Harrogate’s Valley Gardens have emerged as one of the most visited attractions in the district.

Since last February last year, an electronic counting device has been used to record the number of visits made to the gardens.

Over the past twelve months, 2,738,122 visits have been made to the much-loved park.

Patrick Kilburn, Harrogate council’s Head of Parks and Open Spaces, said: “We decided to do this count because the council commits a lot of resources towards the maintenance of its open spaces but we have no information to support how many benefit from that commitment.

“This is just one park and these figures show just how popular and important our parks and open spaces are.”

The other three top sites were Fountains Abbey (342,499), RHS Harlow Carr gardens (320,045) and Lightwater Valley (324,896).