Fresh from our weekend jaunt up the east coast, here’s a word from the James Herriot All Things Wise and Wonderful audiobook, which was playing in the car. As you would expect, being in a medical context, the meaning is a little unsavoury.
pe-dun-cu-late
adj. Having or supported on a peduncle.Source: dictionary.com
Today was the last full day of our Yorkshire stay, and we had a couple of places to visit that we needed to tick off. It’s been a waterfall-filled week, what with Aysgarth Falls and Hardraw Force earlier in our time here, and we completed the week with today’s first stop, Linton Falls.
Linton Falls is one of the easternmost features of the Craven Fault
A stone’s throw away from us in Threshfield, Linton Falls are just outside Grassington in the village of Linton, and are where the River Wharfe spills over a discontinuity in the limestone rock. An impressive fast-flowing sight, we thought they were much more impressive than Aysgarth Falls. I don’t really know why, though; maybe because you can get much closer to get those dreamy, blurry waterscape pictures, which we came away with again here.
And here’s a tip - early morning (around 10am, early for a holiday anyway) is the best time to see them. (Park in the National Park Visitor Centre car park in Grassington and walk through - there was hardly anyone around at the time of our visit this morning.)
Next, we pointed the Polo north east along the B6160, the A684, and the A6108, which eventually delivered us to Masham, the home of the Black Sheep Brewery. Established in the town in 1992 by Paul Theakston, and rubbing brewing shoulders with Theakston’s just down the road (owned by other members of his family), the old Lightfoot brewery building takes its new name from the town’s annual tradition of sheep markets held each September.
Black Sheep Brewery in Masham will give ‘ewe’ a warm welcome
We took one of the brewery’s ‘Shepherded Tours‘ (Black Sheep has cornered the market when it comes to all sheep-related puns), which at just over an hour in length, is a fascinating look into how Black Sheep uses traditional methods to brew its beer, and includes trips around the brewhouse and fermenting room. Starting with the aroma and taste of English hops and malted barley, and going through the brewing and fermenting process, the tour ends up back in the Black Sheep Baa…r, where a pint of any of the company’s six award-winning cask and bottled ales can be sunk.
If you’re even remotely interested in how beer is brewed and find yourself in the Dales, then a visit to Black Sheep is a must. With a more than enthusiastic guide, the tour tells you everything you need to know about large-scale beer brewing. After a quick pick-up of a few bottles of Black Sheep’s finest, it was late afternoon, so we took the unclassified road south of Leyburn at East Witton, and drove back through the beautifully picturesque Coverdale to the village of Kettlewell and onto home.
Coverdale is one of the most scenic dales in the Yorkshire Dales
This 10-mile stretch of road winds up and down and in and out of the tributary Coverdale valley, and leaves more then enough memories to take home with you to remember the Dales with. Stopping the car, it was eerily quiet, and as the sun peeped through the low clouds and lit an area of the landscape like a halo in front of us, we reflected on how enjoyable the week has been.
A busy but fun one, we have many happy memories and many beautiful places and landscapes etched onto our minds. The Polo BlueMotion has been a more than accommodating and comfortable friend, too, even though as an economy special, it might not have been best suited to the steep inclines which almost seemed to appear around every corner.
The Polo BlueMotion and Yorkshire Dales. A perfect combination?
With a stream trickling gently below us, the air still above us, and the sun deciding to let our last day end on a bright note, our thoughts turned to just one question; when exactly we’d be back in the Dales. There is still so much to see, so many more three-bar gates to open, so many more cattle grids to ‘g-g-r-r-n-n-g-g’ over and so many more places to explore.
After our visit to the World of Herriot museum in Thirsk, we found out that there is actually an official ‘Herriot Trail’ which takes in many of the original locations from the TV and film adaptations. So, after yesterday’s indoor sets, we’ve spent the day driving around the Dales countryside, bringing All Creatures Great and Small to life.
All Creatures Great and Small used many Yorkshire locations
We started in Askrigg, where Cringley House which doubled as Skeldale House, the surgery is located. The local King’s Head pub also had a part, too, as the Drovers Arms, and bygone pictures of the cast litter the main hallway entrance. From Askrigg, we went to Reeth, which served as Darrowby in the 1974 film. After lunch in the Copper Kettle, when the rain had subsided, we went onto Langthwaite.
This is really the iconic one. Used in the opening credits of the first two series series, Siegfried’s car drives over the little bridge, so for nostalgia’s sake, we did the same in the BlueMotion. If you ignore the handful of modern-day cars in the little square, the tiny hamlet with its tiny streets is unchanged, and looks the same as it did in 1978.
‘Siegfried, are you sure that this is the way to Mrs Pumphrey’s?’
From there, Leyburn was next (the fictional Ministry of Agriculture building from the TV series was here, although we didn’t find it), and then we finally made Wensley our last stop of the day. It was the Holy Trinity Church here in which James and Helen were married on TV, although we couldn’t go in today, due to the setting up of the local flower festival.
