolished shortly afterwards and houses now stand on the site.

If you like trains, though, do not despair as a few miles south of Threshfield you can hop on to the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway, a heritage line that was opened in 1981 using British Rail routes that had been closed in the mid-1960s due to cuts.

The line runs for four miles and has hosts a number of themed days. At present it only goes between Embsay and Bolton Abbey, but are plans to reconnect it to the Network Rail station in Skipton at some point in the future. Services operate seven days a week during the summer and on Sundays the rest of the year.

Just a short walk from Bolton Abbey station is the famous monastery that gives the area its name. Founded by Augustinian monks in 1154, the priory took around a century to take form and was one the biggest monasteries in the country.

After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540, the main building had the lead stripped from its roof and, open to the elements, the abbey crumbled into ruins. However, the Church of St Mary and St Cuthbert, next to the Abbey is still intact and boasts stunning wall paintings and superb stained-glass windows.

Threshfield is walking distance from the town of Grassington, which has a number of shops and even a museum on life and work in the Yorkshire Dales.

There are a couple of inns offering accommodation in the village as well as guest houses and a campsite.