Journal Yorkshire Dales
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The guests who requested this day had watched every episode of All Creatures Great and Small — both the 1970s series and the 2020 version — twice. They knew the filming locations had shifted between the two productions. They wanted to see both: Askrigg, where the 1970s series was filmed, and Grassington, which the newer series uses. They also wanted to see the real Herriot landscape — the farms, the moorland, the valley that James Wight actually drove through on his farm calls in the 1930s and 40s.
We built the day around that.
We left Windermere at nine and drove east through the Lune Valley, entering Wensleydale from the west above Hawes. The guide explained, on the drive, the real biography of James Wight — the Glasgow graduation, the move to Thirsk, the meeting with Donald Sinclair who became the model for Siegfried Farnon — and the relationship between the fictional Darrowby and the real geography of the North Yorkshire landscape.
Hawes first: the Wensleydale Creamery for an hour, with the guide explaining the near-closure of 1992 and the community buyout. The cheese that Wallace and Gromit made famous, made here daily, from milk supplied by farms a few miles away. Then east along the dale to Askrigg — the original Skeldale House, the pub that was the Drovers' Arms, the cobbled main street that appeared in every episode of the 1970s series.
After lunch in Aysgarth, we drove to the falls — thirty minutes of the roar and the spray and the ancient ash woodland on the gorge sides. Then south towards Grassington via the limestone plateau above Coverdale, with the views opening in three directions at the watershed.
Grassington market square in the afternoon light. The filming locations from the 2020 series identified one by one. The guide's commentary on the relationship between the fictional Darrowby and the real villages — the composite geography that Herriot used, where no single place is Darrowby but several places together create it.
We were back in Windermere by half past six.
The guests had done their research. They came with specific questions, specific things they wanted to see, specific scenes from the series they wanted to locate in the landscape. The guide had prepared specifically for their level of knowledge and their specific interest.
That preparation is the thing. A bespoke day is not a standard tour with a different name. It is a day built from the first conversation to the last stop around what the specific guests want from it.
Contact us to discuss a Wensleydale and Herriot Country bespoke tour.