Herriot Country Supplement to England Vacation
(September & October 2005)
Bob and I spent a couple of days driving around North Yorkshire looking for the
sights of James Herriot country, both real and televised. James Herriot is the
pseudonym for Alfred Wight who wrote a series of autobiographies of his
veterinarian life in picturesque North Yorkshire.
Strong worldwide interest in his autobiographies birthed a BBC TV program named
All Creatures Great and Small. Because during the filming of the program Alfred
Wight was still working, and didn't want to be disturbed, the show was filmed
in the Yorkshire Dales National Park in and around the small town of Askrigg.
Bob and I visited first Alfred Wight's--the real James Herriot--home in the
market town of Thirsk. This house/surgery is now
an excellent museum
that explains the real vet's life using the fans' interest in the
TV program
as a vehicle. At this museum we purchased a map to help us find the towns
filmed in the TV program and
movie.
The World of James Herriot, Thirsk, North Yorkshire
The plaques pictured to the left are located adjacent to the front door of the
surgery. They look to be the original ones.
Mr. Donald Sinclair is Siegfried Farnon on television.
Click the thumbnails for full-size photos.
Below are pictures taken inside
The World of James Herriot museum
at No. 23 Kirkgate, Thirsk.
Click the thumbnails for larger photos.
The consulting room is where Alfred Wight saw his small patients at the
surgery. When Alf joined the practice most of the business was still farm
animals, so this room probably wasn't used too frequently until the 1950s when
the tractor became more common than farm horses and vets started treating more
pets.
Medicines were stocked and prescribed in the dispensary. The TV program
combined this room with the consulting room to make a larger room, no doubt, to
allow more room for the cameras.
This little room is located in the middle of the house so it is probably fairly
warm on cold winter days. Remember that this house probably didn't have central
heating during the '30s and '40s.
This kitchen is very large considering the size of the building. If a modern
kitchen was this size, it would have to be surrounded by a 6,000 square foot
house!
After seeing the surgery we continued to the garden in the back and discovered
the
Austin that Christopher Timothy drove in the TV program when he portrayed James
Herriot. Being a car guy this was fortuitous!
After watching a ten-minute video interview with Alf Wight, which was
informative and fun, we continued into a room with replicas of the All
Creatures TV program sets! There's a ringing phone in the surgery that plays a
recording of a farmer asking for a visit. Very cool effect!
After walking around the set we went upstairs to the educational part of the
museum. Here we read about the equipment that the vets used throughout Alf's
career. The upstairs rooms had great views of both Kirkgate and the garden.
We then left Thirsk to see the sites of the TV program. It is fun to compare
the actual places with their TV counterparts:
Real (Thirsk)
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TV (Askrigg)
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Notes & Comments
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The real house/surgery is located in Thirsk and Alfred Wight worked and lived
there. The TV house (Skeldale) is in the town of Askrigg
and is the only house in town with an iron fence. Trust me we now know. Sorry
about the sore feet, Bob!
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Occasionally you see the center of Askrigg portraying All Creatures' Darrowby
center. It is quite a bit smaller than Thirsk center.
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The view up Kirkgate, the street on which the surgery resides.
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The view down Kirkgate. They are quite similar. Though Askrigg is more
picturesque with Wensleydale in the background.
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There are some places that we photographed that aren't specifically mentioned
in the autobiographies but are seen in the TV program. So I have included
photos and explanations of what they are.
This is where Peter Davison's Tristan Farnon led the bell ringers in song,
brought his girlfriends, and shared pints with his colleagues. In the TV
program this pub is called the Drover's Arms.
The church where the TV program filmed James Herriot's wedding ceremony.
Certainly this barn was used in the TV program.
And this road looks mightly familiar.
This isn't the stream that the car fords in the opening sequence of the TV
program. We couldn't find that one. But this pretty spot was probably filmed at
some
point.
Bolton Castle is a must-see place in North Yorkshire. It, too, was in the TV
program. At this castle James Herriot proposed to his future wife Helen.
The castle courtyard and pictures of the view from the top. Click
here
for a video from the top of the castle. It was windy that day.
We also saw a lot of stuff that probably wasn't shown in the TV program but
could have been:
This is the Rievaulx Abbey. I was looking for a specific abbey where (in the TV
program) Peter Davison pretended to be a ghost of a monk when Christopher
Timothy drove by one night. Alas, this was not that abbey. There are
so many to choose from.
Sheep are more common than cars in the eastern reaches of the Dales. Obviously
they don't fear cars too much either. We ended
up driving east about a quarter of England's width to find a way to get to
another road.
Either someone has a great sense of humor or the Dalesmen still fear mythical
beasts! Notice the warning beneath the swerving-road sign. I didn't doctor this
photo.
It's amazing to think that we were only about 20 miles from a major town. We
saw a couple of other cars and one vehicle had to
move completely off the road for the other to squeeze by!
Back in civilization we crossed this cool drawbridge.
And I don't know what this is!
So that's the Yorkshire Dales. To read about the rest of the trip click
here.