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The Channel 5 adaptation of James Herriot's veterinary memoirs, which began in 2020 and has since been watched by millions of people in Britain and internationally, is one of the most successful British television dramas of recent years. It is also, for anyone who watches it closely, a sustained love letter to the Yorkshire Dales — to its landscape, its farming culture and its particular quality of light.
Understanding the relationship between the series and the real landscape it is filmed in makes both richer. This guide covers what the series is, where it is filmed, how closely the fictional world of Darrowby corresponds to the real geography of the Dales, and what it is like to visit the filming locations with someone who knows them in depth.
The Channel 5 All Creatures Great and Small is the second major television adaptation of James Herriot's books. The first, produced by the BBC and starring Christopher Timothy and Robert Hardy, ran from 1978 to 1980 and then from 1988 to 1990. The second — produced by Playground Entertainment for Channel 5 and co-produced with the American PBS network — began in 2020 with Nicholas Ralph as James Herriot, Samuel West as Siegfried Farnon, and Callum Woodhouse as the irrepressible Tristan.
The two series are set in the same fictional world but filmed in completely different locations. The BBC version used Askrigg and Harrogate extensively; the Channel 5 series moved production to Grassington, with other locations drawn from across the western and central Dales. Visitors who arrive in Askrigg looking for the new series will be confused. The filming locations are entirely different.
James Herriot's fictional Darrowby is based on Thirsk, a market town in North Yorkshire east of the Dales, where James Alfred Wight (Herriot's real name) practised as a veterinary surgeon from 1940 until his retirement. The World of James Herriot museum occupies the original practice building in Thirsk.
For the television series, Darrowby is Grassington. The production team chose Grassington's cobbled square, the narrow lanes and the surrounding Wharfedale landscape as the visual equivalent of Herriot's fictional town — not because it closely resembles Thirsk (it doesn't, much) but because it has the period atmosphere and the Dales landscape that the series required.
The choice of Grassington as Darrowby is one the production team got right. The square, in the right light and with the right dressing, looks exactly like the town you imagined reading the books.
The key locations used in the Channel 5 series are concentrated in the Wharfedale and Wensleydale areas of the Yorkshire Dales. Without giving away the specific addresses that the production team keep relatively quiet — out of respect for the owners of private properties — the key sites include the Darrowby filming village (Grassington), Helen's farm in the surrounding Wharfedale countryside, the Drovers Arms pub (used for interior scenes at a specific location in the Dales), Mrs Pumphrey's grand residence (a substantial Dales country house), and two churches in very different parts of the Dales that appear in pivotal scenes involving Helen and James.
Our All Creatures tour visits all of these. At each one, your expert storyteller uses the actual footage to show you exactly what was filmed where you are standing. The gap between the screen and the real place is the whole point.
The show's writers and directors made several decisions that make it exceptional British television and that are particularly apparent when you visit the locations.
The first is the decision to play it straight. The original BBC series had a warmth that tipped occasionally into sentimentality. The Channel 5 version has warmth that is earned rather than assumed — the comedy of Tristan is genuinely funny rather than charmingly eccentric, Helen's story is given proper weight, and the farming backdrop is shown with enough specificity to feel real.
The second is the use of the Dales landscape. The series frames its characters within the scenery in a way that goes beyond pretty backdrops. The landscape is doing work — conveying isolation, beauty, difficulty and the specific quality of a life lived in a particular place.
Our All Creatures Great & Small tour visits every key filming location from the Channel 5 series. £169 per person. Maximum seven guests.