All Creatures Great and Small (#6)

 We decided to venture outside the lovely city of York.  At the suggestion of our lovely B&B host, Kim, we booked an all day tour of the Yorkshire Dales.  Several tours were offered, but since we love the PBS show All Creatures Great and Small, of course we opted for the tour that went to James Harriot’s part of the Dales!  There is something so charming about Harriot’s autobiographical stories of his life as a small town veterinarian, taking place between WWI and WW2.

We boarded our little 16 passenger Mercedes minibus and headed out of town.  Our guide, Bob, definitely had the gift of gab and shared so much local knowledge (both historical and contemporary).  It took us about 20 minutes to get out of York and into the Dales, driving on modern highways that were built on top of ancient Roman roads.  In fact our first stop was to see a row of 5 pre-historic standing stones (like mini Stonehenge)…I tell you, the history here is amazing!  I mean, these stones dated back to 2700BC!!!! (Guess which dummy forgot to take any photos off the standing stones!?)

Wow,  what gorgeous landscapes!  Even though this is the first drizzly day we have encountered, I think that actually enhanced the beauty…nothing but soft, rolling low hills, verdant and green, broken up by lots of old stone walls and hedge-rows.  As Bob said several times “it’s easy on the eyes”…and he wasn’t lying!  

So many lovely stone bridges crossing the several rivers we passed.

This is sheep farming land, and it is now “lambing season”.  Pasture after pasture of lambs and little ewes!  OMG…the little babies just frolicking made me grin from ear to ear…throw in the occasional bunny, or flock of geese with little goslings in tow - it was SPRING persosnified!!  Two types of sheep are raised in this area; Swaledale and Northumbrian sheep.  Bob described one breed as dumber than dirt, and the other breed as fearful of everything!  If there is a fallen tree in front of a gate, one type is too dumb to walk around it, and the other type is afraid of it so they run away from the fallen tree.  The Swaledale are white with black faces so they were easy to spot as we drove along.  The sheep are all marked on their backs with paint/dye in different colors and numbers.  This is similar to branding cattle, it designates who own each sheep.  The males are “painted” on their underside, so when they mount the females (remember, it’s lambing season!), the paint smears on the back of the female.  Since the farmers release the males individually at various intervals into the herds of females when they are in heat, the smeared color on the female’s rump lets the farmer know, who the sire was and when they mated, so they know exactly when the ewes will be born.  It’s an old technique but it apparently works very well. (I learned WAY more about sheep husbandry than I ever thought!)

We also learned a lot about dry-stone wall construction and hedge-row building.  These are extremely important skills, as by royal decree, all the walls must be maintained and repaired - farmers are legally bound to maintain all walls, or hefty fines will occur.  Dry stone walls have no mortar, they are held together by placing the stones properly so that friction and downward pressure hold the walls together,, and if done correctly they last 40 years.  A skilled stone mason can build 2 meters/day…and he gets paid royally…and apparently there is constant need for this skill.  

The hedge rows are created by planting hedges, cutting branches nearly through so they are pliable and can bend, but will still live and continue to grow.  Farmers force the cut branches down and as new growth comes in, it kind of “knits” itself to the framework of bent branches, making a very dense and durable hedge that the sheep can’t get through.  

Bob pulled over to show us these 2 examples of "immature" or new hedgerows, just so we could see the brown leaf-less branches bent over, with the new green growth filling in.

You can kind of see the the bent branches making a framework for the new growth to attach to, making a hedge-row.

This land is all owned by various Dukes and Earles, but of course they don’t work the farms…they are leased out to the farmers, most of who have farmed the land for 300 years or more…passing their leases down from generation to generation.  So even though they do not ‘own” the land, the farmers feel a generational connection to the land.
We saw racetracks. Anyone who might watch All Creatures Great and Small might remember the episode where James becomes a vet at the local racetrack…we saw that track.  Other ACG&S sights that we saw were the church where James and Helen were married, the Drovers Arms pub that features in nearly every episode.  The pub is actually in the quaint town of Grassington which stands in for the fictional Darrowby in the show.  

