This is Y Magazine 2011

This is 2011

+

Pillow talk THE MOST LUXURIOUS PLACES TO STAY IN YORKSHIRE

Breath of fresh air

We couldn’t leave

OUTDOOR ADVENTURES FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY

Location, location, location BEHIND THE CAMERAS IN YORKSHIRE

The show never ends CELEBRATE YORKSHIRE’S YEAR-LONG PARTY

YORKSHIRE’S PATRONS TELL US WHY THEY COULDN’T LEAVE

No place like home

Yorkshire’s nightlife A TERRIFIC RANGE OF NIGHTLIFE VENUES ALL ACROSS YORKSHIRE

Rosemary & thyme ROSEMARY SHRAGER’S ALL-STAR COOKERY COURSE AT SWINTON PARK

ADE EDMONDSON HAS RETURNED TO HIS YORKSHIRE ROOTS

Olympic dreams WITH JUST A YEAR TO GO, WE MEET YORKSHIRE’S YOUNG OLYMPIC CONTENDERS

WELCOME TO YORKSHIRE

WELCOME TO ‘THIS IS Y’ 2011

THINK

We are very proud of our latest edition of ‘This is Y’ and I’m sure you’ll find lots to inspire you and tempt you to our fair county.

Our editorial team are in their element here, and this year we sent them to discover some hidden delights all over Yorkshire. From the luxuries of our hotels, B&Bs and self catering accommodation to the fields which hold our favourite events and festivals, this year’s magazine is full of inspiration and temptation!

This is the fourth edition I’ve been lucky enough to edit and without a shadow of a doubt I’ve learnt so much about Yorkshire and its towns and cities. In this issue we meet so many of our Yorkshire natives, who are inspired every day by living and breathing Yorkshire, including a willow sculptor, a landscape artist, even a millionaire entrepreneur.

We uncover the literary secrets of the romantic Brontë country and set off on a family adventure in the great outdoors. We meet up-and-coming actors and revisit some Olympic hopefuls you may recognise from last year, to see how they are shaping up one year on.

As always we hope to inspire you to find out even more about Yorkshire.

Remember to keep visiting the blog at Yorkshire.com/blog which has regular magazine updates and editorial features, plus for special offers, events and all the practical information you need to plan your next trip go to Yorkshire.com.

Be the first to know all of our news and competitions by following us on Twitter @welcome2yorks and become a fan of Welcome to Yorkshire on Facebook.

So welcome back, welcome to Yorkshire and we hope to see you soon.

BIG From record breakers to history makers, get up close to iconic locomotives at the World’s Greatest Railway Museum.

ADMISSION FREE

Welcome to ‘This is Y’, the latest magazine for everything Yorkshire. Take a look at the latest tips and features on what to see and do, brought to you by internationally recognised travel writers.

Whether 2011 is your year of adventure or a year of relaxation you’ll find suggestions to keep you happy all year long. Put your feet up and enjoy the latest jaunts of our journalists, follow them as they embark on award-winning cookery courses and discover the history of Yorkshire cricket and its urban evolution.

Read all about it, and then plan your visit. Yorkshire has an amazing choice of places to stay, from boutique hotels, cosy B&B’s, a seaside cottage, or even a teepee!

Take a break in Yorkshire this year and experience something new every day.

Robin Gauldie Editor

Leeman Road, York YO26 4X J www.nrm.org.uk

GET CLOSER TO THE ACTION

Welcome

Gary Verity, Chief Executive Welcome to Yorkshire

Meet the Writers Enter the exciting world of television, film, photography and radio - with interactive events galore there’s an adventure around every corner!

Visit www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk

Front cover image: Adrian Edmondson on location in the Dales.

Published by: Welcome to Yorkshire Dry Sand Foundry Foundry Square Holbeck Leeds LS11 5DL © Welcome to Yorkshire 2011 Designed and produced by: Front Beehive Works Milton Street Sheffield S3 7WL www.frontideas.com Whilst every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, Welcome to Yorkshire can accept no responsibility for any errors or omissions Information throughout this magazine is compiled from details supplied by organisations or establishments concerned. No recommendation by Welcome to Yorkshire is implied by the inclusion of any information and Welcome to Yorkshire accepts no responsibility in the matter. Prices, dates, hours of opening etc. were correct at the time of going to press.

Readers are reminded that these details are subject to change and they are advised to check when finalising any arrangements.

Please note, the destination guides on pages 14, 26, 32, 58, 64 and 74 have been placed by our partners and the content supplied by them.

It is not intended to be a comprehensive guide to all destinations and does not necessarily represent the views of Welcome to Yorkshire.

Printed on paper which contains 55% recycled content. The paper in this magazine originates from timber that is sourced from sustainable forests, managed to strict environmental, social and economic standards.

The manufacturing mill has both FSC & PEFC certification and also ISO9001 and ISO14001 accreditation.

Once you have finished with this magazine, please pass it on to someone else who may be interested or recycle it.

yorkshire.com

GILL WILLIAMS

ANNA MILLAR

Gill Williams is a travel journalist, broadcaster and editorial director of the internet TV channel www.greentravelguides.tv, which aims to tell you how to keep travelling without trashing the planet.

Although New Zealand-born she has Yorkshire roots and comes back often to tramp the Yorkshire Dales.

Anna Millar is news editor at The List, Scotland’s leading arts and entertainment magazine, and a freelance arts and culture journalist for Scotland on Sunday. With a grandfather from York and a Harrogate-born partner, Anna has long enjoyed a love affair with all things Yorkshire.

Her perfect Yorkshire day out: A big walk through one of the many national parks, followed by a great high tea with Wensleydale cheese, organic pickle and fruitcake – yum.

FRANK PARTRIDGE Frank Partridge, ex BBC and Sky News presenter, sports writer, broadcaster and travel journalist, writes for newspapers and magazines including the award-winning Sunday Times Travel Magazine, The Independent, The Guardian, CNN Traveller and others.

His perfect Yorkshire day out: My perfect day out in Yorkshire would be an early morning walk in the dales, so I’d have time to be in my seat at the Headingley Test Match for an 11am start.

Her perfect Yorkshire day out: I’d wake up in Harrogate, go to Bettys for breakfast, then head west to Haworth, home of the Brontës, stopping for a scone, before ending up at the picturesque Brontë Stone Chair. I’d round the day off with a trip to Leeds’ The North Bar.

PAUL WILLIAMSON Paul Williamson was born and brought up in Cumbria.

Married to a Scot, Rachael, and a father of two, family holidays have always tended to be a north-of-the-border affair... until now! The family went to Yorkshire and were amazed at the variety on offer.

His perfect Yorkshire day out: A trip around York Minster followed by a wander around The Shambles, or a day meandering around the shops of the Devonshire Quarter in Sheffield.

SARAH FREEMAN

Carolyn Nicoll has worked in news, entertainment and feature documentaries for ITV and Channel 4, as well as magazine editorial and PR, interviewing numerous personalities from Lord Richard Attenborough to Leeds’s Mel B. Yorkshire-born, Carolyn loves the diversity of her home county, with its fabulous cities, gorgeous countryside, stunning coastline and abundant history.

Sarah Freeman grew up in Leeds and thanks to a series of inspirational teachers and a complete lack of aptitude for maths and science she went on to study English Literature at Edinburgh University. After a brief sojourn in the East Midlands she returned to the North six years ago and is now features editor of the Yorkshire Post. Unlike Charlotte Brontë she had to wait until she was in her early 30s for her first proposal of marriage.

She accepted and now lives with her husband in York.

Her perfect Yorkshire day out: Walking on Ilkley Moor with family and dog, then browsing around Salts Mill, lunch and shopping at Leeds’ gorgeous Victoria Quarter, dinner at La Rue in Saltaire, then a Northern Ballet production at Bradford’s Alhambra Theatre.

Her perfect Yorkshire day out: There are a few basic requirements. Bright blue skies and a lie in are a must. Add in fish and chips and a go on the twopenny machines in Whitby or Bridlington, a walk in Swaledale and dinner at the Blue Lion at East Witton and that’s about as near to perfect as it gets.

CAROLYN NICOLL

3

16

YORKSHIRE HIGHLIGHTS

81

34 Contents

40 BRONTË IN LOVE Step back to a romantic age, perfect for literary lovers.

8 BREATH OF FRESH AIR Paul Williamson takes his family on an adventure-filled Yorkshire holiday, and they love it.

42 THE GOLDEN COAST Don’t miss our spectacular heritage coast.

14 SOUTH YORKSHIRE 16 NO PLACE LIKE HOME

Comedian and actor Ade Edmondson returns to his roots.

21 ROSEMARY & THYME Join a cookery school with Rosemary Shrager at Swinton Park.

26 HULL & EAST YORKSHIRE 28 THE GOOD LIFE From organic farmers to guerrilla gardeners, they’re all here in Yorkshire.

32 LEEDS & PENNINE YORKSHIRE 34 A DAY IN THE LIFE Discover how Yorkshire inspires a willow sculptor, an artist and a showjumper.

38 THE GOLDEN AGE

Vintage fashion has never been more popular.

43 FLAVOURS OF YORKSHIRE We taste test some Yorkshire cheese and pies, tough job.

44 CHRISTIAN CALLING Meet one of our home-grown stars.

48 GREEN FINGERS We meet the people who keep Yorkshire’s green heritage alive.

52 OLYMPIC DREAMS Our young hopefuls set their sights on 2012.

56 GETTING HERE All the information you need to plan your next trip to Yorkshire.

58 YORK 60 LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Inspiring locations that are pulling in the film crews.

64 YORKSHIRE MOORS & COAST 66 WELCOME BACK TO THE SHOW THAT NEVER ENDS Yorkshire celebrates with a packed calendar of inspiring events.

The Black Swan at Oldstead, North Yorkshire, has caused quite a flap by beating all comers to win the title AA Pub of the Year. And with its fresh, tasty food, convivial buzz and warm Yorkshire welcome, who’d argue?

52 Flying Scotsman roaring back to life

66

5 YORKSHIRE HIGHLIGHTS The very best experiences, attractions and latest news across Yorkshire.

12 FLAVOURS OF YORKSHIRE Whatever your tipple, tea or a pint, work up a thirst with our reviews.

4

44

AA Pub of the Year

LEGENDARY LOCO THE FLYING SCOTSMAN IS BEING PAINSTAKINGLY RESTORED BACK TO ITS GLORIOUS PRIME BY THE NATIONAL RAILWAY MUSEUM IN YORK. AND IT WON’T JUST BE TRAINSPOTTERS WHO’LL BE CHEERING ON THIS POPULAR ICON OF THE AGE OF STEAM.

70 NATIONAL TRUST 73 FLAVOURS OF YORKSHIRE Rafi’s Spicebox and Blue Keld Water tickle our review panel’s taste buds.

74 YORKSHIRE DALES & HARROGATE 76 THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

Marco Pierre White tells about us his two Michelin star ambitions for the Box Tree.

79 YORKSHIRE.COM

Yorkshire at your fingertips.

81 WE COULDN’T LEAVE We talk to two Yorkshire millionaires inspired by our county.

86 ENGLISH HERITAGE

T

here’s nothing quite like seeing the Flying Scotsman thundering past in a cloud of steam to evoke a romantic bygone era. This train above all others has a grip on the popular imagination that is simply impossible to shake. So the return of the superstar to steam will be one of the highlights of many people’s year.

The National Railway Museum’s workshop team have been working flat out to restore the locomotive, lovingly tending to every nut and bolt to bring the locomotive back in one piece for public display. It’s a fitting climax to a campaign which began in 2004 with children handing over their pocket money

88 THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE MEDALS Sport, science and an exciting new interactive exhibition.

90 PILLOW TALK Crisp white sheets, down-filled pillows and featherweight duvets.

94 YORKSHIRE’S NIGHTLIFE Anna Millar discovers Yorkshire at night.

99 THE OLD GAME GETS A NEW IMAGE Get bowled over by cricket in Yorkshire.

102 THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS Behind-the-scenes of the tempting windows.

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

and pensioners taking out their cheque books in a bid to ensure the Flying Scotsman remained in the UK. The entire country backed the appeal to keep No. 4472 in Britain and, with extra help from the Heritage Memorial Fund, the National Railway Museum saved the train for the nation.

It was only natural that the Flying Scotsman should be brought home to the world’s largest railway museum, a mere lump of coal’s throw from its old stomping ground of the East Coast main line.

The first chance to lay eyes on the Flying Scotsman will be in the National Railway Museum’s Great Hall from 28-30 May 2011. Helen Ashby, Head of Knowledge and Collections, is counting down the days: ‘Although the Flying Scotsman won’t be painted by May, we couldn’t resist giving the public the opportunity to see her looking like a complete steam engine as soon as possible. There is a lot of anticipation surrounding the return of No. 4472 so we can’t wait to give the public the chance to get up close to her again.’

The NRM is planning a spectacular unveiling of the steam legend in all her glory during the summer before she begins her operating schedule on the mainline. To find out more, please visit www.flyingscotsman.org.uk

Walkers enjoying a ramble through the sleepy village of Oldstead in the glorious North York Moors National Park are in for a rare treat when they stumble upon something rather special – the Black Swan, a family-run inn that still offers the true country pub experience.

Owned by the Banks family who have lived in Oldstead for generations, this 16th-century inn is surrounded by rolling National Park countryside with views of the North York Moors. Inside, visitors are met with a crackling open fire, stone flagged floor and solid oak furnishings, while the airy upstairs restaurant sports a Persian rug-strewn oak floor and antique tables and chairs.

The modern British menu is overflowing with skilfully created dishes using the finest local, seasonal produce.

Exquisite starters such as celeriac velouté with roast king scallops, grilled pancetta or capers and shallots might be followed by a roasted Aberdeen Angus rump steak and braised beef hash with fricassée of shiitake mushrooms. And dessert lovers won’t be disappointed either, with fabulously indulgent specialities like dark chocolate truffle cake and hazelnut mousse and bitter caramel. Discover more at: www.blackswanoldstead.co.uk

5

YORKSHIRE HIGHLIGHTS

YORKSHIRE HIGHLIGHTS

© Kippa Matthews

Wakefield wakes up to new gallery

Star Author THE STAR INN AT HAROME, NEAR HELMSLEY, MAY BE AN AWARDWINNING EATERY – BUT HEAD CHEF ANDREW PERN’S LATEST CULINARY

A BRAND NEW ART GALLERY IS SET TO OPEN IN WAKEFIELD IN 2011. CALLED THE HEPWORTH WAKEFIELD, THE GALLERY IS IN PART A CELEBRATION OF ONE OF THE TOWN’S MOST FAMOUS DAUGHTERS – SCULPTOR DAME BARBARA HEPWORTH.

Yorkshire original heads for London AN ICONIC PIECE OF SCULPTURE – EPSTEIN’S FAMOUS ‘ADAM’ – IS STARRING IN A MAJOR NEW LONDON EXHIBITION. BUT SIMPLY MOVING THE GIANT ARTWORK FROM ITS HOME AT HAREWOOD PROVED A MAMMOTH TASK. Harewood House recently agreed to loan an iconic piece of sculpture to London’s Royal Academy of Arts to star as one of the highlights of the ‘Modern British Sculpture’ exhibition. But that was more easily said than done - the gargantuan 7ft figure of Adam weighed in at around 2 tonnes and took two whole days to move from its home.

