Aysgarth: five-star comfort at its loos. Photo: Alan McDonald CC-BY-SA-2.0

When you’ve got to go, there’s no better place than the Yorkshire Dales.

To the relief of national park bosses, the porcelain thrones of the park’s villages scored top marks in the Loo of the Year Awards.

One convenience – at Aysgarth – gained top marks and a five-star rating from judges, with the authority’s nine other toilets a close-run second best with four stars.

Paul Drake, the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s project and estates Officer, said: “This is fantastic news for the authority and a big improvement on last year when we received seven four-star ratings and three three-star ones.

“The loo at the Aysgarth national park centre received the five-star rating, which means it is automatically nominated for a ‘best of’ category award but we won’t know the result until December.

“Toilets are obviously a very important facility for visitors and we are working very hard to make sure we maintain them to the highest standard all year round.”

The other high-scoring toilets were at: Buckden, Grassington, Linton Falls, Malham, Stainforth, Horton in Ribblesdale, Clapham, Kettlewell and Hawes.