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James Herriot was not James Herriot. The pen name belonged to James Alfred Wight, a veterinary surgeon who qualified in Glasgow in 1939, joined a practice in Thirsk in the North Yorkshire market town of Thirsk, and spent the next fifty years there treating farm animals across the surrounding Dales and moorland. He began writing about his experiences in his late forties, at his wife's suggestion. The first book, If Only They Could Talk, was published in 1970. He was 54.
The six books that followed — All Things Bright and Beautiful, All Things Wise and Wonderful, The Lord God Made Them All, Every Living Thing and others — have collectively sold over 60 million copies and been translated into more than 20 languages. The television series adapted from them, All Creatures Great and Small, has been broadcast twice — in the 1970s and in the Channel 5/PBS version beginning in 2020. Both versions are still watched.
The fictional Darrowby of the books is based primarily on Thirsk, with elements from other North Yorkshire market towns. The veterinary practice at 23 Kirkgate, Thirsk — where Wight worked with his partner Donald Sinclair (the model for the irascible Siegfried Farnon) — is now the World of James Herriot museum.
The museum occupies the original Skeldale House, restored to its 1940s appearance. The consulting rooms, the operating theatre, the kitchen and the family accommodation are presented as they would have appeared in the period of the early books. The adjacent visitor centre adds exhibitions on Wight's life, the veterinary profession in the 1930s–40s and the television adaptations.
Thirsk itself is a characterful market town — a large cobbled market square, independent shops, the racecourse on the edge of town. It is a working North Yorkshire town rather than a tourist destination, and the Herriot connection sits lightly on it.
The landscape that Herriot drove through on his farm calls — the high Dales, the farms above the snow line in winter, the drove roads over the moor — is the landscape of the North Yorkshire Moors and the western edge of the Vale of York where it meets the Dales. The fictional geography of the books places Darrowby in the Dales themselves, and for practical purposes the Dales landscape — particularly Wensleydale and Swaledale — best represents what Herriot describes.
The farmhouses, the dry stone walls, the views from high moorland farms in winter, the village pubs where Herriot and Tristan spent their evenings — all are recognisable in the Dales landscape. The television series filmed significant portions of All Creatures Great and Small in the Dales, particularly around Grassington and Askrigg.
The village of Askrigg in Wensleydale was the principal filming location for the 1970s television series, appearing as the fictional Darrowby. Skeldale House in the series was Skeldale House, Askrigg — a Georgian house on the main street that is still there and clearly recognisable from the series. The King's Arms pub in Askrigg was the Drovers' Arms of the television series.
Askrigg is a quiet village on the northern side of Wensleydale — cobbled main street, stone houses, the Church of St Oswald — and receives steady Herriot-related visitor traffic.
The 2020 Channel 5/PBS All Creatures Great and Small uses Grassington extensively as the stand-in for Darrowby — particularly the market square, the main street and the surrounding Wharfedale landscape. The series has introduced a new international audience to the Dales landscape.
The James Herriot landscape of Wensleydale and Wharfedale can be explored on a bespoke Yorkshire Dales tour.