All Creatures Great and Small locations are back on the minds of those looking to escape to the country for some wholesome comfort as it returns to TV tonight.
The period drama, inspired by real-life vet and author Alf Wight and starring newcomer Nicholas Ralph as country vet James Herriot, proved a massive hit with audiences when it first aired in 2020, not only because of its stellar cast, heart-warming storylines and gentle pace, but the beautiful locations across the Yorkshire Dales.
The man responsible for finding those is location manager Gary Barnes, who’s from Wakefield but lives on the outskirts of Leeds. He previously said: “It’s been a lovely one for me because I’m a Yorkshire lad, so I’m very pleased to be associated with the show, and there’s a huge sense of satisfaction. This series, we’ve tried to use new places, as well as familiar ones, but being the Dales, there’s a lot to look at, wherever you point the camera.”
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Darrowby
“Ahead of the first series, I basically drove around the Yorkshire Dales for a few weeks, looking at every village, and whittled it down to a few that might work as the fictional town of Darrowby, before deciding on the very pretty market town of Grassington. We could’ve gone for somewhere quieter, but it probably wouldn’t have looked as good. It was the right scale, the right look, and when you’re in the middle of the main square, you can almost look anywhere, so it’s not restrictive for filming, especially once it’s dressed like the late 1930s. The locals have been so brilliant and welcomed us, and we needed them to do that.”
Skeldale House
“A key location within Grassington is Skeldale House (where Herriot lives and works). The front exterior faces onto the main square, but the rear of Skeldale is actually in a village not too far away called Arncliffe. The house we picked in Grassington just doesn’t have the exterior we needed, as we wanted to expand the world out a little bit.”
Herriot’s home in Glasgow
“For James’ family home in Glasgow, we used the Bradford Industrial Museum, which the public can visit, as we needed the right sort of period small tenement house found in Glasgow, and it was the nearest we could find. We also used parts of Little Germany in Bradford, and Keighley, to make up more of that Glasgow world, and show the contrast between the city and the Dales.”
The Drovers Arms
“The local pub in All Creatures is called The Drovers Arms but it’s actually an amalgamation of two places . The exterior is The Devonshire pub in Grassington, but the interior is The Green Dragon Inn in Hawes, so quite far north in the Dales. For the exterior, we wanted it so James could come straight out of Skeldale House and go straight to the pub in the village, but the interior is too modern, so we needed to find a pub where the interior and exterior matched.”
Date night
“In series two, James and Helen [Rachel Shenton] watch a film together, so we needed to find a period cinema. We looked at a couple of different options but went with the one in Thirsk, Ritz Cinema. We don’t usually go out that far, but it was just right, and the director loved it, and then the guy who ran it said this is actually the cinema that they [Wight and his wife] visited on their first date. Some of it had been modernised because it’s a working cinema, but once we’d dressed it and put old movie posters up on the wall, it was fantastic.”
Mrs Pumphrey’s house
“For Mrs Pumphrey’s place [played by Patricia Hodge following the death of Dame Diana Rigg], we chose Broughton Hall near Skipton. It’s a striking place, and just felt suitable straight away. We wanted this grand manor house estate, and the huge scale, to contrast with everything else we do in the Dales and countryside.”
The Alderson’s farm
“I have to say, I’ve got a soft spot for Yockenthwaite, a hamlet up north in the Dales, which is where Helen’s family farm is shot. Filming on the show can be quite hard work with the weather and terrain, and this location really is isolated, but it’s such a beautiful house. The farm’s run by a lovely family that have had it for a few generations, and although it’s private, you’ll drive straight past it, as there’s really only one way in and one way out of Yockenthwaite.”
Scenic shots
“One of the first scenes in the first series was of James getting off the bus at a crossroads, which was filmed at Malham Rakes on the Malham Tarn Estate. We also filmed the waterfall scene at Janet’s Foss near Malham. We do a lot of those sweeping scenic shots in the Wharfe Valley, going up towards Kettlewell. It’s stunning and yet, quite imposing, with the hills either side. Although we want to show the beauty of the Dales, we don’t want to make the show look too pretty and twee. We want to show the beauty and the harsh reality of life for many people working in the Dales back then.”
- All Creatures Great and Small returns on October 5 and continues on Thursday nights on Channel 5