This considerable feat of engineering required an A-frame, winch and trackway, as well as scaffolding to support the steps and undercroft of the House and a crane outside the building to lift the sculpture on to a lorry.

Sir Jacob Epstein, one of Britain’s most important twentieth century sculptors, carved ‘Adam’ from a single piece of Derbyshire alabaster in 1938 and 1939.

Acquired from Louis Tussaud’s waxworks in 1961, it is a personal favourite of Lord Harewood: ‘He stands in the Hall here at Harewood and he never stops delighting us with the different aspects we find as we walk past.

Everyone is amazed that what

6

seems at first a massive figure of our progenitor is in fact carved from a relatively slender pillar of alabaster. Epstein worked it with skill and imagination.’

‘Adam’ left Yorkshire for London in November 2010 for conservation prior to being displayed at the Royal Academy.

Following his London showing, the sculpture will return to Harewood as the centrepiece of the major 2011 exhibition ‘Finding Adam’ which celebrates the sculpture’s epic journey from Epstein’s studio to one of England’s great country houses.

‘Adam’ will play his part in the 2011 programme Art in Yorkshire - supported by Tate, a year long celebration of the visual arts in 19 galleries throughout Yorkshire. Works from Tate’s collection of historic, modern and contemporary art will be showcased through a compelling programme of exhibitions and events. For full details of the venues and programme, simply go to www.yorkshire.com

MASTERPIECE ISN’T A DISH, IT IS HIS LATEST BOOK ‘LOOSE BIRDS AND GAME’.

T

he Hepworth Wakefield is one of the most striking new galleries outside London and has been specially commissioned to house a gift from the Hepworth Estate – a unique collection of over forty working models in plaster and aluminium by the renowned artist.

Alongside the Hepworth pieces, the gallery will also exhibit the existing collection of the Wakefield Art Gallery which features a particularly strong group of works by some of the best known twentieth century British artists.

Designed by acclaimed British architect, David Chipperfield, the gallery is

formed from a cluster of trapezoidal blocks which define the exhibition spaces and are flooded with natural daylight.

Sited on the headland of the River Calder at the southern gateway to the city, the gallery will be visible from all directions and bring international contemporary art and historical exhibitions to Yorkshire. www.barbarahepworth.org.uk/ wakefield

Jump to see showjumping We Yorkshire folk take our horse events seriously, so expect to join the throng at one of the most prestigious occasions of the season - the Yorkshire International Showjumping Event.

Some of the UK’s biggest stars will be galloping across to the Motorpoint Arena in Sheffield in 2011 to take part in the Yorkshire International Showjumping Event. From the fast and the furious Double Harness Scurry, sponsored

by Osborne Refrigeration,

to the fearless Meddling Fire Glow and Fire Show and the animated Horseball, sponsored by the Great Yorkshire Show. All three acts will deliver thrills and spills galore in the arena throughout the course of the show.

Taking place between Friday 22nd and Sunday 24th April 2011 this is an ideal event for the whole family to enjoy over the Easter weekend.

For more information visit www.yorkshireinternational.co.uk

yorkshire.com

Choirgirl hits top note FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, A CHOIRGIRL HAS SIGNED A RECORD DEAL. AND NOT WITH JUST ANY OLD LABEL. THIS IS WITH UNIVERSAL MUSIC, THE WORLD’S BIGGEST RECORD COMPANY WHERE SHE’LL BE RUBBING SHOULDERS WITH THE LIKES OF LADY GAGA, ELTON JOHN, THE ROLLING STONES, AMY WINEHOUSE AND U2.

ISABEL SUCKLING, ‘THE CHOIRGIRL’, IS FLYING.

A

t the age of just 12, Isabel Suckling, known simply as ‘The Choirgirl’, is not just the only choirgirl, but also the youngest solo classical artist in history, to be offered a record deal by a major label.

Isabel sings at York Minster and is managed and mentored by Britain’s favourite choirboy, Aled Jones, who touched the nation’s hearts and topped the charts 25 years ago with The Snowman theme tune Walking In The Air. Jones fondly remembers his time as a choirboy, and is now drawing on his unique experience and expertise to guide Isabel as she sings her way into the charts.

Aled knew Isabel was something special the moment he heard her sing: ‘On hearing Isabel’s voice I wanted to be involved in nurturing her special talent. She has such a great quality and I am very pleased to play a small part in enabling her to reach a wider audience.’

Isabel’s voice was picked out from the hundreds auditioned from cathedrals and churches nationwide. And with the release of her first album, it’s not only the congregation of York Minster who will be

yorkshire.com

given the chance to enjoy the pure-toned perfection of her singing.

Titled simply ‘The Choirgirl, Isabel’, the album is packed with old favourites such as Fauré’s Pie Jesu, All Things Bright And Beautiful and The Ash Grove, as well as two of the loveliest of all Christmas carols, In The Bleak Midwinter and The Virgin’s Slumber Song. But there are plenty of surprises too, from Einaudi’s For Tomorrow to Howard Goodall’s Ecco Homo (you may recognise it as the hauntingly beautiful theme to Mr. Bean!).

TV’s star choirmaster Gareth Malone (of BBC’s The Choir fame) has composed Lux Aeterna especially for Isabel, and she also performs such popular classics as Bright Eyes and John Lennon’s Imagine.

And, like all superstars, Isabel even joins with a couple of old friends – singing with her mentor Aled Jones (through technical wizardry she duets with Jones’ original vocal track of All Through The Night from 1986) and Britain’s Got Talent finalist, 14-year-old Liam McNally, who gives a touching rendition with Isabel of Panis Angelicus.

‘The Choirgirl, Isabel’ is now on general release and available from all good record shops.

His second book ‘Loose Birds and Game’ is out now following in the foodie footsteps of his award-winning first book ‘Black Pudding and Foie Gras’. His latest read serves up a fresh, lighter take on the cooking and presentation of game dishes.

There are even hot toddies for your hipflask and pasties for sustenance whether you’re tramping out into the countryside to do a spot of huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ – or simply embarking on an excursion to your local butcher and fishmonger!

Why not take a sneak preview at www.loosebirdsandgame.co.uk and order your copy for £35 plus P&P from jpern@thestarinnatharome.co.uk

Blue Flags over Yorkshire Every visitor knows Yorkshire boasts some fantastic beaches. But now, major organisations are joining forces to make our beaches and bathing waters the envy of every resort in Europe.

To have Blue Flags (the award given to only the cleanest beaches) flying over every inch of the county’s coastline is more than a pipe dream. It’s a real target, thanks to a multi-million pound programme of work that has just started.

Gary Verity was upbeat about the prospects: ‘Our aspiration is to see Blue Flags flying along our entire coastline.

This would give us a higher concentration of Blue Flags than the likes of Portugal, a country widely regarded as having some of the finest beaches and bathing waters in Europe. It’s great news for Yorkshire.’

7

OUTDOORS

Breath of Fresh air Paul Williamson hadn’t been to Yorkshire very often in his 39 years. A school trip to York when he was maybe 11 or 12, a day shopping in Leeds, and a wander round Harrogate and Skipton on a day out, and that had been about it.

N

ot that I don’t get a chance to talk about Yorkshire very often. In my office there are two colleagues who hail from that direction, Andy from Bradford and Anne from Dewsbury. They’ve always been very proud of their county, so the chance to wind them up is never missed, by myself at any rate.

Only last week, I pointed to an advert in the local paper which offered a ‘five day trip to see the sights of Yorkshire’. So, I said to them, that must include two days to get there and two days to get back… still, I learned one thing from that comment - girls from Dewsbury really know how to punch.

So a few days later when the chance came up to go to Yorkshire for a few days, I said yes, fully aware I was going to either find lots more reasons to wind up Andy or Anne, or alternatively, I was going to have to eat my words.

Therefore, with slight trepidation in the back of my mind, I packed two children (Lucy, 7, and Fraser, 2) and the wife (Rachael, age not telling) into the car and headed for Scarborough - part of the country I had never frequented before. The name was very familiar, thanks to its football team, but beyond that I couldn’t have told you a thing about the town we were heading towards.

Heading out of Cumbria, we weren’t very far past Scotch Corner on the A66 when it became evident that this part of Yorkshire

is a delight every step of the way.

Hidden delights started popping up, such as the Busby Stoop Inn near Thirsk, where we stopped for lunch, with its tale of the 18thcentury murderer Thomas Busby and subsequent haunting of the pub to this day. Then there was the sign for Thirsk races - should we come back a day or two later to enjoy them?

The homes throughout this part of Yorkshire really are the stuff of picture postcards. Often driving to a holiday destination means the monotony of the motorway, or a city full of faceless high-rise blocks and unfriendly streets. But the villages we passed through gave a homely appearance of permanence. Whole streets where every unique home and garden was in pristine condition suggested this is a part of the country not only to be treasured by the locals, but enjoyed by passers-by too.

On arriving in Scarborough came one of those moments I shall always remember. I’m not a fan of modern authors in general - I find they don’t relay the depth of place and character of writers from our past. So imagine my joy on pulling into a parking space next to a church in Scarborough and seeing a sign right in front of me revealing that Anne Brontë’s grave was the other side of the churchyard wall. Sure enough, on closer inspection there lay the grave of one of my favourite authors, complete with a magnificent view of the coastline.

“On arriving in Scarborough came one of those moments I shall always remember.”

8

yorkshire.com

Wild West fun at Pinewood Holiday Park.

yorkshire.com

9

Pinewood Holiday Park has a Wild West theme with log cabins, teepees and totem poles.

The kids meanwhile couldn’t wait to get to our holiday site, the Pinewood Holiday Park just outside Scarborough. Often we’ll pack the tent and enjoy a few days away in northern England or southern Scotland, but on this occasion there was room to spare in the boot of the car - we were going to sleep in one of their new log cabins.

Much of the site has a Wild West theme, with log cabins, teepees and totem poles, and if cowboys had this much comfort it’s a wonder they ever left home to chase Indians.

The cabins consist of a veranda to cook/sit/read/drink beer and a room inside which is spacious enough for a family’s holiday needs. Double-glazed windows, curtains, a heater and electricity provide the home comforts, although the cabins are amazingly warm and we never needed the heater. Fold out chairs turn into comfortable beds for night time.

Although we went in August, the site also seems popular in winter, not surprisingly. Usually the tent has its last outing of the year in September, and doesn’t come out again until April or May, but the cabins with the heaters appear to be good for year-round use.

The site, which also welcomes caravans and tents, is well laid out. Pull your car up outside your cabin to unload, but then

10

“ Much of the site has a Wild West theme, with log cabins, teepees and totem poles, and if cowboys had this much comfort it’s a wonder they ever left home to chase Indians.”

there’s a separate car park at the entrance to keep the pitches quieter and traffic free.

There’s also a field for ball games, and a woodland walk which the children loved.

Facilities are spick and span, and the only thing the recycling centre lacked was a container for snapped shoelaces!

On the first night we were lucky enough to eat at the multi-award winning Lanterna restaurant in Scarborough. The food was as good as anything I’ve had anywhere.

Booking is advisable for the small but intimate restaurant. Rachael started with fresh langoustine in a tempura batter, while I had homemade ravioli in a sage butter sauce.

I hardly ever have steaks - I love them but too often they’re too chewy and never cooked right. The Lanterna, though, was obviously a place where good ingredients and good preparation go hand in hand, so we had fillet steaks in a cream sauce.

Perfection.

And we finished off, again choosing the same thing, with Piemontese dark chocolate dessert served with amaretto biscuit. Not forgetting a great bottle of wine.

We enjoyed the food so much, I bought chef Giorgio Alessio’s own cookbook sold at the restaurant after the meal - he even personally signed it! There aren’t many restaurants where you can do that.

home is majestic enough - glorious roads leading up to gateways and huge walls make you think you’ve arrived, but this home is so magnificent, it has more than one gateway...

Arriving in the car park, we then went through the reception, and into a courtyard with a café and a rustic market taking place. Through another large gateway, and then the gardens and house finally start to appear before you. Surely there can’t be another house and gardens in the country to match this for sheer grandeur. Even were I to win a £100 million-plus Euro lottery rollover, I don’t think I could afford to recreate what lay before us.

The house is breathtaking, with its majestic staircases, endless artwork, wonderful views, and my favourite, a library long enough to stage an Olympic race in, with a collection of books that would take a lifetime to read.

In fact just this week Rachael made the Piemontese dessert, not quite Giorgio’s standard, but using his recipe book, not a bad attempt.

For the trip to Scarborough, we used a wonderful invention called The Yorkshire Pass. It’s a guide book and a pass to many tourist attractions throughout the county, and it proved invaluable. The pass will save you a lot of money, and the guide book was so useful we’re keeping hold of it to help plan future trips.

The first morning from the guide book we chose the Scarborough Sea Life and Marine Sanctuary. It was awesome but one tip - go early. We arrived shortly after opening and were in a queue of about 30 - when we left at lunchtime the queue stretched across the car park.

The wonderful centre was packed with fish and rescued marine life, with highlights including otters, seals, penguins, turtles and rays. The knowledgeable staff gave fascinating talks on their subjects, and a few hours quickly passed before we decided to go for lunch.

While the sea life centre was possibly the favourite attraction for Lucy and Fraser, Rachael and I marvelled even more at Castle Howard in the afternoon, the country house where Brideshead Revisited, and the remake, were filmed. The drive up to the

yorkshire.com

We spent two or three hours there but could have had a full day. They even had the best adventure playground for kids I have ever seen, and a ride there and back in a carriage pulled by a tractor (when you’re two years old it’s the best part of Castle Howard, believe me). The gardens were glorious, and Rachael and I decided that we will go back at some point to Castle Howard without the children - we could spend a full day there.

Back to the log cabin and two tired children into bed.

The following day we visited Eden Camp Museum near York, a Second World War museum. I’ve already recommended it to a number of family and friends. Planes, tanks, guns, fascinating displays, all housed in a Second World War PoW camp with numerous informative displays. Again it’s a place were two younger children are happy spending several hours, but to do it full justice, I could have spent nearly all day there.

The best huts are those that send you back in time, recreating the sights, sounds and smells of the Blitz, bombed out homes, streets scenes, or a munitions factory. And Rachael, whose grandfather served with the Chindits, was able to read much about their exploits. In fact, in the gift shop, Lucy was able to buy a replica medal awarded to her great grandfather for his service in the Chindits.

In the afternoon, we went to York and visited the Minster, gazing at the awe-inspiring towers and columns, before sitting in the chapter house. It’s easy to think of a cathedral as just a large building with an altar inside, but there’s so much more to it than that. Again there were interesting displays, especially in the crypt, where we followed the history of the Minster since its first use as a religious site.

An all-too quick wander down The Shambles, with its quaint shops alongside the more modern, and street artists at regular intervals, and then it was time to set off home.

Rather than being a trip that’s given us the chance to cross off another part of the country as having been visited, it turned more into a taster session to the vast array of tourist attractions and wonderful scenery in North Yorkshire. We’re determined to return soon and enjoy some of the things we didn’t get to see, especially in York.

Back at work, I’ll still be unable to stop myself winding-up Andy and Anne about their home county, but it really will be all tongue-in-cheek. Don’t tell them, but I loved my time there!

FACTFILE Information about all there is to see and do in Yorkshire is available through www.yorkshire.com The Yorkshire Pass is the UK’s first ever regional sightseeing pass and allows free entry into over 70 attractions.

