The first episode of new TV series The Dales pulled in more than four million viewers this week.

The programme, presented by Bradford-born Adrian Edmondson, follows some of the people living and working in the Dales, including 16-year-old Philip Mellin and his mother Carol who run a farm in Oakworth.

Welcome to Yorkshire, which was involved in the making of the series, hopes it will spark a boom in tourism to the Dales this summer and has created a website, yorkshire.com/thedales, which yesterday had 2,600 hits.

Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “This is a phenomenal success with our stunning Yorkshire Dales being beamed into the homes of 4.4 million viewers across the nation.

“We’ve created a special website for the programme which shows who and where is featured in the programme. This saw a great spike in hits so we hope that it will lead people to booking a holiday and coming to see our Yorkshire Dales for themselves.”

The Dales is screened on Mondays at 8pm on ITV1