Alf Wight, the real–life James Herriot, practised in the North Yorkshire market town of Thirsk. For the BBC series, Darrowby scenes were filmed in the Wensleydale village of Askrigg.
In the later Channel 5 series, the village of Grassington, in Wharfedale, stands in for Darrowby/Thirsk.
Both Askrigg and Grassington place the practice in the Yorkshire Dales, but they are both some 40 miles from Thirsk, which is actually in the Vale of Mowbray – a stretch of low–lying land to the east of the Dales, beyond which are the North York Moors and the Hambleton Hills. To the south, the Vale of Mowbray becomes the Vale of York.
© Haydn Thompson 2020