Region celebrates Yorkshire Day

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A series of events are taking place across the region to celebrate the 34th Yorkshire Day.

The main focus will be at a three-day festival at Harewood House, near Leeds.

Visitors can taste Yorkshire food and ales, visit craft stalls and see some of the region's sporting heroes, including cricket umpire Dickie Bird.

A Yorkshire flag was unfurled at a ceremony in Hull on Tuesday and a group of walkers who have been carrying it will arrive in York later.

The flag has just been registered with the UK Flag Institute allowing it to be raised without special planning permission.

Restore pride

Part of the celebrations in York will include the reading of the traditional "Declaration Of Integrity".

And at the York maze there will be the annual Yorkshire Day straw bale race.

Among other places where the declaration is being read is the village of Hedon, East Yorkshire, which will also see a procession and church service.

Rosie Winterton, minister for Yorkshire and the Humber and MP for Doncaster, said: "Yorkshire Day is an excellent opportunity to reflect on many of the great things there are about living here.

"Yorkshire is a great place where National Parks sit side by side with vibrant and exciting cities."

Yorkshire Day was started in 1975 to restore pride in a county undermined by the loss of its traditional industries.

It falls on 1 August to mark the date in 1759 when soldiers from Yorkshire regiments placed white roses alongside fallen comrades on the battlefield of Minden in Germany.