Find out more at: www.yorkshirepass.com Places visited: www.pinewood-holiday-park.co.uk www.lanterna-ristorante.co.uk www.castlehoward.co.uk www.edencamp.co.uk www.sealife.co.uk

Left: Castle Howard, near York. Right: The multi-award winning Lanterna Ristorante, Scarborough.

Left: The magnificent towers of York Minster.

yorkshire.com

11

FLAVOURS OF YORKSHIRE

MINE’S A PINT

MY CUP OF TEA

Robin Gauldie discovers the delights of the Black Sheep Brewery.

Tea addict Gill Williams loves Bettys in Harrogate.

B

lack Sheep Best Bitter – the signature drink of Paul Theakston’s brewery in Masham – is a dark delight that slips down very easily indeed. But at just 3.8%, it’s a good deal mellower than many of the international-brand lagers on tap in most British pubs. This is a very welcoming pint indeed.

The Theakston dynasty have been brewers in Masham, in the Yorkshire Dales, for six generations. Indeed, Theakston’s Old Peculier is still something of a legend amongst real ale fanciers.

Back at Black Sheep, however, Paul Theakston was determined to continue the family tradition, and since he opened the Black Sheep Brewery in 1992 it has gone from strength to strength, becoming not only one of Yorkshire’s distinctive brands, but also a visitor attraction in its own right, with its daily brewery tours.

“All of our ales are fermented in time-honoured Yorkshire Square vessels for a distinctively dry and refreshing flavour,” I’m told on one of these tasty journeys of discovery.

Paul’s son Rob is now joint Managing Director, with brother Jo as marketing and off-trade sales director. “We brew our beers only from traditional-quality raw materials,” Rob says. “We use Dales water from our own well, Maris Otter malted barley for flavour, a little roasted malt for colour and flavour, and generous amounts of whole English hops to make the beer really refreshing. It’s more expensive than the average, but well worth the extra.”

Golden brown, hoppy, almost honey-scented, tingly on the palate… yes, this is a very distinctive drop. Goes good with a ploughman’s lunch, steak and ale pie, a great curry or half a dozen oysters – in fact, it complements just about all the other great flavours of Yorkshire. And although it’s the brewery’s icon, it’s one of a range of great tasting ales that you’ll find on tap in Yorkshire’s best hostelries, and in bottles all over the UK. According to Roger Protz, the doyen of British beer writers, the Black Sheep Brewery is “a modern day miracle.” I’m inclined to agree.

er cov sty s i D e ta t moreats a om tr hire.c rs ks yor flavou /

12

I

don’t say this lightly, because in New Zealand, where I come from, we take our tea very seriously indeed. But my Yorkshire forebears always maintained that there was no better cup of tea to be found in the world than a proper, lovingly prepared Yorkshire cuppa. Because there’s a lot more to tea than leaves. The water needs to be right – not too hard, not too soft.

The china needs to be right – not too fancy, not too cheap. And the surroundings need to be right, too. Not for me the quickboiled Styrofoam cup, the sad, generic teabag, and the teeny cup of sterilised, milk-style dairy product substitute.

Which is why Bettys in Harrogate is, for me, the very model of a perfect, classic tearoom. Often imitated, never surpassed, for tea-lovers this is heaven on earth. Under its elegant, Edwardian wrought-iron canopy, I pause to savour the temptation presented by hundreds of breads, cakes and chocolates, along with 50 different teas and coffees, from Assam, Ceylon, Earl Grey, Darjeeling, Orange Pekoe. Even for a connoisseur, it’s an education in the endless varieties of the cup that cheers. Bettys is at its heavenly best on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, and that’s when I like to reserve a table overlooking the pretty Stray or the elegant Montpellier gardens.

It seems that the whole British cult of afternoon tea began with the 7th Duchess of Bedford, back in the 19th century.

Feeling a ‘sinking feeling’ between lunch and dinner, she took to having tea and snacks brought to her salon in the afternoon, and inviting her aristocratic girlfriends in for a cuppa and a chat.

Sitting down to a silver cakestand laden with cucumber sandwiches, a fresh scone, a personal little jar of rhubarb jam, and a perfectly warmed and brewed pot, my friends and I feel perfectly inspired for an afternoon of chat. There’s no risk of that sinking feeling. Oh, and the tea? Nothing fancy, thank you.

Just a pot of Yorkshire’s finest.

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

13

WELCOME TO YORKSHIRE

FESTIVALS, FOOD & FAMILY FUN

© English Heritage

South Yorkshire seamlessly matches great outdoor and indoor fun for families, fabulous food and sporting excitement with an outstanding portfolio of art galleries, museums and heritage sites.

© Sheena Woodhead

WHETHER YOU’RE LOOKING FOR GENTLE countryside strolls, a round of golf or a taste of more demanding high-energy activities, a buzzing city break or a relaxing stay in a peaceful village or a luxury spa, you’ll find it here.

The region’s towns and cities offer great shopping, restaurants where you can tickle your tastebuds with the best of South Yorkshire’s flavours, and be pampered in some of our cosy country inns and city hotels.

Sheffield is South Yorkshire’s lively hub for visual and performing arts, with venues such as the Millennium Gallery, which hosts some of the most impressive exhibitions of world-class contemporary art all year round.

At Museums Sheffield: Weston Park, families can explore some amazing collections of beautiful and unusual treasures spanning centuries and continents, animated new displays, and exhibits ranging from Snowy the polar bear to Egyptian mummies, hives of living bees and ants, and an old-fashioned butchers that will be a revelation to kids who think meat comes neatly packaged in plastic film.

Sheffield’s key industrial museum at Kelham Island is another journey into South Yorkshire’s not so distant past, with interactive galleries that tell the story of the city’s heyday as the greatest steel-making and steel-working city in the British Empire.

Sheffield and the South Yorkshire towns of Doncaster, Rotherham and Barnsley are magnets for shoppers. Doncaster’s Frenchgate is full of contemporary furnishings whilst the 280 shops and restaurants at Meadowhall guarantees retail heaven! The regular farmers’ markets provide a taste of the regional food offers whilst Doncaster Market, with over 400

Main picture: Barking up the right tree, 2000-2001 – Johnny White, Museums Sheffield: Millennium Gallery.

Above: Mishmash Kitchen, café, bar – Ecclesall Road, Sheffield. Opposite from top left: Brodsworth Hall & Gardens, Doncaster; Sheffield City Hall; Trans Pennine Trail.

14

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

stalls, offers a distinctive and international flavour with award-winning products from around the world.

Moving from cutting-edge consumerism to faith heritage, South Yorkshire’s centuriesold places of worship still have the power to inspire the 21st-century visitor. Sheffield’s St Peter and Paul Cathedral is one of the city’s oldest buildings and is still at the heart of the city, and within are the magnificent Tudor monuments of the medieval Shrewsbury Chapel, while each of its elegant windows tells a story. Rotherham’s Minster of All Saints is among the finest medieval churches in northern England, while Doncaster’s grand 19th-century Minster dominates the rejuvenated town centre.

Inside and outside town, South Yorkshire is a region of gardens and green spaces, from city parks such as Sheffield Botanical Gardens to the immaculately landscaped grounds of Brodsworth Hall, Wentworth Castle Gardens and the superb portfolio of the Gardens of South Yorkshire.

There’s wilder open country, too, along the Trans Pennine Trail and in the Peak District, within easy reach of Sheffield and Barnsley. With five lakes and 750 acres of parkland, Rother Valley Country Park offers a variety of activities on land and water, including an on-site golf course and nature reserve. You can also explore by bike, on horseback or on foot, and wildlife refuges such as Potteric Carr and Old Moor provide beautiful havens for rare birds, butterflies and wild flowers. Across South Yorkshire there is a great choice of activities and spectator sports, from zip rides, mid-air jumps and gravity-defying climbing walls at the city’s newest attraction Aerial Extreme, next to the city’s iceSheffield arena, to racing at the

legendary Doncaster Racecourse – home to the St Leger, the world’s oldest classic horse race and the Doncaster Cup – the first regulated horse race held in 1766.

If you’re looking for a family day out, Sheffield’s Tropical Butterfly House, Wildlife & Falconry Centre has something for everyone.

Take a walk through the butterfly house or follow the nature trail to discover more fascinating creatures along the way. Yorkshire Wildlife Park, near Doncaster, offers Britain’s one and only on-foot safari through its latest addition, Lion Country.

Whether your notion of a great night out is a romantic dinner in a fine dining restaurant or an evening of live music or comedy, you’ll find plenty of choice. Sheffield’s splendid City Hall is an unbeatable venue for classical ensembles, and there are live music venues all over the city, offering everything from jazz, reggae and world music to performances by top British and international artists. Across the region, music, improv and stand-up comedy come alive at events such as the Grin Up North and Tramlines festivals.

For lunch or dinner, there are country gastropubs and gourmet restaurants, eating places which represent every cuisine from all five continents in hotspots such as Sheffield’s Ecclesall Road.

When bed-time finally comes around, places to stay range from boutique hotels to luxury country-style spas, family run B&Bs or unusual self-catering cottages. City centre apartments offer an equally warm welcome and a great place to start your stay.

THE NEXT STEP Go to www.yorkshire.com/destinations to order your free brochure or call one of the Tourist Information Centres for further details.

Barnsley: +44 (0) 1226 206757 touristinfo@barnsley.gov.uk Doncaster: +44 (0) 1302 734309 tourist.information@doncaster.gov.uk Rotherham: +44 (0) 1709 835904 tic@rotherham.gov.uk Sheffield: +44 (0) 114 221 1900 visitor@yorkshiresouth.com

15

YORKSHIRE PATRON

NO PLACE LIKE HOME

Comedian and actor Ade Edmondson has returned to his Yorkshire roots for the fly-on-the-wall television series focusing on life in the Dales. Gill Williams catches up with him after filming.

A

true Yorkshireman never throws away anything that might come in handy. So when 53-year-old Ade Edmondson woke up after a Christmas booze-up to discover he’d bought a mandolin he decided to form a folk band. A few Yorkshire bitters and late night curries later, he and band members Troy Donockley and Andy Dinan had developed their own blend of punk and folk.

In the past, Bradford-born Ade (who’s now pleading to be called Adrian on the grounds it sounds more grown-up) is better known for his gags than music gigs. His folk band Bad Shepherd is the latest twist in the long career of this West Yorkshire son famous for shows like The Young Ones and The Comic Strip Presents with writing partner Rik Mayall. “But I’ve always been a frustrated musician in a comedian’s body,” he admits.

When he’s not strumming Sex Pistols hits on his mandolin, the artist formerly known as Ade is a farmer and passionate about the British countryside. He’s also an unofficial ambassador for Yorkshire which is why it didn’t take much persuasion when he was asked to front a new telly series called The Dales.

16

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

The ITV series made by Shiver Productions follows a similar show about the Lake District, fronted by another English comic Rory McGrath and watched by an average 4.3 million viewers.

The figures whetted the appetite of Welcome to Yorkshire, which has supported the 12-part series in the hope that it will be as successful in promoting the county as All Creatures Great and Small and Heartbeat. The Dales documentary shows how real people live and work in the Yorkshire countryside.

Adrian’s used to working alongside his wife of 25 years, Jennifer Saunders and the likes of Mayall and Robbie Coltrane but, up in the Dales, his co-stars have been farmers and hotel workers, stately home owners, gamekeepers and shopkeepers. The series gives the viewer an opportunity to look at this particularly beautiful part of the North of England through the hardy eyes of the people that live there year-round.

Welcome to Yorkshire Chief Executive Gary Verity says the response from local people wanting to be part of The Dales was overwhelming. “From hotel owners offering to host the film crew, to a local musician offering to compose the theme music, this project

17

Filming takes place on location in the Dales.

“ This is a great chance to show off the Yorkshire Dales, which is an absolute jewel in our county.” has really inspired the people of Yorkshire.”

“This is a great chance to show off the Yorkshire Dales, which is an absolute jewel in our county.” Many things have changed in Yorkshire since Adrian was a schoolboy at Pocklington School in East Riding. But he says the filming has shown him that people in the Dales still have a robust sense of community and they’ve held on to the best of their traditions - like beer and brass.

Had Adrian staggered into a French horn rather than a mandolin shop, he’d have been able to join in when The Dales went on location to film the Leyburn Brass Band. The band took the filming in its stride. They’re no strangers to celebrity attention, having competed in the Great National Contest in London’s Crystal Palace albeit during Queen Victoria’s reign. They’ve been pumping out stirring marches for Dales’ audiences since at least 1841 when the Leyburn Brass Band topped the bill at the Wensleydale Temperance Society’s Tea Festival.

Temperance isn’t a strong running theme throughout Adrian’s fly-on-the-wall

18

series (although he claims to have gone on the wagon before his daughter’s wedding, not wanting to stumble over his Father of the Bride speech). The crew also filmed in the Kirby and Lonsdale microbrewery one of the many new businesses opening in the Yorkshire Dales that have bucked the recession.

This episode tells the story of villagers who pulled together to pull pints after their local shut down. They formed a cooperative and not only reopened the George and Dragon but also transformed the grounds into allotments (gardening’s thirsty work so all the better to have a pub on your doorstep).

Now the villagers are on a roll and planning to open a shop and even a library within the pub, turning it into the hub of their Dales community. There’s a serious side to this reality television programme in that it reveals the challenges of keeping the countryside economy alive. It shows how the reopening of local shops like the project in Hudswell make a big difference to

farmers and other regional food producers.

Adrian took the opportunity of filming in the Dales to stock up on fresh Wensleydale and Swaledale cheeses and, of course, hill country lamb.

Not only is he a farmer but also a keen cook, having survived Marco Pierre White’s Hell’s Kitchen to be runner-up to actress Linda Evans.

People make a reality television programme and the producers were able to call upon a huge cast of colourful characters at events like the Kettlewell Scarecrow Festival and the annual Burnsall Fell Race.

And the backdrop to all of these shoots was the jaw-dropping Yorkshire Dales National Park. With its wild moors, patchwork fields and dry stone walls, it’s a director’s dream.

No performer likes to be upstaged but Adrian says that for once he didn’t mind playing second fiddle (sorry make that second mandolin) to the people and the landscape of the Dales.

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

19

DELICIOUS

ROSEMARY yme & Th

Teacher’s pet, I heard someone mutter.

The object of the tongue-in-cheek jibe was Roger, a prep school headmaster from Stamford, Lincolnshire. Roger was enjoying no less than his fourth cookery school with the renowned Rosemary Shrager.

20

yorkshire.com

Opposite: Students celebrate their efforts after a day in the cookery school. Above: Rosemary is known for her simple but modern British cuisine. Right: The cookery school is held at luxurious Swinton Park, North Yorkshire.

Bottom: Rosemary takes on a hands-on approach with the course participants.

“ If there’s one thing that I am, I am the real deal. People need to find me here. It’s not cheap but it’s very good value and you get me in the process.

You can’t replicate me!”

L

ittle wonder that a man of such experience should have quietly picked up the recipe for the port and blackcurrant sauce and got on and made it. But that tells you two things about Rosemary’s cookery school at sumptuous Swinton Park. First: it’s very much hands-on for participants, and secondly, students feel they really get some bang for their bucks. Why else would anyone come back for more no fewer than three times?

For me, it had been more a case of hands up than hands on, up to that point – I’d had my hands up quails and up the ducks to go with Roger’s sauce and the next day would add the entrails of pheasants and partridges to my avian preparation repertoire.

