Yorkshire village as home base

Harrogate is a big and bustling town. Grassington would work. So would places like Settle, Hawes or Reeth...

Hi Terry -

Grassington is excellent, Settle is also good. Other places to consider would be Kettlewell and Buckden, both further up Wharfedale and quieter and smaller the further up the dale you go. It gets very busy, but around Malham would be good too. Also there’s Ingleton which is bigger and north west of Settle but is a good jumping off point for both the Dales and the Lakes. Beyond there, but straying more towards Cumbria, are the charming village of Dent and the somewhat bigger Sedbergh.

If I recall correctly James Herriot (Alf Wight) was based in Thirsk and worked both in the Dales and the North Yorkshire Moors areas so somewhere like Ripon or the ‘more of a village’ Masham would be good to access both areas.

I suppose it depends whether you want to visit the places that were his own favourites or visit the places familiar from the TV series. For instance while the actual ‘Skeldale House’ was in Thirsk (now a Herriot museum), the one in the original TV series was in Askrigg, while the current, newer series ‘Skeldale House’ is in Grassington. Quite a disparity of distance between those three locations!

Hope you find somewhere that suitably ticks your boxes!

Ian

Any of the communities in Wensleydale would work
I have a lot of time for Hawes,it's big enough to have it's own life but 10 mins walking and you are into classic picture perfect English countryside