Raydale

{{Short description|Valley in the Yorkshire Dales, England}}

{{for|the football stadium at Gretna, Scotland|Raydale Park}}

File:Descending into Raydale - geograph.org.uk - 4445458.jpg

{{Use British English|date=April 2019}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2019}}

Raydale (also known as Raydaleside){{cite news |last1=Fox |first1=Alexa |title=Joint programme to help nature |work=Darlington & Stockton Times |issue=2022-12 |date=25 March 2022 |page=71|issn=2516-5348}} is a dale on the south side of Wensleydale in North Yorkshire, England. The northern part of the dale is the valley of the River Bain, which flows out of Semerwater, one of very few lakes in the Yorkshire Dales. Above the lake the dale is drained by smaller becks, and is joined by two smaller dales, Cragdale on the east and Bardale on the west.

There are three hamlets in the dale, Countersett, Marsett and Stalling Busk. The village of Bainbridge lies at the mouth of the dale.{{cite book|last1=Chrystal|first1=Paul|title=The Place Names of Yorkshire; Cities, Towns, Villages, Rivers and Dales, some Pubs too, in Praise of Yorkshire Ales|date=2017|publisher=Stenlake|location=Catrine|isbn=9781840337532|page=104|edition=1}}

The dale is a broad, flat-bottomed U-shaped valley, with a significant woodland cover around Semerwater and the other water courses.[http://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/specialplace/specialquality-landscape/characteroflandscape/14_raydale.pdf Yorkshire Dales National Park: Landscape character: Raydale]