Rosemary was determined we’d all leave knowing all about the birds and the Bs, where Bs was pretty much everything there is to know about baking.

“I just like her approach,” said Roger. “It’s like working with an old friend. I did Rick Stein’s seafood course once but we only actually saw Rick Stein for an hour.”

22

As for me, well I’d been to Rachel Allen’s school, near Cork: we saw plenty of Rachel, but we didn’t get the hands-in-the-dough experience that Rosemary was giving us in spades. “If there’s one thing that I am, I am the real deal. People need to find me here. It’s not cheap but it’s very good value and you get me in the process.

You can’t replicate me!”

Indeed you can’t… I’d been unsure whether to expect a dragon or to take at face value what her assistant, Gilly, told me on the phone ahead of my trip. “Oh, she’s a pussycat really.”

But then Rosemary bellowed: “STOP! STOP! STOP! What are you DOING?” My sin had been to over-dampen my puff pastry rings for the onion marmalade, beetroot and goat’s cheese vol-au-vents.

“They’ll never rise!” she scolded.

Yes, this was more like a giant domestic science class than “watch the maestro”. Rosemary was the conductor, setting us all tasks and intervening only to admonish… Well no, to be fair, she had earlier praised my dough-making, appreciating my feel for the gluten’s elasticity. Carrot and stick tuition at its best.

yorkshire.com

My fellow students were a combination of mothers with daughters (two pairs), a husband and wife, a couple of special birthdays and a few more besides. And while Rosemary may say she’s not cheap, all had been happy to pay £660 for two-and-a-half days’ tuition, inclusive of two nights at Swinton Park. “You can pay that without the accommodation at some places,” commented birthday girl Lynn, from Bedlington, Northumberland.

Rosemary’s repertoire is very much British cuisine and I for one liked to think that the pheasants had more than likely been reared on the Swinton Park estate (even if they had had to journey via Yorkshire Game, at Richmond) and the crabs we dressed were from Whitby and were still alive when they reached Swinton.

She made her name at Amhuinnsuidhe Castle, on the Isle of Harris, when it was owned by Jonathan Bulmer, of cider fame. It was while there that she first went into print with her Rosemary, Castle Cook, to which has since been added Rosemary’s School for Cooks, incorporating recipes from her 2008 ITV series.

“My food is very English, but it’s also modern. It’s very simple,

but it speaks for itself. I won’t fit a hundred things on a plate but it will look really beautiful – a proper piece of fish or a proper piece of chicken.

“I love cooking, it’s such a creative medium – there’s no mucking about: just do it! No Joe, STOP KILLING IT PLEASE!” Joe hasn’t learned when to stop working his dough. He will know next time, or as Roger confides, “I’ve learned that if you just look pathetic, Rosemary will take over.”

We budding chefs are supported in our endeavours by a downstairs kitchen, where the team helps to realise our dishes and where we learn more important tips: successful searing is all about basting the bird while keeping the pan dry. Once seared, you can keep your bird fillets in the fridge all day and finish them when they’re needed.

Our food is taken all together à table, generously washed down with wine. We’ve started at 4pm Sunday and by 8pm we’re enjoying quail breasts on rocket, celeriac and apple salad, with homemade mayonnaise. Wild duck follows, with Roger’s exquisite sauce, wild mushrooms, endives, chicory and potato purée. Then there’s honey and walnut tarts with honey and walnut ice cream.

I can hardly believe we’ve been so productive!

Monday lunch sees another Sunday creation in all its glory: the potato and hazelnut gratin, meticulously layered and pressed overnight: it is quite superb. My vol-au-vents have not merely survived their drowning but, much to my smug satisfaction, have actually risen, if a little unevenly.

Lord Masham, owner of Swinton Park and its estate, joins us for lunch and is suitably impressed. And I am suitably impressed by his hotel, its cookery school and the game from his estate. www.rosemaryshrager.com

24

“ I love cooking, it’s such a creative medium”

yorkshire.com

* Story by Stan Abbott, first published in Eastern Airways Magazine.

Above: The picturesque grounds at Swinton Park.

Below: Rosemary showing the participants how it’s done.

Below right: Another delicious dish from the cookery school.

yorkshire.com

25

WELCOME TO YORKSHIRE

FEEL FREE

YORKSHIRE’S HERITAGE COAST IS PERFECT for families, with endless sandy beaches, plenty of activities for children, teens and parents at spots like Bridlington (one of Britain’s iconic seaside resorts), flocks of seabirds to watch at wildlife reserves such as Bempton Cliffs and Spurn Point, and a coastline dotted with postcard-pretty fishing villages and seaside towns like Hornsea and Withernsea, and picturesque, uncrowded bays and coves.

Inland, there are market towns like Pocklington, where Burnby Hall and Gardens is one of Yorkshire’s most attractive gardens, with its extensive water lily pools and a brand new visitor centre, Driffield – the capital of the Wolds - and Market Weighton, where gracious Georgian and Victorian buildings surround a lovely village green. There are more stately homes standing in immaculate grounds at Sledmere, Sewerby Hall and Gardens, Burton Agnes, Burton Constable and Wassand Hall, and of course the nearby Yorkshire Wolds are perfect for a day’s walking or cycling, with plenty of delightful spots for a summer picnic. There are lots of

From the long sandy beaches and seaside resorts of the East Yorkshire coast to the rolling Wolds, Hull and East Yorkshire offer wide open spaces and a breath of sea and country air.

But there’s urban buzz too, with plenty of family attractions, great museums, heritage attractions and exciting festivals that celebrate the region’s fascinating history and heritage.

places for a gentle stroll, but if you fancy something more challenging there’s the 79-mile Wolds Way walking and cycling trail, or the Beverley 20 route from the landmark Humber Bridge – one of the most impressive feats of engineering in England – to the graceful medieval towers of Beverley Minster. And there are new walking and cycling routes in town and country, including the Hull Fish Trail, celebrating the city’s maritime heritage, the Beverley Town Trail, Big Skies Bike Rides and the Larkin Trail in Hull which was created to mark the 25th anniversary of the death of the poet Philip Larkin, who spent most of his life in Hull.

Bridlington has been enhanced by a major refurbishment to The Spa Bridlington & Pembroke Gardens, while Hull’s transformation into one of the region’s most dynamic and lively cities continues, with an ever-growing array of chic brasseries, cafes and bars around the cobbled streets of the Old Town, where the Museum Quarter offers an exciting portfolio of free and fascinating things to see and do. Hull’s unique submarium, The Deep, is the jewel of the city’s visitor attractions, home to over

3,500 fish including spectacular sharks and rays it is the perfect family day out.

This close to the North Sea, it’s no surprise that places like Hull and Bridlington offer some of the best fish and chips in Britain, but there are plenty of more sophisticated culinary treats in store in Hull and East Yorkshire. There’s outstanding Persian and Middle-Eastern-influenced dining at Lazaat, in Cottingham, classic English food based on superbly fresh local produce at eateries such as the Michelin starred Pipe and Glass Inn near Beverley or the Boar’s Nest, and dozens of stylish places to stay, ranging from friendly, familyrun guesthouses to spa resorts and stylish boutique properties. With buzzing city streets, big beaches and seaside scenery, open countryside and pretty market towns, this is a region with something for everyone.

THE NEXT STEP www.yorkshire.com/destinations For brochure requests, email: info@vhey.co.uk or tel: 0844 888 5131

Main picture: Family fun on Bridlington Beach.

Below: Café culture on Hull Marina. Right: The spectacular Beverley Minster. Far right top: Strolling on the Yorkshire Wolds.

Far right bottom: The Michelin starred Pipe and Glass Inn.

26

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

27

DELICIOUS

THE GOOD LIFE

From the organic farmers whose produce goes to some of Yorkshire’s top restaurant kitchens to ‘guerrilla gardeners’ who are reclaiming canalsides, growing your own is all the rage. Robin Gauldie meets some of the farmers and amateur share-croppers who are driving a ‘green revolution’ across the county.

“Anyone can plant fruit, vegetables, or herbs on these patches of public land, and anyone is welcome to help themselves – though if you use the whole plant, you have to replace it.”

I

f you’re planning a canal boat holiday in Yorkshire this summer, look out for free vegetables growing along the towpath. Yorkshire has a strong and still growing tradition of appreciating and using local produce – whether that’s in farmers’ markets, local stars or Michelin starred restaurants.

But the people of Todmorden in West Yorkshire have taken things a step further – by becoming ‘guerrilla gardeners’. At Fielden Wharf, a popular stop for boats cruising along the canal at Todmorden, fruit and vegetable crops have ousted floral bouquets in the big steel pots beside the canal. “Fielden Wharf is a favourite pull-in for canal boats, and now, instead of petunias and begonias, we’ve got blackcurrants, raspberries, peas, beans, Swiss chard, lettuces and globe artichokes,” says Mary Clear, one of the many supporters of the community initiative, Incredible Edible.

PEAS, BEANS AND BERRIES “We keep a salad crop here all year, so instead of boaters going to a supermarket and buying a bag of salad, they can just cut it from here.” Inspired by Incredible Edible, Calderdale Council has begun planting vegetable seeds as well as wild flowers along the newly extended Hebble Trail towpath between Halifax, Sowerby Bridge and Elland. The council is working with British Waterways to extend its planting further along the canal corridor.

Incredible Edible encourages local shops and restaurants to buy their produce from nearby farms – and the village aims to

yorkshire.com

be entirely self-sufficient in food within the next ten years. Pam Warhurst CBE, chair of the Forestry Commission and co-founder of Incredible Edible, says Todmorden now has six ‘guerrilla gardens’.

“Anyone can plant fruit, vegetables, or herbs on these patches of public land, and anyone is welcome to help themselves – though if you use the whole plant, you have to replace it,” she says.

FROM NEPAL TO THE PENNINES Meanwhile, in the hills above Todmorden, another Incredible Edible member has created a remarkable terraced garden inspired by his travels in the Himalayas. Ben Campbell has used the experience gained by his travels as an anthropologist in the mountains of Nepal to cultivate an assortment of crops and fruit trees on hillside terraces at their home in the Yorkshire Pennines, as well as a small flock of goats and a flock of chickens.

Adapting skills learned from village farmers in the Himalayas, Ben’s half-acre now supplies the Campbell family with vegetables ranging from familiar crops such as onions, radishes and carrots to herbs such as marjoram, chives, garlic and sweet cecily and exotics like the Himalayan turnip.

Building the south-facing terraces, with their dry-stone walls, was hard work, but Ben says it now takes only six hours a week to keep the family supplied with home-grown vegetables. “It’s very little land, but it is productive enough to always have something available to put together a meal from your own patch,” he says.

29

A MATTER OF TASTE West Yorkshire Organic Group can claim to be one of the first groups to get the green gardening bandwagon rolling, says Tony Holt, one of its founder members. WYOG is the driving force behind the annual Organic Fruit and Vegetable Show, which is held every September at the Shipley College Exhibition Hall in Saltaire. “The 2010 show proved that growing your own is going from strength to strength,” Tony says. “People brought everything from aubergines to zucchini, apples to Worcester berries, bread and jam.” The attraction is everything being judged on taste. It doesn’t matter if your tomatoes aren’t all the same size, or if your carrots are forked; so long as they taste good they stand a chance of winning a prize.

BOXING CLEVER Getting kids to eat more fresh vegetables is always a challenge. Getting them to grow

their own is a whole different game.

More than 30 schools across Yorkshire now take part in the Yorkshire Agricultural Society’s Schools Veggie Box competition, with the final winners chosen from a shortlist of 10 at the Great Yorkshire Show in Harrogate in July. Each school gets a metre-square box and the compost to go with it in April – then it’s up to enthusiastic schoolchildren to choose what they will grow. “The aim of the competition is to encourage healthy eating and to encourage children to enjoy healthy, home-grown produce,” says Mike Prest, competition co-ordinator. “We have our own allotment where we have grown fruit and vegetables for the past four years,” says teacher Louise Ward, who runs her school’s gardening club.

“The children decide what to plant, how to make it look good and where to plant everything. It’s so important for children to understand where their fruit and vegetables come from, not just to see them on supermarket shelves.”

“ The 2010 show proved that growing your own is going from strength to strength”

ROOTS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES In Italy, France, Greece and Spain, people still forage happily for wild herbs like thyme, oregano and fennel that cost a packet in our supermarkets. But why pay a bomb for rocket leaves when there are distinctively British delicacies to be garnered in our Yorkshire countryside?

At Rudding Park in North Yorkshire, consultant chef and ‘wild food’ enthusiast Stephanie Moon seeks out delicacies that our medieval ancestors took for granted, but which we seem to have forgotten.

She’s passionate about reintroducing these time-honoured tastes to our 21stcentury tables, and her Wild Cook blog www.yorkshire.com/eat-in-yorkshire reveals a whole à la carte array of roots, shoots and leaves.

The pungent leaves of wild garlic, growing just a few steps from the kitchen door at Rudding Park’s Clock Tower restaurant, make a sumptuous soup.

Ground ivy, easy to spot with its vivid blue flowers, makes a tangy sauce. Wood sorrel is a superb garnish for fish dishes.

“Any chef turning to the hedgerow for inspiration could be baffled by the amount of potential food available,” Stephanie says.

“Wild Cook is all about the basics – it’s about finding the finest ingredients which are readily available in our hedgerows, rivers and moorlands. I want to share everything I know about foraging.”

Most of all, it’s fun. So next time you come to Yorkshire, bring your wellies, gardening gloves and a basket to discover a whole lot more than you’ll find in your local supermarket’s herb counter. www.yorkshire.com/growyourown

West Yorkshire Organic Group’s allotments in Keighley.

30

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

31

WELCOME TO YORKSHIRE

CITY & COUNTRY

Main picture: Leeds at night. Below: The National Media Museum, Bradford.

Opposite page clockwise from top left: Shopping in the Victoria Quarter, Leeds; picturesque Hebden Bridge; Huddersfield Festival of Light.

Whether you’re looking for vibrant city nightlife and irresistible shopping, quiet countryside, world-class museums, festivals and cultural events, or some of Britain’s most important industrial and architectural heritage, you’ll find it in West Yorkshire.

LEEDS HAS MADE A NAME FOR ITSELF as one of Britain’s most exciting cities for shopping, entertainment, eating and drinking, with Harvey Nichols setting the pace and dozens of tempting places to spend, spend, spend in the Victoria Quarter and around the city centre. It’s becoming a great place to buy vintage clothing and accessories in places such as Bird’s Yard, Leeds’s newest treasure-trove for vintage discoveries, and to find original works of art at places like the Artsmix markets. The city is a thriving cultural hub, with venues such as the Leeds Grand Theatre and Opera House, the Howard Assembly Room, and the West Yorkshire Playhouse, and is home to renowned ensembles including Opera North and Phoenix Dance. Northern Ballet, now in its new purpose-built home with six floors of performance and exhibition spaces, is yet another cultural magnet.

The new Leeds City Sightseeing bus makes it easy to take an array of attractions that includes the Royal Armouries, with its amazing collection of arms and armour through the ages, Leeds Art Gallery and Leeds City Museum. Over in Halifax, Eureka, the National Childrens’ Museum, has hundreds of exhibits to keep younger visitors fascinated.

