Simon Palmer
Simon Palmer was born in Yorkshire in 1956, and graduated from art school two deades later. He has exhibited extensively, including at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Simon lives and works in Wensleydale.
What’s your earliest Yorkshire memory? My girlfriend’s parents knew a family called the Thorpes who had a cottage next to their house in Low Street, Lastingham. So in 1976 (I was still at art college in Reigate) we caught the train to Malton. When we arrived in the village, I was speechless. After the London suburbs I realised this was where I belonged. I sent a picture I had painted of the little bridge to The Dalesman magazine and it appeared on the front cover the following April.
What’s your favourite part of the county and why? It is so varied there are too many to mention. I moved north in 1980 to a charming semi-detached cottage in Nawton between Helmsley and Kirkbymoorside. So to answer the question, the entire North York Moors National Park. My wife Tink and I love Coverdale, West Scrafton and Whernside.
What’s your idea of a perfect day or weekend? In the high season, staying at home and in the garden in our hamlet above Jervaulx, otherwise Lastingham or Robin Hood’s Bay.
Do you have a favourite walk and view? Around the hamlet in which we live, approximately a 20-minute march to clear the head. Alternatively, up on to Witton Moor to Sowden Beck and dropping down Witton Fell to the Blue Lion, in East Witton. A friend from Huddersfield comes over and we meet at Jervaulx and stroll along the River Ure. The view from Stark Bank, looking to the west to Bolton Castle and to the east the Cleveland Hills, on a clear day is stunning.
If you had to name your Yorkshire hidden gem, what or where would it be? Now why would I wish to reveal it and spoil its hidden secret? Oh, all right then – Colsterdale.
Has Yorkshire influenced your work? It is my work, my spiritual home. It is my inspiration, my passion. It is my life.
Do you have a favourite restaurant or pub? For a pub lunch, the Cover
Bridge Inn, always a Wensleydale cheese sandwich. For something more substantial, the bar of the Blue Lion, in East Witton. Going up a notch, a visit to Frances Atkins at the Yorke Arms, in Ramsgill.
If you could choose somewhere or some object from or in Yorkshire to own for a day, what would it be? A steam locomotive with me as the driver. I am a member of the Wensleydale Railway Society and they do have steam excursions and they are delightfully slow, so I am unlikely to cause a major accident. The line terminates at Redmire. The plan to extend to Garsdale will never happen in my lifetime but to reach Aysgarth Falls is a possibility and would improve the railway’s prospects.
What do you think gives Yorkshire its unique identity? The variety of landscape and geography. Apart from
Salts Mill, I am not urbanly orientated. I had enough of that growing up in Bromley. Mind you I was born in Doncaster but moved south when I was eight months old so I don’t remember much of the town. Take the Yorkshire Dales, North York Moors, the East Riding Wolds, the Vales of Mowbray and York – all textbook examples of geography, they make the county unique.
Do you think Yorkshire has changed for better or worse in the time you have known it? From the air, very little would appear different – more housing, the odd by-pass and distant wind turbines. Closer to home Masham is much busier. This is good for trade. Holidaymakers would generally head up the Dale, often to Hawes (which has always been popular) but now they take time in the market town visiting the Black Sheep brewery, Theakstons, the Gallery and