And then, there came the fateful day I picked up a copy of James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small…
Visiting The World of James Herriot in Thirsk is truly like stepping into the pages of All Creatures Great and Small, minus the dogs jumping all over you at the door.
I was extremely expectant about my first spring in North Yorkshire because I couldn’t wait to take pictures of the lambs.
If you look it up on Wikipedia as my husband and I did on our first visit, you’ll find the abbey has a very storied beginning: it was founded by a group of monks who were kicked out of the Benedictine House of St. Mary’s Abbey in York after a riot there.
Inside, the restaurant is warm and inviting, decorated in an appropriate late 19th-century style.
Just on the outskirts of Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire are three standing stones known as the Devil’s Arrows. Two stand in the middle of a field where wheat and barley grow in alternating years, while one stands across the road leading to Roecliffe in a small enclosure. The stones are thought to have been erected around 2700 B.C., which absolutely boggles the mind.
Robin Hood’s Bay on the North Yorkshire Coast is a small fishing village with a large sandy beach, winding cobblestoned streets, and clifftop views that can’t be beat on a sunny day.
Ripley Castle in North Yorkshire has been home to the Ingilby family for over 700 years, and according to a sign on the property, the fallow deer have been grazing here for perhaps even longer!
I’ve been reading The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins with my book club the past couple of weeks, and I wasn’t aware until I started reading that it begins in Yorkshire at a house on the coast. Collins doesn’t give a specific location to the house, but I went digging through my digital trove of pictures from around the North Yorkshire coast for pictures that conjured up the atmosphere of The Moonstone to me.
If you are visiting Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast, the nearby village of Grosmont is also worth a visit. You can easily drive or take the North Yorkshire Moors Railway steam train April through October.
James Herriot once said that the view from Sutton Bank is the finest in England, and it is hard to disagree with his assessment. Summer days are long in North Yorkshire, and when the sun is shining carpe diem is the order of the day, so one night after dinner my family and I decided to seize the golden hour and drive up to the top of Sutton Bank for a walk and to enjoy the view.