32

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

The city’s nightlife is legendary, with venues such as the O2 Academy, The Cockpit, The Wardrobe, The Hop and Mojo bar playing host to live bands and fantastic themed nights. It’s a great place for foodies, too, with established favourites such as Anthony’s Restaurant and the Tiled Hall at Leeds Art Gallery, the contemporary luxury of the Fourth Floor Restaurant at Harvey Nichols, and Jamie’s Italian, TV chef Jamie Oliver’s first offering in northern England.

Then there’s Raymond Blanc’s Brasserie Blanc, reflecting the city’s industrial heritage in a unique Victorian architectural setting. Hansa – now in its 21st year as an independent eatery and still serving the finest Gujarati and Asian cuisine – is a landmark of cosmopolitan cuisine.

Bradford, the world’s first UNESCO City of Film, is home to the National Media Museum and hosts major film festivals.

Bradford’s cultural offers include the largest Mela in Europe and is Curry Capital of England 2011. Huddersfield, too, hosts eyeopening cultural events such as the Festival of Light, one of the UK’s most exciting festivals of street theatre, and the summer Food and Drink Festival, celebrating everything from performance cooking to real ales. Discover Saltaire, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, where Salts Mill is now home to one of the largest collections of works by Bradford-born Sir David Hockney and a venue for an ever-changing, always amazing calendar of exhibitions by worldclass artists. Meanwhile, superb restaurants such as the Box Tree in Ilkley – which helped launch the career of kitchen legend Marco Pierre White – and equally legendary traditional tearooms like Bettys in Harrogate maintain Yorkshire’s reputation for great food, lovingly presented.

More world-famous Yorkshire artists are celebrated at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park at Wakefield, where 500 acres of landscaped grounds provide a glorious setting for works by Henry Moore and Wakefield-born Barbara Hepworth. The big cultural news for 2011 will be the opening in May of the largest new gallery in the UK outside London, the long-awaited Hepworth Wakefield, in the outstanding setting of Wakefield’s historic waterfront. This exciting new gallery will bring together never-before-seen works

by Hepworth, works from the city’s art collection, exhibitions by world-famous artists, and will also feature national works from the Tate collection in London as part of the Tate Connect programme.

Proud of its heritage as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, Hebden Bridge

is now rated as one of the funkiest towns in Europe. Symbolic of its renaissance, Dean Clough has been transformed from the largest carpet mill in the world to a visitor attraction which includes one of Britain’s largest private art collections, the Design House Restaurant, the Viaduct Theatre and its own Dean Clough Cooking School.

The Piece Hall, a superb example of 18thcentury Georgian design, is home to dozens of independent shops and cafés, and 19thcentury Shibden Hall, set in landscaped parkland, is surrounded by woodland trails, water features and formal gardens.

It doesn’t take long to travel from West Yorkshire’s towns and cities to some of the prettiest countryside in England. Only a few miles from Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield lie the trim, stone-walled fields, woods and moorland of the Pennines, studded with postcard-pretty villages and market towns such as Holmfirth, with its year-round calendar of festivals dedicated to music, film and the arts, Hebden Bridge, which has become world-famous for its boutique shopping, and Haworth, where the Parsonage Museum keeps the flame of the Brontë sisters alive. Nearby, the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, with its vintage locomotives, carries visitors through beautiful countryside that many will remember from another much-loved Yorkshire story, The Railway Children. And for real fresh air and wide open spaces, the National Trust Marsden Moor Estate spreads across 6,000 acres of moorland, peaks and crags, easily accessed by public footpaths and the Pennine Way. West Yorkshire offers you city excitement, rural tranquillity, and an amazing natural and human heritage. Discover it now.

THE NEXT STEP www.yorkshire.com/destinations Tel: +44 (0) 113 322 3500 Email: info@yorkshire.com

33

YORKSHIRE PATRONS

A DAY IN THE LIFE

“ Yorkshire is a fantastic inspiration for me and for my work”

Some very different Yorkshire folk tell us how life in the county inspires their daily life - and share some of their favourite experiences.

Emma Stothard works from the grounds of Sneaton Castle, Whitby.

GET WEAVING FOR WILLOW SCULPTOR AND RESTAURATEUR EMMA STOTHARD the working day starts in a workshop in the grounds of Sneaton Castle, on the outskirts of Whitby. “The castle is in the beautiful grounds next to St Hilda’s Priory, which is the mother house of the Order of the Holy Paraclete, an Anglican religious community. My workshop is at the castle’s farm nearby, and I spend most of my day here, working in the former dairy block and tack room.”

“When I take a break from work or need some inspiration, I love to visit Danby Beacon – when you stand at the summit you feel like you are on top of the world, with stunning views of the valleys, the Moors and out towards the great North Sea.” She’s been inspired

by Yorkshire’s landscapes, wildlife and countryside ever since her childhood in Welwick, in East Yorkshire. While teacher training at Bretton Park, in the heart of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, helped to guide her towards becoming a sculptor.

You can see some of Emma’s work nearby, at the Danby Moors Visitor Centre, where a pair of giant otters commissioned by the North Yorkshire National Parks Authority stand guard, and a

34

collection of her new works can also be seen this summer at the Contemporary Sculpture exhibition at Newby Hall in Ripon. “Before I can sculpt with the willow withies they have to be soaked for up to 14 days to make them pliable, then a steel armature is welded ready for me to weave the willow around. I’ve made race horses and a Limousin bull, smaller pieces include dogs, pheasants, boxing hares and geese, and I also sculpt miniatures in mild steel wire and hallmarked solid silver wire.

“Yorkshire is a fantastic inspiration for me and for my work,” Emma says. “The countryside, moors and coast all feature, and I’m constantly inspired by my surroundings, from grouse and sheep on the moors to lobster and crabs landed on our quay in Whitby.”

Emma is more than a sculptor – she also runs the acclaimed Green’s Restaurant in Whitby with her husband Rob, where she exhibits some of her sculptures. “For lunch, it’s usually a sandwich on the go, or for a special treat a trip down to Green’s for some of the fantastic seafood that Whitby has to offer. Then it’s back to work – I’ll work into the evening in summer before catching up with my family at the end of the day.”

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

35

A LITTLE BIT OF HEAVEN FOR ARTIST CHRIS CZAINSKI, THE NORTH Sea coast near Staithes is the closest thing to paradise. “I must get moving because I don’t want to miss the delicious bread and pies for my picnic lunch from Richard, our local butcher.

“Then I pack my pie, my art materials and camping stool and set off along the shore – pausing to pick up my favourite Pontefract cakes from The Gift Shop on Staithes High Street.

“I’m heading for Port Mulgrave to collect fossils, driftwood – and, if I’m lucky, lumps of jet. On the way, I’ll watch in amazement the gliding flight of sooty-eyed fulmars, and perhaps encounter some students studying the remarkable local geology.

“After an hour or two of beachcombing, I’ll arrive at Port Mulgrave to run into Sean Baxter of Real Staithes in the middle of one of his guided explorations of the seashore with a lucky group of visitors already looking forward to their al fresco lobster lunch at his fisherman’s shelter. I’m jealous!

Sitting on the jetty, eating my pie and deciding what to paint today, I’m in my own little bit of heaven.

“As the light fades, I’ll finally walk up the cliff path to The Ship Inn in Port Mulgrave for tea and cakes, then return to Staithes along the Cleveland Way – maybe pausing to try to photograph the elusive sunset.”

SADDLE UP

Top: Chris Czainski in her Staithes studio. Above: Ellen Whitaker starts her working day early in Barnsley.

36

LIFE AS AN INTERNATIONAL SHOWjumping star may seem glamorous – but for Ellen Whitaker, from Barnsley, the working day starts early and finishes late. And every day among the horses on the family farm is a working day.

“Horses are high maintenance,” says Ellen. “You have to muck them out, feed them and exercise them. A day off is impossible.” When she’s not competing in showjumping events around the UK, Europe and worldwide, Ellen’s day at home starts at the crack of dawn, as she has to be ready to ride as early as 7am. So, not so glamorous after all then?

“My family are all quite good in the mornings, and the stable yard has a busy but fun atmosphere – we’ll be playing music, and there’s mugs of coffee on tap, and I’ll have had porridge for breakfast!”

By lunchtime, Ellen will have ridden at least seven of her horses, each of which needs different levels of training and exercise.

Lunch is soup, salad or an omelette.

“We live in beautiful countryside, and I may go for an afternoon walk or go to the gym.

I ride at least six hours every day, so I’m fit for the saddle, but I like to be even fitter so I can tackle everyday physical work around the yard. The whole Whitaker family sits

“ We live in beautiful countryside, and I may go for an aternoon walk or go to the nm” down together for dinner, Ellen says. “Our meat, poultry and eggs come from our own livestock.” Surprisingly for someone who’s up early every morning for a hard day’s work, she’s not an early to bed person.

“I’m not usually concerned about getting an early night – I’m not a great sleeper!”

ROCK ON! ANOTHER EARLY RISER IS EUROPEAN champion climber Leah Crane, who is usually up and away while most of us are still thinking about our first cuppa.

“I usually get up around 6.30am which means breakfast usually gets missed out, or it’s a slice of toast on the run,” says the Yorkshire-born climbing coach and freelance route-setter.

“When I arrive it’s straight to work, and finishing usually around 5pm. Then I’ll train – involving lots of climbing in general and strength exercises - if I’m not coaching on the climbing wall in the evening.

“Across the road from the climbing wall where I train and coach is a pub that does amazing Thai food so as long as I haven’t been working there too long I sometimes go in there to eat – otherwise it’s straight home to bed!” Leah has been climbing since she was three years old, and although she has collected some of the toughest routes in Europe, Yorkshire’s crags and boulders are still among her favourites.

“Yorkshire was a place I visited early in my climbing career, and I returned often, especially to Malham Cove, where top British climber Steve McClure made landmark achievements and the climbs then attracted some of the world’s best climbers.

“The bouldering in Yorkshire is absolutely outstanding. Kilnsey is my favourite crag for climbing – it’s really close to the road so it’s never a mission to get to. Just down the road is a farmer’s field you can camp in next to the river. It’s a really relaxed atmosphere in Yorkshire – I love it!”

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

37

CITY LIFE

The Golden Age

For Andrea Simpson, manager of House of Avalon, York’s newest clothing and café emporium, the 1950s is the classic decade.

“I’ve always liked anything old-fashioned, but for me the favourite time is the 1950s, when the world was coming out of the doom and gloom of the war and the austerity years,” she says.

“We concentrate on clothing from the 1910s to the 1950s, and each piece is carefully selected to ensure quality and value. Wherever possible, we research the garment to bring it to life for the buyer, so that you are not just buying an article of clothing, you are buying a piece of fashion history.”

38

LIVING THE DREAM Anyone who loves the vintage look will admit that living the dream is part of the appeal of retro dressing, and it seems that everyone has their favourite decade. Just ask the hundreds of people who dress up to the nines to visit vintage events like the 1940s weekend held every year in Pickering, or the 1940s and 1960s celebrations that have made Haworth a magnet for sartorial time travellers. With swing bands, American GIs in snappy uniforms, sharp-suited spivs and vintage vehicles, these events are a real blast from the past.

The Haworth 1940s Weekend www.haworth1940s.co.uk © The Avalon Group

For Caroline Brown, the 1930s hold the greatest appeal. Caroline opened The House of Rose and Brown four years ago, and after a re-fit and re-jig her shop – which is sited, appropriately enough, within the UNESCO World Heritage Site at Saltaire in West Yorkshire – looks fresh, lovely and full of beautiful things, from the 1900s to the 1980s.

“For me, the 1930s was a time of feminine elegance and Hollywood glamour,” says Caroline. “Bette Davis is my ultimate heroine, and I would kill for anything that she wore.”

House of Rose and Brown sources great stuff for men and women, and as Caroline points out, it’s not just about frocks.

Accessories for men and women are among her hottest items.

“We recently found some Young Blades men’s ties from the 1960s that were really eye-popping, and classic cufflinks are back in demand too.”

weddings because they want something different,” Keeley says. “There is a sense that no-one else will have the same dress as them, but it’s also an ethically sound thing to do. You’re recycling something pre-loved, and if you don’t have a huge amount of money to spend you can buy dresses from £50 up to £600.”

Over in Hull, Chinese Laundry Vintage Clothing Boutique stocks East Yorkshire’s largest selection of ’60s, ’70s and ’80s clothing. Unique garments and accessories are handpicked from across Europe, USA and Japan so you’re sure to find something whatever your style.

With interest in the vintage look exploding, Yorkshire’s classic clothing boutiques seem to be ahead of the trend.

But remember: their stock in trade is irreplaceable. Virtually every item is one of a kind – so if you’re looking to snap up anything from a satin ’50s wedding dress to a pair of snappy cufflinks, the time to start shopping is now.

Pickering 1940s Wartime Weekend www.north-york-moors.com/pickering-1940s

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW Meanwhile, Keeley Harris is bringing a vintage twist to wedding days. Keeley opened her Discover Vintage store in Harrogate in 2009, selling unique homewares as well as clothing and accessories. It quickly proved such a hit that last year she branched out to launch the UK’s first vintage wedding fair.

“We were getting more and more people who were going to vintage-themed weddings, and I realised there could be quite a big market,” she says. Brides to be are going for wedding dresses from the ’40s, ’60s and ’70s – and in these penny-wise, pound-conscious times, classic dressing for that special occasion makes sense, as well as adding a unique sense of style.

“People are moving towards vintage

Clockwise from top left: Discover Vintage has an array of vintage bridalwear; House of Avalon stocks clothing from the 1910s to the 1950s; Rose and Brown boutique; Rose and Brown stock accessories and homeware as well as clothing; House of Avalon; Rose and Brown is situated within the UNESCO World Heritage Site at Saltaire; pop into House of Avalon’s café for a teatime treat; House of Avalon in York.

GET THE LOOK House of Avalon York www.thehouseofavalon.org.uk House of Rose and Brown Saltaire www.roseandbrownvintage.co.uk Rose & Co Haworth and Leeds www.rose-apothecary.co.uk Discover Vintage Harrogate www.discovervintage.co.uk Chinese Laundry Vintage Clothing Boutique Hull www.chinese-laundry.co.uk

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

© The Avalon Group

AMERICAN GRAFFITI

HOLLYWOOD GLAMOUR

© The Avalon Group

D

uring my student years, my favourite items of clothing were inherited from my great-uncle Jim, who despite being an outwardly respectable Edinburgh solicitor was also something of an Edwardian dandy.

I wore his silk-lapelled frock coat and waistcoat until they finally fell apart. When I finally had to bid farewell to student life – goodbye ragged flares, velvet jackets and rancid afghan coats, and welcome to suit, collar, tie and the working week – I hung on to some shred of individuality by acquiring my suits not from the High Street, but from charity shops where natty whistles from the ’40s and ’50s could be picked up for a song.

As I discovered, I’m not alone in my fondness for the look of yesteryear. But the new wave of vintage fashion stores are a world away from the old breed of mothball-scented secondhand shops.

Now, it’s all about hand-picked classic quality and clothes and accessories that make a statement and tell a story.

© The Avalon Group

Vintage fashion has never been more popular, and Yorkshire boasts some of the best places to find retro clothes and accessories from foppish Edwardian days, the sharp-suited 1940s, the dawn of rock and roll or the ’70s heyday of disco. Robin Gauldie goes in search of some classic threads and meets some of the people behind Yorkshire’s favourite vintage fashion boutiques.

39

OUTDOORS

Maecenas quis turpis libero.