Helen's family farm

Our bus parked in a car park in Grassington and we walked a few blocks into the center of the little town.  Along the way we walked past some homes and this little box on the sidewalk in front of one of the homes made me smile (and peek inside)!

But it wasn't all sheep and All Things Great and Small locations!  We stopped for lunch in the little town of Hawes which homes the famous Wensleydale Creamery.  Any Wallace & Gromet fans might remember references made to Wensleydale Cheese made by Wallace...it was his favorite cheese.  The creamery actually was beginning to fail, but Wallace's comments in the show made the creamery surge in popularity.  The creamery actually credits Wallace & Gromet for saving their business...their sales surged by 23% after Wallace mentioned their cheese!  Our tour of the Dales was on a Sunday.  When I booked the tour I didn't realize the importance of a proper Sunday roast in England! (More about that in another post.). Gary and I popped into a pub in Hawes for lunch during our tour lunch stop.  "No walk-ins on Sundays" we were told...we headed to 2 other spots before we found a place that took walk-ins.  By this time I was afraid we wouldn't have time for a proper  Sunday roast so I ordered soup (delish by the way!) and Gary had ham and eggs (served with mashed potatoes?!)...but we got to see all the other tables in action!  Most had reserved signs on them, patrons walked right in to "their" table...lots of young families, multi generational families, groups of seniors together...everyone there for the single purpose of enjoying a proper meal! Every pub in town was full of locals enjoying their traditional Sunday roast as they do every single Sunday.

 After lunch we headed down the street to meet our bus, but a little craft bazar caught my eye so we popped in.  Quilted pot holders, painted rocks, knit hats and socks...nothing interested me until I saw a little girl and her dad selling books.  I stopped to look at a book called The Cows Go to School and it had a drawing of a dog on the cover.  The little girl pointed to a large pillow with photo of a dog on it and she said "this is the real Charlie".  I looked up and her father explained that he was a sheep farmer and Charlie was a rescue dog they got (however Charlie was not a herding dog).  The man started making up stories about Charlie's adventures on the farm as bedtime stories for his 2 daughters.  At this point the dad looked at his daughter, and right on cue she continued telling me how a friend of her dad had told him to write the stories down and make books, and another friend illustrated the books.  I mean, I know how my grandchildren love bedtime stories, so how could I not purchase 2 books?!  I told her to keep the change, and she explained that all the extra change is being donated to fight children's cancer and she popped the coins into a little pink bank on the table.  I would have loved to have stayed longer and chatted with the little girl and her dad, but I didn't want to be an inconsiderate jerk and hold up the bus! (I left that to someone else...some loudmouth Americans from North Carolina and Florida!)

We began winding our way back to York, but stopped at Bolton Castle.  This castle was built in 1346 by the Scrope family...and they still own it - it has never been sold in almost 700 years!  This castle was interesting because Mary Queen of Scotts was held as a prisoner here for 6 months in 1569.  As prisoners go, I think Mary had a pretty easy time of it.  She moved into the Scrope family quarters, had 51 attendants with her, and was allowed free reign of the entire grounds.

Mary's "prison" quarters.

I took this photo of Gary in front of a mounted wild boar head, as an homage to my brother and sister in law who had their entire front yard in Clayton destroyed by a herd of wild boars!

We headed back to York.  Since the sightseeing was over, our guide Bob shared some political and philosophical wisdom with us.  He was a big fan of immigrants..."those who come to a country with next to nothing generally work so hard to provide for their children, sacrificing and working hard to give them a better future, and that makes our society better."  He bemoaned the lack of leadership worldwide...Carney in Canada is the only true "leader" in his eyes.  And he said " and I'm not even going to talk about what's going on in the States...there is NO leadership there".  I clapped when he said that...the folks from North Carolina and Florida on the tour were remarkable silent.

It was a lovely day and I would highly recommend  a day tour into the Dales if you have time!