Charms to clock
Thirsk was James Herriot’s home and Phil Penfold is bowled over by the town’s delights, both great and small. Pictures by James Hardisty and Gary Longbottom.
You will not find the station of Carlton Miniott featured on any railway route map of the UK, or listed in any timetable or directory. The tiny community in North Yorkshire doesn’t have a station. And yet, paradoxically, it has. It is on the main northto-south line. However, the name up on the signboard isn’t Carlton Miniott. Instead it informs you that you will be alighting for (or departing from) Thirsk. What the residents of the village thought about their “big sister” some two miles down the road usurping their rail link isn’t on record.
The station has been here since 1841, and back then it was called “Newcastle Junction”. When it was renamed Thirsk is lost in the mists of railway history, but it seems to have had a bit of a jinx on it during Queen Victoria’s reign, for there were no less than five accidents on the line before the century was out.
It has a happier claim to fame, though, as Thirsk station can boast that, in 1933, it became the very first place to install an automated switch-power signalling box, with the pulling of levers replaced by the pushing of buttons.
Getting off at Thirsk station can be a little bit of a problem if you don’t have a car waiting, a taxi available, or the bus is nowhere to be seen. Because an old-fashioned milepost in cast iron will tell you that Ripon is nine miles in one direction, and Thirsk is a full two miles in t’other. Not a welcome sight if you happen to be encumbered by luggage and walking is the only option.
When you get into the town, however, you’ll find a charming little place, which boasts a magnificent Grade I-listed parish church (St Mary’s), a proud horseracing heritage – the site of the present course dates back to 1923, though the “Sport of Kings” has been part of the town’s lifeblood since the 1700s – and one of the strangestlooking marketplace clocks that you will find anywhere in the country. It was erected in 1896, to celebrate the marriage of the Duke of York to Princess May of Teck – the future George V and Queen Mary – but it was originally planned for the nuptials of the Duke of Clarence and Avondale and his fiancée.
The clock is four-square, rather stubby, and has a quartet of dinky pink pillars on each corner. It looks for all the world as if it was just about to launch itself into space, a sort of retro rocket. It is
Christopher Timothy, who famously played the fictional vet in the original series.
James Herriot has not only given a lot of pleasure from his books, but has boosted the tourism industry and visitor footfall hereabouts in ways that he probably would never have dreamed remotely possible.
Herriot is not, however, the only bestselling novelist from these parts. JL Carr also had considerable success, and wrote a clutch of novels that were not only hugely popular but also managed to win several awards.
Carr started off as a schoolmaster and later taught overseas. He was fascinated by cartography (his “Literary map of Yorkshire” is a visual delight) and he was fascinated by lists. He compiled dictionaries and two of his books were made into movies – A Month in the Country and A Day in Summer.
There has been a settlement in Thirsk since around 600 BC, and as a bustling rural market town its roots lie in agriculture.
There was an attempt to create a canal to link with the River Swale some 250 years ago, but that faltered so Cod Beck gurgles through the town much as it always did.
Visitors come to be charmed by the town (there are some superb buildings from the Georgian era), and its surroundings and they return time after time.
It is an excellent base from which to explore this delightful corner of North Yorkshire. The fabled White Horse at Kilburn is not far away and neither is Sutton Bank, the views from which on a clement summer’s day can take your breath away.
Thirsk is a genuine, hard-working town that exudes confidence and charm and has a proper community spirit.