BRONTË IN LOVE

© Bruce Rollinson, Yorkshire Post

© Bruce Rollinson, Yorkshire Post

Like Charlotte Brontë herself, Sarah Freeman finds much more to Haworth than meets the eye.

Q

uintessentially English, with its cobbled streets, rows of tea shops and quaint stone cottages, the home of one of English literature’s most famous families has been dubbed the jewel in the crown of the Worth Valley with good reason. It may be just a few miles away from the cities of Leeds and Bradford, but to visit there is to step back in time. Hours can easily be lost browsing its independent shops and the shadow cast by the Brontë sisters is never far away, but the story of Haworth is richer than any afternoon tea.

Wind back 150 years or so and this small town was an industrial hub in Yorkshire’s booming textile industry. It was against this backdrop of mills and factories, which each day belched out smoke and noxious fumes, that Charlotte and her sisters retreated into their imaginary worlds and it was in the bare rooms of Haworth Parsonage that their writing careers began.

In the intervening years, so much has been written about the Brontës and with their novels having undergone countless adaptations for stage, film and television, it’s tempting to wonder whether there is anything left to say about the sisters. However, it’s in Haworth that their own story really comes to life and for those prepared to dig a little deeper, the myths which have for so long surrounded the Brontës are soon shattered.

Displaying some of Charlotte’s childhood journals where, in the tiniest of handwriting, she penned torrid romances and developed a dangerous obsession with her fictional hero, the mad, bad and dangerous to know Duke of Zamorna, the museum is a good starting point for any visitor. The rooms have been preserved much as the family left them, and it’s impossible to leave without feeling a little closer to the creator of Jane Eyre, who was far from the repressed and dutiful parson’s daughter she is so often portrayed as.

Here was a woman who rejected three proposals of marriage - one from a man she had known for only a couple of hours - determined that she would eventually find true love and escape the confines of the parsonage. But Charlotte was also a woman who ended up emotionally broken by two passionate affairs - one

40

© Bruce Rollinson, Yorkshire Post

Clockwise from top left: The museum’s rooms have been kept as the family left them; the Brontës’ writing careers began at Haworth Parsonage 150 years ago; Haworth village in West Yorkshire; retracing Brontë’s steps.

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

with a married father-of-six - and who saw her childhood dreams of romance finally extinguished when, on June 29, 1854, she walked into her father’s church and of her own free will married a man she didn’t love.

Charlotte’s secret courtship with her future husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, was carried out on the moors above her home and no visit to Haworth is complete without immersing a little in the landscape.

There’s something starkly beautiful about the rugged moorland and with the countryside largely unchanged, claims of being able to follow in the footsteps of the Brontës are not overblown.

Admittedly, the unpredictable climate sometimes makes it possible to experience all four seasons in the space of an hour, but personally, I’m a firm believer that a few spots of rain or the

“ There’s something starkly beautiful about the rugged moorland and with the countryside largely unchanged, claims of being able to follow in the footsteps of the Brontës are not overblown.” occasional gust of wind only add to the atmosphere. However, for those who prefer their sight-seeing a little more sedate, a trip on the nearby Keighley and Worth Valley Railway is a gentler way to see the landscape that infused much of the Brontë sisters’ work.

Like Shakespeare’s Stratford and Wordsworth’s Lake District, Brontë Country conjures up images in the minds of people who have never even been there, but seeing it firsthand is something truly special.

The greatest and, at times, most tragic love story Charlotte never told was her own, and a visit to Haworth is living proof of the everlasting imprint she left on the world.

41

OUTDOORS

FLAVOURS OF YORKSHIRE

SAY CHEESE

The Golden Coast

Shepherd’s Purse cheeses compare with the best in the world, says Robin Gauldie.

When it comes to natural wonders, Yorkshire is particularly gifted.

Along with the county’s three national parks, there’s another natural blessing that can sometimes be overlooked – our wonderful coast.

I

Flamborough Head, East Yorkshire

S

ay ‘Yorkshire coast’ and what springs to mind may well be seaside resorts like Scarborough, Filey and Bridlington with their soft, clean sands, rock shops and ice cream parlours.

Yet much of the coastline in these parts boasts a spectacular rugged beauty. It’s a primeval landscape where North Sea rollers explode against Jurassic cliffs to carve caves, giant stacks and secret coves. And there’s nowhere quite like it.

Make your way down at low tide and you can spend many a fascinating hour exploring the sea caves and caverns. And the kids will adore dinosaur hunting in the fossil-rich rocks.

The coastal walkways are equally remarkable. Take Flamborough Head, the rocky headland that ploughs into the North Sea near Bridlington. There’s a splendid 2-mile walk here to the iconic white brick lighthouse (climb the spiral staircase to the lamp room – the views are dizzying!).

If you have the kids with you, take the path down to the sea and let them play amongst the rock pools. The crystal clean pools are teeming with crabs and starfish.

42

Or take yourself on a bracing walk along Bempton chalk cliffs – at over 650 feet, they’re Britain’s highest. The place is a world-famous seabird colony, and the skies are filled with puffins, gannets and guillemots. It’s an astonishing sight, and the RSPB is developing a National Seabird Centre there to make birdwatching even more accessible.

For another out of this world experience, head off to the eerily enchanting Spurn Point. This unique hooked finger of sand and shingle sweeps across the mouth of the Humber into the North Sea. At 5km long but a mere 50m wide at times, it’s a ghostly wilderness and a National Nature Reserve with a weird beauty all of its own. Head for the deserted lighthouse at the fingertip and visit the RNLI lifeboat station.

And then there are the mini-resorts like Hornsea and Withernsea, quaint traditional places with a time-forgotten charm all of their own – not to mention bustling fishing villages clinging to plunging coastlines like Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay. Discover for yourself the many riches the Yorkshire coast has to offer.

COASTAL MUSTS Scarborough A perennial family favourite. With its famous castle overlooking the twin bays.

Filey

like a little bit of sugar in my tea but – unlike most of my Caledonian compatriots – I don’t have a sweet tooth.

It’s a shame, but puddings, no matter how delightful, are wasted on me.

But give me a straight run at the cheese board, and it’s a different matter. Hard, crumbly or runny, seamed with blue veins, from old-fashioned orange mousetrap on toast to fresh-made organic feta from the udders of Cretan ewes… yes, I like a bit of cheese.

And cheese is one of the things at which Yorkshire has always excelled, and nowhere more so than at Shepherd’s Purse, where Judy Bell started making traditional cheeses by hand on her kitchen table in the 1980s.

Since then, she’s been a pioneer of the real food revolution, winning a string of foodie awards for a dozen or more great cheeses. You can savour them from the menus of some of Yorkshire’s best restaurants, enjoy them as part of a superb ploughman’s lunch in a great gastropub, or just do what I did – which was to buy some slivers of Judy’s signature Yorkshire Blue, and (for variety) Katy’s White Lavender and (for novelty) a bit of Buffalo Blue. I’d already invested in some fresh-baked bread; I was all set for a taste test, all by myself in the Yorkshire countryside.

The perfect picnic.

And it was perfect. It’s not often that I use the word piquant, but that’s what comes to mind as I bite into the first of my chosen slices. And they just go on getting tastier and more complex. I’m looking at a great view, I’ve got a great cheese-based picnic here.

If only I’d thought to bring a mini-bottle of Port. But then again – there’s dinner and the cheese board to look forward to.

You’ll love the friendly atmosphere of this Edwardian English seaside town.

Whitby A pristine blue flag beach dominated by the cliff-top ruins of Whitby Abbey.

Robin Hood’s Bay

WHO ATE ALL THE PIES? It was Frank Partridge.

As a sports journalist and broadcaster, I’ve eaten my share. In fact, I may have eaten the editor’s share as well – he was probably getting two pints of Black Sheep in at the time.

T

his is not your normal, run-of-the-mill pie as sold from a myriad of vans outside England’s favourite sports venues.

Yes, the Doncaster-based Topping Pie Company turns out some of the classics. Its chicken and ham pie comprises layers of pork, cooked ham, chicken breast and yet another layer of pork, all encased in a pastry crust that keeps all those flavours sealed in. The Topping Pie Company pushes the pastry envelope with so much more: apricot and poultry, pork, duck and guinea fowl, game, nut and cherry. Not to mention more exotic offerings like salmon, broccoli and dill quiche. How creative are these guys? And what should I choose?

But it isn’t a hard decision. I am, after all, in Yorkshire. I could opt for the award-winning, deeply traditional Yorkshire Farmer’s Pie – a rich crust encasing pork, chunks of ham, and chicken marinated in a wholegrain honey mustard. And after sampling a slice, I’m very tempted. In its heavyweight version – weighing in at a hefty 2.4kg (that’s over 5 lbs) – this would be the perfect centrepiece for a summer picnic lunch while watching the racing at Doncaster or listening to the summer cricket sounds of willow on leather.

But today, I’m on my own, and I’m going for the sportsman’s pie by which all others must be judged: the not so humble steak pie. And what a pie this is: hot, savoury, chunks of real meat, gravy that threatens to dribble down my shirt front, all in a shell of thick pastry that manages that oh-so-difficult balance between crisp and deliciously soggy. If only all pies could be like this…

Twisting, turning cobbled streets fall away to the sea of this once smuggler’s paradise.

Runswick Bay Red-roofed cottages, sheltered from the winds by the crag of Lingrow Knowle, cascade down the cliffs to the seafront.

Bridlington Surrounded by wide promenades and backed by the impressive Flamborough Cliffs.

For more great beaches go to: www.yorkshire.com/beaches

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

43

ARTISTIC

Christian Calling Dr Who, Ricky Gervais and beef burgers!

It’s all in a day’s work for Leeds actor Christian Cooke as Carolyn Nicoll finds out.

44

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

45

Clockwise from top left: Christian in Channel 4’s The Promise; co-starring with Life on Mars star Philip Glenister in ITV’s Vampire drama Demons; starring as Freddie Taylor in Ricky Gervais’ and Stephen Merchant’s feature film Cemetery Junction; behind the scenes at Demons.

C

“in Yorkshire you do get to see the views, the fantastic countryside …AND the horizon!”

arolyn caught up with the 23-year-old star of Channel 4’s The Promise, a new 4-part drama that sees Christian and Claire Foy (Little Dorrit) in the lead parts.

auditions and appeared in a couple of Birds Eye adverts. Actually I was supposed to appear in more, but we only ended up shooting two. Perhaps they didn’t sell many beef burgers!” (laughs)

This story of war looks back from the present day, bringing to life diary recordings and recreating the drama experienced by soldiers and civilians in what was then Palestine, with the focus on the post-WWII British peace-keeping force. Depicting the complexities of life in a troubled land and the disturbing truths and atrocities witnessed in the 1940s, it traces Christian’s character Len and his steps on a heart-breaking journey. It is written and directed by BAFTA winner Peter Kosminsky.

The big break came at the age of 12 when Christian landed the role of Luke Kirkwall in the Yorkshire-set ITV drama Where The Heart Is. Six years and seven series later, the parts just kept coming, with roles in Casualty, The Chase, The Royal, Robin Hood, Echo Beach, Demons and Dr Who, amongst others.

“ I’ve seen Peter’s films and I love his work, so this really was a fantastic experience for me,” explains Christian. “I’m a big fan of his style of directing. Peter studied chemistry at Oxford and filmmaking is a real science to him. He oversees every decision and is just great with the actors. Peter’s a director I really wanted to work with, and if I had a tick list, which I don’t (laughs)… I’d be able to ‘tick him off’!”

What have been your favourite roles to date? “ Probably my last three parts that I played in The Promise, Cemetery Junction and Break The Fall. Break The Fall’s set for release anytime. It’s a Newcastle-based drama and I’d describe it as a dark psychological thriller.”

The Promise was filmed in various locations across Israel, a bit of a difference from your previous film and TV sets?

After growing up in Yorkshire, work has meant a move for Christian from his home county.

“ It didn’t feel that different to me as an actor, but from a production point of view there are things to consider, you’re filming in a different country, and languages and cultures have to be taken into consideration, but it all seemed to go really well.

Plus we filmed from February to May, and although we had some really hot days, it was absolutely fine. Any later and the heat may have been unbearable”.

“ I’m living in Clapham, London and have done for nearly four years.

I absolutely love it but I do visit Yorkshire regularly to see my family and if there’s one thing I miss in London it’s the countryside.

Somebody said to me the other day that when you’re in London you rarely see the horizon, you can just often see to the end of the street, and that made me think. They’re right, in Yorkshire you do get to see the views, the fantastic countryside…AND the horizon!”

Christian Cooke is fast becoming a big name, following on from last year’s lead in Ricky Gervais’ and Stephen Merchant’s fabulous, hilarious and heart-warming ’70s comedy Cemetery Junction. After the award-winning duo’s huge hit TV series’ The Office and Extras, Cemetery Junction is retro indulgence at its very best, a must-see, and Christian’s first feature film.

How has Yorkshire influenced your choice of career?

“ They were just amazing to work with,” enthuses Christian with a grin. “The most fun I’ve ever had on set. Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant are both real visionaries and the whole experience was so enjoyable. Everything that appears in their productions is completely intentional, right down to the last detail.

They are absolute masters at what they do. I’ve only great things to say about them. They are humble and down to earth and just great to be around.”

Born and raised in Leeds, Christian attended St Mary’s School in Menston and got into acting at the tender age of ten. “ I went to Stage 84 in Idle, Bradford and studied drama with them for five years. I was very shy when I started, but the improvisation and roleplay that we did helped a lot and gave me confidence.

I knew from my experiences there that I loved acting and didn’t want to even consider doing anything else. I went for some

46

“ Dr Who was great fun,” Christian reminisces. “David Tennant is such a nice guy and we really hit it off. I must admit I’d never been into Doctor Who and not really watched it before, but people go absolutely crazy for it.”

yorkshire.com

“ The training and guidance I received at Stage 84 convinced me that acting was all I wanted to do. I’ve also filmed in Yorkshire for Where the Heart Is, The Royal and The Chase (created and executive produced by Leeds’ Kay Mellor) and all of those experiences with crew and actors have helped me to get to where I am today.”

And your future plans? “ The Promise and Break the Fall are my most recent projects and there are a few films that are at the early discussion stages. It’s all very exciting, but nothing’s too mapped out.”

What would be a typical ‘day off’ for Christian Cooke? “ I’d probably go to the gym, meet up with friends, go to auditions and prepare for meetings. I also play football and I’ve just joined a local team. I also love watching films and reading.”

How would you sum up your life at the moment?

“It’s pretty hectic!!!!!!”

Channel 4’s four-part drama The Promise will be broadcast on Channel 4, February 2011.

47

HERITAGE

Green Fingers We meet the people who keep Yorkshire’s green heritage alive, from the grand landscaped grounds of historic stately homes to public green spaces and prize-winning gardens.

This page: Head Gardener, Brian Deighton at Castle Howard takes us on a journey through his beloved garden.

TOP TIPS TO GROWING YOUR OWN 1. Grow tomatoes in grow-bags which are cut in half and turned on their ends to make pots – they’ll be easier to maintain and it promotes stronger roots.

2. Beetroot loves well fertilised soil, rich in organic matter. This means lots of compost (multipurpose or homemade) dug into the soil.

RHUBARB AND CUSTARD Winner of Welcome to Yorkshire’s 2010 White Rose Awards for Best Large Visitor Attraction and Sustainable Tourism, The Royal Horticultural Society’s Harlow Carr Garden is a 58-acre oasis of sweeping lawns, woodland, flower meadows, water gardens and colourful borders.

