Askrigg And The Yorkshire Dales

Looking for a holiday cottage for a quiet week in the Yorkshire Dales was proving a vexing experience.

- Steve Roberts

There were simply too many to choose from, but not many providing all the creature comforts we were looking for: bathroom with a bath, private garden, somewhere to park the car, and guaranteed peace and quiet. Then my eye caught one in the small village of Askrigg in Wensleydale.

What immediately struck me about the “blurb” was that this village had been the location for much of the filming of the television series All Creatures Great and Small in the 1970s and ’80s. That sounded interesting. The pictures of the village were also very surprising, for here was a settlement of modest proportions, yet with imposing dwellings, which suggested importance in times past. This looked like a place with tales to tell.

Arriving in neighbouring Leyburn on a Saturday lunchtime, we bivouacked in a café for eats, partly for sustenance and partly for shelter from the UK weather, which was pouring down. I happened upon a local paper and spotted to my delight that Askrigg’s village football team was playing at home to local rivals Carperby in a Wensleydale League match that afternoon; it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Advocating some “settling in time” at the cottage for my wife when we arrived in the village, I slipped off to the football in the rain, finding the ground and a few fans on the far side of Askrigg, conveniently just before 3pm. Not everything was going according to plan, though. It wasn’t actually a “ground”: it was the school playing field. There was no cover except for my golf umbrella and the rain was cascading down. There were no floodlights, so to my chagrin I discovered that the game had actually commenced an hour earlier and the visitors were already 5-0 up at the break. By the game’s conclusion this had stretched to an improbable 11-0.