DALLYING THROUGH THE DALES IN YORKSHIRE

By Margaret Deefholts

I have the strangest feeling that I'm on camera in a movie shoot. It is a mild summer afternoon and at any moment I expect to see Claude Greengrass, stubby-jowled and in his shabby overcoat emerge from the Aidensfield Arms with his mongrel dog at heel. Across the street is the Scripps Garage where I reckon Bernie Scripps can be found fiddling with the engine of an old car.

Goathland village – aka “Aidensfield” in the TV Series, “Heartbeat

This is the small village of Goathland in Yorkshire, which faithful viewers like myself, know as Aidensfield from the popular TV series, Heartbeat. The village green has a line of shops, and sheep grazing on a patch of grass just as they do in the opening credits of the show. It feels a little unreal to be standing here, but I'm thrilled nonetheless.

Author Margaret Deefholts posing in front of Scripps Garage,
Goathland aka Aidensfield

And then there's Askrigg. Think the TV Series, All Creatures Great And Small—a favourite show for those of a certain vintage like myself. And Askrigg is where it was filmed in the 70s and 80s. Author Al Wright wrote these autobiographical tales with pseudonyms for the characters and locales and Askrigg became “Darrowby” on the TV screen.

Askrigg: Skeldale House in TV series “All Creatures Great and Small”

Askrigg: King's Arms Pub aka “Drovers Arms” in TV series

TV film cast of All Creatures Great & Small in the Kings' Arms Pub,

Our tour coach draws up in front of what used to be door to the “Skeldale House” surgery and the church where vet James Herriot married his sweetheart, Helen Alderson is just up the street. The Drovers' Arms pub (now called The King's Arms) is where James and the Farnon brothers, Tristan and Sigfried, would quaff a pint or two. And they still do! But only in a series of photographs displayed on the walls of the pub.

Rural Yorkshire

Yorkshire's rolling countryside

Yorkshire meadows under a cloudy sky

Back on the tour coach we head to the coast, driving through Yorkshire's rural landscape—meadows white-freckled with sheep, and farmhouses encircled by hand-built uneven stone walls. Fitful sunlight and wisps of cloud cast drifting shadows across purple lavender-covered moors. We wind through small villages with red-roofed brick houses, their gardens bursting with blooms—geraniums, hollyhocks and roses—past ivy-covered inns, and venerable old stone churches.

A stone cottage by a rippling streamlet

Yorkshire sheep and stone walls

We roll into the town of Whitby, its old ruined Abbey high on a hill, silhouetted skeletal and gaunt against the sky. It's what inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula, and I have no problem imagining a blood-thirsty vampire lurking there on a dark moonless night, with a banshee wind screaming across the lonely hillside. As if to dispel any such ghoulish thoughts, the sky suddenly clears and the Abbey is bathed in bright afternoon sunlight.

Whitby

Captain Cook Statue, Whitby

At the town's square, a bronze Captain Cook, high on his pedestal looks benignly down on throngs of visitors. It is from here that he sailed off to discover the New World, and I'm gratified to see Canada's plaque commemorating the 250 th anniversary of his birth at the base of the statue. Houses, jig-sawed against each other cluster at the foot of the hill and a flotilla of little pleasure boats, including a mock pirate ship, sail jauntily along an inlet between the hill and the town's pavilion.

Abbey Museum

Whitby, with its souvenir shops and restaurants, is buzzing with activity but it is the Abbey that whets my curiosity. The Abbey Museum is at the end of a large cobbled courtyard and I gather from their information pamphlet that the first building here was a monastery founded by abbess, Hild in 627A.D. Nothing remains of that original structure and the present Abbey dates from the 11 th century, with several changes and additions in the Gothic style taking place through the 13 th , 14 th and 15 th centuries.

Whitby Abbey

Up close to the ruins of the silent Abbey, my imagination conjures up Benedictine monks in procession, their chants echoing against these walls. The empty arches and crumbling window frames, far from being spooky, have a scarred, jagged dignity and as I sit on a bench in their shadow, I am filled with a sense of awe at the power of faith and prayer that endured over the centuries in this sacred place, high on a windswept hillside.

Keyhole view of Whitby from Abbey archway

I glance at my watch…time to walk the one hundred and ninety-nine steps from the Abbey down to the town below and grab something to eat before boarding the homeward bound tour bus. The scene from the top of the stairs is a jumble of red-roofed houses, tossed helter-skelter like miniature Lego blocks, with the occasional church spire spiking the sky; the street on the waterfront teems with ant-sized figures, and toy-like boats anchored along the water's edge.

View of Whitby from the 199 steps that descend from the Abbey to the town

I leave Yorkshire with regret but, beguiled by its many legends, its pretty market towns, and its varied landscapes, I shall be back someday.

IF YOU GO:  

Yorkshire Tours: https://www.viator.com/Yorkshire/d22770-ttd

PHOTOS : By Margaret Deefholts