Its newest and quirkiest attraction is the Welcome to Yorkshire Rhubarb Crumble and Custard Garden, winner of a Silver Award at the 2010 RHS Chelsea Flower Show and now a permanent fixture at Harlow Carr. With its splashes of yellow sedums (the custard) and giant wooden spoon, it’s an imaginative take on some Yorkshire icons.

“Creating it was hard work, but definitely good fun,” says Tom Walker, one of the team of four at Leeds-based Gillespies Landscape Architects who were commissioned by Welcome to Yorkshire to design the garden.

Tom and his colleagues Kate Dundas, John MacCleary and Simon Hall came up with the idea of a garden that would celebrate some of Yorkshire’s favourite tastes.

“We usually work on large schemes, so it was fun to get involved in the razzamatazz of Chelsea. We always wanted it to be a

48

garden that had a life beyond Chelsea, so it’s great that it has ended up somewhere as delightful as Harlow Carr. And it can be around for as long as anyone wants it.”

Tom and his colleagues are also designers of the new Bradford City Park, which opens in summer 2011.

“That’s a really wonderful project that is creating a new public square and park right in the centre of Bradford and will be a huge new asset for the city,” he says.

For Katherine Musgrove, leader of the floral team at RHS Harlow Carr, each season brings a different set of tasks.

“Winter is a time for taking stock and seeing what we need to repair or replace, but a crisp winter day with frost and coloured foliage can also be very photogenic,” she says. “Late summer is for editing the borders, taking time to step back and imagine what they will look like in the following year. I love the spring, when the 200,000 bulbs that we plant each year come up and the grounds are full of snowdrops, tulips, daffodils and lots more.

“But the garden just looks absolutely magnificent at any time of year, and it inspires visitors to come back and see what we have planted from season to season.”

3. Make sure you water your carrots well in dry weather, start thinning when the leaves are large enough to handle and remember that carrots need to grow 1-2 inches apart.

NATURAL BALANCE “Living and working on the estate, your home life and work life are entwined, but in a good way,” says Jeremy Palmer, head gardener at Burton Agnes Hall and Garden.

“It’s a ten-second walk to work, and when the visitors leave at the end of the day my children can go out into the gardens that are right outside their door.”

Susan Cunliffe-Lister, who managed Burton Agnes on behalf of her son Simon until he took over the running of the Hall and gardens in 2006, has transformed Burton Agnes Hall’s grounds into a thriving visitor attraction. In 2001 she was voted Country Life magazine’s Gardener of the Year, and, in 2005, the walled garden which she created won the Historic Houses Association/Christies Garden of the Year award. Manicured lawns and topiary ewe bushes surround the Hall, and the walled garden contains a maze, giant board games (chess, draughts, noughts and crosses, snakes and ladders), a jungle garden, a national collection of campanulas and more than 4,000 species of plants.

The estate has always remained in the same family, and Simon can trace his ancestry back to the original inhabitant of the Norman manor house, which was built

yorkshire.com

4. Harvesting your lettuce at the right time is important for flavour and texture. Leave it too long and it will be bitter and tough. Harvesting should commence about 80 days after planting with seeds and about 60 days if using seedlings.

5. Courgettes are best suited to a sunny but sheltered part of your garden with well drained soil. They are so easy to grow as long as you keep watering them.

around 1170 and stands beside the Hall.

The 3,000 acres of woodland, grazing pastures and arable farm land lie on the southern edge of the Yorkshire Wolds, five miles inland from the stretching sands of the Holderness coast.

Maintaining the gardens is a yearround task for Jeremy Palmer and his team of three full-time and three part-time gardeners.

“I enjoy March and April most of all,” Jeremy says. “Things are emerging, we’re coming out of winter and there’s all summer to look forward to. For a head gardener, it’s the best time of year.”

As well as tending the decorative aspects of the gardens, Jeremy and his team are busy increasing the yield from their vegetable gardens.

“The long-term aim is that most of the produce that is served in our café in summer will be grown on the spot and fresh-picked that morning,” he says.

“We hope in the long run to be almost self-sufficient, at least in terms of fruit and vegetables that can be grown in this country.”

Burton Agnes does not claim that its produce is organic, but Jeremy’s team aim to use the minimum of chemical aids.

“Within reason, we try not to use any pesticides at all,” he says. “We have a natural balance that I don’t want to disturb – we have very few slugs and snails because

Left: Burton Agnes.

Bottom: The Welcome to Yorkshire Rhubarb Crumble & Custard Garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2010. Above right: The pretty colours of Yorkshire’s gardens.

the wild birds keep the pests under control, and that more than compensates for any fruit or vegetables that birds may take.”

GROW YOUR OWN Over at one of Yorkshire’s best known stately homes, vegetable growing is at its most popular since the war years and gardening expert John Foxton is sharing his expertise with a growing number of visitors who want to learn how to grow their own fresh fruit and vegetables.

“Vegetable growing is more popular than ever before,” says John, who is the plant centre manager at Castle Howard in North Yorkshire, where his ‘Grow Your Way to 5 A Day’ course has been running every summer since 2008 and is more popular every year.

He believes that for many the motivation is much more than saving money, it is as much about rediscovering our connection with nature.

“People might initially enrol on the course to save some money on feeding their family fresh fruit and vegetables,” reports John. “But the peace of mind and satisfaction they come away with far outweighs the financial gains for many. The wonderful feeling of serving up food you’ve grown yourself is addictive, as is the sense of well-being.”

The course runs on the first and third Tuesday of each month from March until July, with a follow up session in September to see how everyone has got on. Although open to all, the evening start time of 7.15 pm means that his course attracts a lot of busy working people. John says: “They tell me that they love the contrast of being outside in the fresh air compared to spending all day in the office.”

John, who has worked at Castle Howard since 1977, enjoys sharing his experience and knowledge with others. His courses include practical demonstrations and he uses plots which represent what most people have at home. John will show that vegetables can be grown in window boxes, planters and grow-bags and not just in huge vegetable patches or allotments.

INSPIRING JOURNEYS Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal is one of the stars of Jarvis Cocker’s National Trust: The Album, released in 2010 and featuring natural sounds from a number of National Trust properties around the UK. Track nine is a recording of birdsong in the Studley Royal Water Garden.

50

“ They tell me that they love the contrast of being outside in the fresh air compared to spending all day in the office.”

“It’s not meant to be listened to intently, like a piece of music, but more as something to have on in the background to aid relaxation or contemplation,” says the Sheffield-born Pulp frontman.

“I hope it has the feel of a continuous journey and conjures up an image in the mind’s eye of the places featured. I also hope it could inspire the listener to visit sites like Studley Royal for themselves.”

JOURNEY OF REDISCOVERY Spectacularly colourful national collections of rhododendrons, camellias and magnolias, and rare formal gardens are being rediscovered at Wentworth Castle Gardens, in Barnsley.

More than £17 million has been spent so far on the restoration of the estate, with its 50 acres of gardens and 500 acres of parkland. More than 100,000 bulbs have been planted across Wentworth’s gardens to create a dazzling spread of colour in spring and summer.

Wentworth is one of Yorkshire’s leading attractions, with more than 20 monuments, follies and other buildings adorning the grounds that surround the stately home itself.

In 2010, the ongoing restoration won Wentworth the latest of a string of awards, as Country Life magazine’s Restoration Project of the Century for the north of England.

Download our Gardens App at yorkshire.com/gardens or pick up a copy of our Gardens guide.

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

51

SPORT

OLYMPIC DREAMS Frank Partridge speaks to Yorkshire’s Olympic hopefuls about the highs and lows on the road to London 2012.

I

It’s nearly six years since the president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, opened an envelope in Singapore and uttered the unforgettable words – pausing here and there for extra effect:

“ The Olympic Games of 2012…have been awarded…to the city of… …LONDON!” The result was greeted with shrieks of both excitement and surprise: excitement because staging an Olympics happens once in a lifetime; surprise, because Paris had been the clear favourite.

Among the jubilant members of the London team, led by Sebastian Coe, there was surely some trepidation too, because back then most of the Olympic venues were no more than artists’ impressions, and the site was a dreary tract of industrial wasteland in Stratford, far from the capital’s hot-spots. They had seven years to get their act together.

How different it all looks now, with the dramatic outlines of bright new stadiums soaring above Europe’s biggest construction site. Suddenly, the Olympics are almost upon us - and for thousands of athletes driven by the dream of taking part, there’s only one more season of competition left.

A year ago we picked out a handful of Yorkshire-based sportsmen and women tipped to do Britain proud at the Games.

How have they fared over the past 12 months, and what shape are they in for a tilt at an Olympic medal?

“ MY CAREER OUTSIDE BOXING IS ON HOLD. I AM TARGETING ONE THING AND THAT IS A GOLD MEDAL IN 2012.”

Nicola Adams, flyweight boxer, Leeds

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

53

Leading from the front is Jessica Ennis , the golden girl of British athletics who once again left all-comers trailing in 2010. At the World Indoor Championships in Doha, Sheffield-born Jessica had to complete all five pentathlon disciplines in one day – and finished with a new points record for the event, as well as captaining the British team to a haul of 19 gold medals. Her main summer outing was the heptathlon at the European Championships in Barcelona, where she collected another gold and was memorably described

by Linford Christie as ‘a little box of TNT’. Off the track, Jessica appeared on TV gameshows, threw herself into charity work and was awarded an Honorary Degree by the University of Sheffield for her contribution to sport. Not a bad twelve months.

It’s hard to imagine this exceptional athlete not winning the heptathlon gold in London next August, but Jessica knows that nothing in life – and especially in athletics - can be taken for granted. In 2008, a serious injury forced her out of the Beijing Olympics at the eleventh hour, and she had to watch the games from the sofa at home, wondering ‘What if?’

Several other Yorkshire Olympic hopefuls can take inspiration from Jessica’s sofa-to-podium comeback after experiencing years they’d rather forget. Among a group of Yorkshire athletes struck down by injury or illness, the swimmer Joanne Jackson probably suffered most. In March 2009 she broke the world record in the 400m freestyle and went on to win a brace of silver medals at the World Championships. Then came a debilitating series of setbacks,

Image courtesy of Marketing Sheffield. © David Short

“ THE WORLD’S BEST FACILITIES FOR A ROAD CYCLIST.”

“ IT’S BEEN A REALLY TOUGH YEAR FOR ME, BUT IT’S MADE ME A LOT MORE DETERMINED FOR NEXT YEAR AND I’LL BE FIGHTING FOR THAT PODIUM POSITION.”

David Stone, paralympic cyclist, Leeds

involuntary movements, a bop to my walk, a uniqueness to my speech and enhances my existence.”

Last season David added two World Championship gold medals to his impressive CV, but he knows not to take anything for granted.

During the winter you might have seen him out training in the Dales, which he describes as “the world’s best facilities for a road cyclist”.

“Yes, it can be hard to get out on the cold days,” David admits, “but I just keep my mind focused on what I’m working towards.”

If any of Yorkshire’s injury-stricken Olympic hopefuls lose sight of the prize in London next August, David Stone’s life-long battle against adversity will surely lift their spirits – even on the darkest, coldest days.

Joanne Jackson, 400m freestyle swimmer, Richmond including asthma attacks, chest infections and sinus trouble.

Returning to competition last August, Joanne failed to qualify for the final of the European Championships, and fell ill again at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

In the circumstances, fifth place in the 200m freestyle and a bronze in the 200m relay was a respectable return: “I always said that if there was going to be a year for what’s happened, this was the one,” says the 23-year-old from Richmond, who’s been prescribed with a new medication for her allergies. “It’s been a really tough year for me, but it’s made me a lot more determined for next year and I’ll be fighting for that podium position.”

It’s been a similar tale of woe for Alistair Brownlee , the Leedsbased 22-year-old who’s a genuine medal hope in the triathlon.

Alistair won the 2009 World Championship but suffered a stress fracture in his femur last year and missed months of training. When he returned to competition in July, he woke up in hospital after a road race in London, wondering what on earth he was doing there.

It turned out that he’d suffered acute heat exhaustion, which led to the loss of his title and a serious rethink about his training methods.

Alistair did make a speedy recovery, and won the final race of the season, so there’s still plenty to play for: “2010 hasn’t been a complete disaster but hopefully I’ve learnt stuff and will do things differently next year. Mainly not getting injured!”

54

Flyweight boxer Nicola Adams hopes her health worries are well behind her now, after suffering a back injury in 2009 that halted her progress for six months. When the pain was at its worst, she was unable to get out of bed for a month.

Nicola, from Leeds, had made history in 2007 when she became the first English female boxer to win a major medal (silver at the European Championships) and the selectors showed faith in her last year by giving her a place in the pre-Olympic squad, training alongside her male counterparts at the Sheffield Institute of Sport. She repaid them by winning a silver medal at the World Championships in Barbados, and her sights are now firmly set on London: “My career outside boxing is on hold. I am targeting one thing and that is a gold medal in 2012.”

David Stone is going one better than that – targeting two gold medals, in the cycling Time Trial and Road Race at the Paralympic Games. That was what he achieved in Beijing, and he was later awarded an MBE for overcoming so triumphantly the cerebral palsy that’s afflicted him from birth. He says the condition “causes

Yorkshire Gold, part of Welcome to Yorkshire works to ensure Yorkshire and Humber benefit from London 2012. www.yorkshire-gold.com

Clockwise from top left: David Stone, paralympic cyclist, Leeds; Jessica Ennis, pentathlete, Sheffield; Nicola Adams, flyweight boxer, Leeds; Jessica Ennis inspiring children at EIS Sheffield; Alistair Brownlee, triathlete, Leeds.

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

Each of the featured athletes has access to Yorkshire’s world-class training and sports medicine facilities, which will host a number of UK and international teams as Pre Games Training Camps. The British diving, table tennis, boxing and volleyball teams will be based in Sheffield, and the city will also host teams from the US (diving), Serbia (athletics) and Brazil (judo). The Dutch swimming team will be limbering up in Leeds, and two West African nations, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, will complete their training in York.

Other Olympic squads are expected to follow them to Yorkshire.

Gary Verity, the Chairman of Yorkshire Gold, believes the potential benefits to the county are immense: “The training camps already signed will generate at least £2.5m for Yorkshire’s economy, and the camps will raise the profile of the county’s world-class sporting facilities. Our aim is to play a crucial part in what will be the greatest show on earth.”

55

GETTING HERE

WHITBY

Whichever part of Britain you’re coming from, getting to Yorkshire by rail, road, sea or air couldn’t be easier – and the journey takes you through some of our most stunning scenery on the way.

GUISBOROUGH

RICHMOND

YORKSHIRE DALES

NORTH YORK MOORS

REETH NORTHALLERTON

LEYBURN HAWES

SCARBOROUGH

HELMSLEY

SUTTON BANK

A684

A170

MASHAM

PICKERING

A1 THIRSK HORTON-IN-RIBBLESDALE

YORKSHIRE BY RAIL You can get to Yorkshire by high-speed train from London or Edinburgh in less than two hours. The Midlands is even nearer to Yorkshire’s cities, and trans-Pennine services offer direct links from the North West and North East.