The church at Wensley was used in James Herriot’s TV wedding
It’s been fun and nostalgic seeing the places we watched on the box in the corner as children (and are watching again as adults), and through visiting many of the original locations this week, I think I’ve developed an even greater fondness for the show…
The opening bars of Johnny Pearson’s Piano Parchment theme tune, and the line ‘Darrowby 385’ are iconic, as should be the animal names of Boris, Clancy, and Tricky Woo. The Yorkshire Dales and James Herriot are inseparable, you can’t mention either without also thinking about TV’s All Creatures Great and Small. Adapted from Herriot’s books and based largely on his life (the characters were based on vets at Herriot’s first practice, with Helen being his real-life wife Joan), the Sunday night BBC series from 30 years ago is fondly remembered.
I think my own love of the programme lies in the fact that I used to want to be a vet when I was a small boy (indeed it might have actually been the series that made that subconscious decision). I didn’t become one of course, but did toy with the thought again quite recently, but the eight years of veterinary training soon put paid to any ideas of driving about the countryside wearing checked shirts, cords, and shiny shoes.
Following on from the films All Creatures Great and Small and It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet, and from 1974 and 1976 respectively, the BBC’s TV series is the most well-known of the on-screen adaptations. First broadcast in 1978, it made household names of Robert Hardy (Siegfried Farnon), Christopher Timothy (James Herriot), Peter Davison (Tristan Farnon), and Carol Drinkwater (Helen Alderson, later Herriot). Timothy became without doubt the most-loved and most famous on-screen Herriot of all.
Christopher Timothy is the most-loved on-screen Herriot (©BBC)
With the beautiful Yorkshire Dales as a backdrop, the series was never to going to be anything but a success. Add in well-acted and scripted scenes, gentle and often humourous stories, and a prime-time Sunday evening slot, and it’s no wonder the show is revered three decades on.
Nothing much happens in each episode (although we recently had one with James’ marriage proposal to Helen, and acceptance, and a preview of the wedding), and that, I suspect is one of the reasons why it works. We find the same thing with the later 1980s Howards’ Way, too. TV execs wouldn’t allow that these days, and would pack each programme full of interwoven and complicated stories.
All Creatures’ interior shots filmed at BBC Pebble Mill, Birmingham
Running for three series, from 1978 to 1980 and with specials in 1983 and 1985, a further four series were broadcast from 1988 to 1990, with 90 episodes in all. The end of the first run saw the storyline cover the outbreak of the Second World War, with the subsequent end starting the second run. The later series saw Oxo commercial mum Lynda Bellingham cast as Helen (but good though she was, it’s Drinkwater – a stage name surely – who will always be the face of the part in my mind).
All Creatures Great and Small ended when all of Herriot’s material had been used, and there were no more stories left to be adapted. Now finally available on DVD, it can charm a whole new army of fans, while appealing to Seventies kids like us, who remember the original broadcasts, and our reliving our childhood Sunday nights.
The weather reports are conflicting; the forecasters don’t seem to know what’s going on. So, we chanced it while the fair skies stayed just that, hoped for more of the same, and pointed the Polo north west to Ribblehead, and its mighty 24-arched viaduct.
Feats of engineering: VW Polo BlueMotion and Ribblehead Viaduct
Set in the Blea Moor, and dating from 1875, it was built over a five-year period by a workforce of thousands (200 of whom died during the construction). The longest on the scenic 72-mile Settle to Carlisle railway at 402 metres, it is 32 metres high, and its curvature is so that passengers riding on the train can that goes over it, can see it, too, stretching out in front of them.
It’s just one of 17 major viaducts spanning the ravines and 14 tunnels that make up the last great mainline to be built in the UK, and it very nearly didn’t survive to be as impressive as it is. In the 1980s British Rail attempted to close the line, deliberately diverting traffic away, stating the viaduct was unsafe, and at £6m, too expensive to repair.
Ribblehead train station now a Settle to Carlisle line visitor centre
But, traffic increased as a result, and the structure was saved from a certain crumbling death. Now maintained and restored, only a single track runs across it, preventing two trains from crossing it at the same time. Standing proud at the base of Whernside mountain, it looks a mighty sight when you approach it, even though it appears to be small.
Mighty scale of Ribblehead Viaduct is impressive from any angle
Up close, the scale is arguably more impressive, but although its curvature might be good for train travelers above, on the ground, it prevents you from seeing it end to end, distorting your perspective. Stopping for pictures and surrounded by sheep at the base of the arches, the fair skies cam over dark and mysterious, and we though for a moment that our luck had finally run out.
Spared any wet stuff, we moved to the front of the structure, and snapped some more from the rock ledges some distance away. Being so long, it’s hard to get a good picture of the viaduct, as even cameras with a wide or fish eye lens still don’t quite get it all in their viewfinders. The best pictures of the Grade II listed and listed Ancient Monument are undoubtedly from the road, with a touch of zoom, with a dark and moody sky.
Thankfully, that’s just what we got this afternoon. Deciding we’d had enough of a playtime, the heavens finally opened and we had to jump in the car and head for home, past the Brimham Rocks, which due to the torrential downpour, we had to leave for another time.