For timetables and reservations contact: National Rail Enquiries (tel 08457 484950 www.nationalrail.co.uk) CrossCountry Trains (www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk) East Coast (www.eastcoast.co.uk) East Midlands Trains (www.eastmidlandstrains.co.uk) Grand Central (www.grandcentralrail.co.uk) Hull Trains (www.hulltrains.co.uk) Northern Rail (www.northernrail.org) Transpennine Express (www.tpexpress.co.uk) And you can explore Yorkshire’s hills, moors and valleys on some of Britain’s best loved and most spectacular leisure trains, with lovingly preserved vintage rolling stock and historic steam locomotives. These include the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway, Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, Middleton Railway, Wensleydale Railway, Settle Carlisle Railway and Kirklees Light Railway. Discover more about these super train trips at www.yorkshire.com/railways

YORKSHIRE BY ROAD Britain’s biggest and fastest highways cross Yorkshire from north to south and east to west, making getting here with your own car or by coach very simple indeed.

The A1 and M1 connect from the north and south, while the M6 and M62 link Yorkshire with the Midlands and the North West and the M18/M180 gives easy access to the coast and countryside of northern Lincolnshire. For details of the quickest (or the most scenic) driving routes see the AA or RAC websites www.theaa.com and www.rac.co.uk Coach companies with services to (and within) Yorkshire include: Dalesbus (www.dalesbus.org) First (www.firstgroup.com) Metro (www.wymetro.com) Moorsbus (www.northyorkmoors.org.uk/moorsbus) National Express Coaches (www.nationalexpress.com) Stagecoach (www.stagecoachbus.com/yorkshire) Transdev Blazefield (www.blazefieldholdings.com) Find further information on regional and local bus and train services from Traveline Yorkshire (www.yorkshiretravel.net)

56

INGLETON

GRASSINGTON

A59

HARROGATE

ILKLEY

YORK

SALTAIRE

A64

LEEDS

BRADFORD

HORNSEA

BEVERLEY

A19

A63

A164 A63

HULL

HUMBER BRIDGE

HALIFAX

WAKEFIELD

HUDDERSFIELD

YORKSHIRE BY AIR AND SEA

A614

SELBY

HEBDEN BRIDGE TODMORDEN

A166

A1079

OTLEY

A629 HAWORTH

WETHERBY

A658

A65

Find a wide choice of guide books and maps with lots of dedicated walking and cycling routes at Tourist Information Centres across the county, from Welcome to Yorkshire at www.yorkshire.com/walks or call 0113 3223500 for an order form.

BRIDLINGTON

KNARESBOROUGH

SKIPTON

A165

A64

A19

PATELEY BRIDGE

MALHAM

There are walks, hikes and cycle trails all over Yorkshire. For walkers, there are easy strolls in towns and cities, nature walks in superb wildlife reserves, long hikes along cross-country canal towpaths, and energetic treks across the open moors and along the magnificent coast. For cyclists, the choice is equally wide, from challenging trail rides to easy-going, traffic-free routes along canals, cliffs and riversides.

FILEY

MALTON

RIPON

SETTLE

YORKSHIRE BY BIKE AND ON FOOT

A169

A15 A1

SCUNTHORPE

A180 GRIMSBY

BARNSLEY

The Yorkshire county is served by a number of airports, providing daily flights to and from many destinations. With excellent transport links, Yorkshire is also easily accessible from many other airports throughout the UK, through high speed train links and an extensive motorway network.

HOLMFIRTH

DONCASTER

WITHERNSEA

CLEETHORPES BRIGG

A18

PEAK ROTHERHAM DISTRICT A57

SHEFFIELD

Leeds Bradford International Airport (tel 0871 2882288 www.leedsbradfordairport.co.uk) Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield (tel 0871 2202210 www.robinhoodairport.com) Humberside Airport (tel 0844 8877747 www.humbersideairport.com) Durham Tees Valley Airport (tel 08712 242426 www.durhamteesvalleyairport.com)

N

Don’t forget P&O Ferries operate direct overnight links into Yorkshire from Rotterdam, Holland and Zeebrugge, Belgium.

For more information visit www.poferries.com

KEY

TOURIST INFORMATION CENTRES Tourist Information Centres in cities, towns, villages and other locations throughout Yorkshire can offer plenty of great ideas to inspire you and help you make the most of your visit. They can also help with practical information on quality-assured accommodation, great places to eat and drink, local events and transport, escorted walks and tours, and where to hire bicycles, boats and lots more.

For a full list of Tourist Information Centres in Yorkshire; www.yorkshire.com/tourist-information

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

Motorways

Heritage Coasts

A Roads

Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty

Rail Routes

National Parks

Airports

Ferryport

57

WELCOME TO YORKSHIRE

Main picture: York at night.

Clockwise from above: JORVIK Viking Festival; York Minster; National Railway Museum; The Shambles.

CITY OF CONTRASTS Award-winning York is an exciting mixture of old and new, with world-class museums, impressive medieval ramparts, great family attractions and spectacular scenery on its doorstep. Britain’s friendliest city has streets that are classed among the best in the country for food and fashion.

58

yorkshire.com

YORK IS NOT A CITY THAT STANDS STILL. The last year has seen the re-opening of some key attractions plus some brand new shops, bars and restaurants. Start your visit to the city at the new ‘Gateway to Yorkshire’, the state-of-the-art Visitor Information Centre, housed in a 19thcentury listed building overlooked by the iconic, graceful architecture of York Minster.

With 11 digital screens showing things to do in York and all over Yorkshire, you will also find internet access and a wide range of guidebooks, gifts and local produce.

The new-look Yorkshire Museum re-opened in August 2010 after a £2 million refurbishment. It’s an amazing place, with five galleries housing some of the finest collections of archaeological finds in Europe, state-of-the-art interactive displays and a spectacular film show in its 300-seat auditorium.

The JORVIK Viking Centre, one of York’s landmark attractions, also re-opened in 2010 after a £1 million refit, with a new glass-floored gallery that reveals just how the Viking-age site on Coppergate was unearthed by archaeologists, wonderfully lifelike animatronic figures which can even hold a conversation with you in old Norse dialect, and new exhibits of Viking artefacts that have never been displayed before.

In the fine York tradition of celebrating ghosts, headless Romans, Vikings and a turbulent history spanning more than 2,000 years, there’s the refurbished Micklegate Bar Museum. On three floors above the medieval Royal Gateway, this revamped attraction features grisly replicas of severed heads, among other exhibits that bring 800 years of the city’s history to life.

Old meets new in York’s historic centre, where the Shambles – voted Britain’s most picturesque street – is just one of the cobbled

yorkshire.com

lanes and shopping streets which are lined with exclusive boutiques, High Street stores, and independent retailers selling unusual one-offs.

York St Mary’s provides a space for inspirational contemporary art, while new gallery and workshop According To McGee on Clifford Street, and Bar Lane Studios are hotspots for art and design.

York’s riverfront and ‘gastro-streets’ offer a fantastic choice of places to eat and drink, from the latest in contemporary fusion cuisine to cosy traditional tearooms and pubs where you can sample the finest real ales, including those brewed at the city’s own York Brewery. Food takes centre stage in September, when the York Food Festival – Britain’s largest celebration of food and drink, showcases the finest produce in Yorkshire, prepared by the region’s leading chefs. This is one of the high points of a calendar that is packed

with exciting themed festivals and events.

The Jorvik Viking Festival in February is an awesome recreation of Norse life, with bearded, armoured warriors battling with spear, axe and sword. Returning for its 7th year in October, Illuminating York uses modern technology and lighting to celebrate York’s finest architecture - watch in awe as colourful digital art is projected onto historic buildings around the city.

In May, the racing season begins at York Racecourse, with pulse-quickening racecourse action until October. There’s so much to see and do throughout the year.

Celebrate the age of steam at the National Railway Museum, visit York Castle Museum, Clifford’s Tower and York Dungeon, to name a few.

York is surrounded by some of the most spectacular scenery in England, with a rich portfolio of historic houses and stunning country estates set among moors, dales and national parks.

You can make the most of the city and the surrounding region with the Yorkshire Pass, the sightseeing card that gives you free entry to more than 70 attractions around the region. It’s the ideal visitor’s accessory, with heaps of dining and shopping offers. To find out more or to purchase a Yorkshire Pass, go to www.yorkshirepass.com York is a place that so many people visit and return to, time and time again.

Visit us, and find out why.

THE NEXT STEP www.yorkshire.com/destinations Or contact Visit York Tel: + 44 (0) 1904 550099 Email: info@visityork.org

59

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION

Revolution Films for BBC 2

Ecosse Films for Miramax Films / Screen Yorkshire

Oxford Film and Television for BBC 2

ARTISTIC

Wuthering Heights.

Ecosse Films for Miramax Films / Screen Yorkshire

The Trip.

60

“ There’s no way GREAT EXPECTATIONS of imitating its Coming soon is yet another landscape, you’d eagerly awaited adaptation, be cheating directed by Oscar® and BAFTA the audience.” award-winning director Andrea Arnold. Excitingly, most of the cast are unknowns - though Skins star Kaya Scodelario is playing Cathy - and to pump up interest still further, the film is being produced under conditions of tight secrecy, with no outsiders allowed on set. One thing is sure, however – it is bound to provide yet another great showcase for some of Yorkshire’s most luscious landscapes.

STARRING ROLE From Wuthering Heights to Brideshead Revisited, Yorkshire’s stunning countryside, gracious stately homes, spectacular coastline and historic buildings play a starring role, and Yorkshire can claim to offer directors a wider choice of locations than just about anywhere else in the UK, from sweeping countryside to city streets.

yorkshire.com

DCI Banks.

The Secret Diaries.

yorkshire.com

The King’s Speech.

See-Saw Films/Bedlam Productions presented by The Weinstein Company and the UK Film Council

I

f you’ve seen the latest Harry Potter epic, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, you will no doubt have been wowed by the dramatic scenery of Malham Cove and Grassington Moor, where many of the outdoor scenes were shot. It’s not, by a long shot, the only movie to use the moors and dales as its backdrop.

“There was talk of going to Romania or Ireland, I was adamant it had to be Yorkshire. There’s no way of imitating its landscape, you’d be cheating the audience,” says screenwriter Peter Bowker (Blackpool, Flesh and Blood, Buried Treasure, Occupation), who was commissioned by Mammoth Screen to adapt Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights for ITV. Swedish cinematographer Ulf Brantas swapped his native landscapes for a Yorkshire setting for the ITV version of Wuthering Heights. “We had the opportunity to shoot in some amazingly beautiful locations in and around the moors, and it is hard to pick one day or a specific location that was my favourite,” he says.

“There were quite a few moments, though, when I was sincerely telling myself to try and do justice to it all.’’

Left Bank Pictures for ITV

Brideshead Revisited.

Filming at Castle Howard.

Wuthering Heights.

Mammoth Screen for ITV / Screen Yorkshire

FOR SOME OF THE WORLD’S LEADING FILM MAKERS, THERE’S NO SUBSTITUTE FOR YORKSHIRE WHEN IT COMES TO AMAZING LOCATIONS. ROBIN GAULDIE POINTS THE CAMERA AT THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS.

Filming at Castle Howard.

Mammoth Screen for ITV / Screen Yorkshire

Ecosse Films for Miramax Films / Screen Yorkshire

The Secret Diaries.

61

Yorkshire has thousands of filming locations, ranging from historic buildings such as York Minster and Newby Hall to picturesque Staithes and Whitby on the North Sea coast, slices of 19th-century heritage like Sheffield Railway Station and the modern engineering marvel, the Humber Bridge – to name just a handful. Meanwhile, the latest BBC flagship period drama South Riding, filmed last summer at locations in Leeds, Bradford, Harrogate, York and the Bridlington coast and starring David Morrissey, is due for transmission in 2011.

PEOPLE’S CHOICE

CITY STREETS, COUNTRY LANES Urban locations in Leeds, Halifax and Bradford - the world’s first UNESCO ‘City of Film’ - provide the backdrop for BBC Four’s TV drama adaptation of John Braine’s portrait of an ambitious young Yorkshireman in the swinging ’60s, shot in December and showing in 2011.

The DCI Banks series, starring Stephen Tompkinson, and filmed in 2010, also used a mix of urban and rural locations around the county, and the Yorkshire countryside is tipped to play another starring role in the next series.

the majority of our excellent crew came from the region. In all it was a very positive experience and we hope to be returning to Yorkshire next year to shoot the series.”

And then, of course, there’s Brideshead Revisited, shot not once, but twice, at Castle Howard and turning one of Yorkshire’s greatest stately homes into a national icon.

GOLDEN AGE Set during the golden age before the Second World War, Brideshead Revisited tells the story of Charles Ryder’s infatuation with the Marchmain family and the rapidly disappearing world of privilege that they inhabit. Castle Howard was cast as Brideshead after the production team scoured the

“ This year we’ve seen an increasing number of producers recognise the appealing combination of diverse locations and experienced crew that Yorkshire has to offer.”

“It was very important to stay true to Peter Robinson’s books, which are all based in the fictional town of Eastvale - which is very much in the real life locale of Yorkshire,” says Francis Hopkinson, executive producer.

“It was great to be able to use the very places that Peter Robinson had written about. Our locations went from around the streets of Leeds to the magnificent Yorkshire Dales. We used local facilities and

entire country looking at stately homes.

Producer Kevin Loader commented: “We were very aware that it had been linked to Brideshead Revisited before, as the setting for the 1980s TV adaptation. In fact, some people think it is Brideshead. It is an unbelievable place and has an immediate impact on screen. In the end, it was just too good not to go back to Castle Howard.”

Ecosse Films for Miramax Films / Screen Yorkshire

Elland Road and the Bradford Bulls Stadium may not seem obvious choices, but The King’s Speech, filmed at both locations and starring Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter, has already screened to critical acclaim, winning the prestigious People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival – and showing that there’s more to the county than moors and dales.

This year there has been an increasing number of producers recognising the diverse locations that Yorkshire has to offer.

We’ve seen a great range of television production on our screens, including A Passionate Woman, Five Days and The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister on the BBC, and Married Single Other, DCI Banks – Aftermath on ITV. This trend looks set to continue into 2011, with Yorkshire playing centre stage on up-coming television dramas such as South

Riding, Monroe and Room at The Top lined up alongside feature films including Wuthering Heights and The King’s Speech.

Brideshead Revisited at Castle Howard.

62

Left Bank Pictures for ITV

FLAGSHIP DRAMA

Stephen Tompkinson starring in DCI Banks series.

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

63

WELCOME TO YORKSHIRE

BIG SKIES, OPEN SEAS Yorkshire Moors and Coast is a region that seems tailor-made for lovers of the great outdoors, with a rich man-made heritage to match its natural attractions.

THE HEATHER-COVERED HINTERLAND of the North York Moors National Park, the Howardian Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Yorkshire Wolds are among the most attractive areas of scenery anywhere in England. There are miles of walking trails, bridle paths and cycle ways, ranging from the Yorkshire Wolds Way National Trail to the long-distance Cleveland Way National Trail.

Explore on foot, on horseback, by four-wheel-drive or by bicycle, hone your mountain bike skills on Dalby Forest’s exciting network of woodland and hillside routes, climb to the treetops at Go Ape or meet the animals and enjoy a day of family fun at Flamingoland – or, if you’re feeling less energetic, see the Moors the easy way aboard the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, Britain’s longest steam line, puffing its way from Pickering in the midst of the Moors to Whitby on the coast.

For lovers of the great outdoors, the region’s North Sea shore is every bit as impressive as its inland countryside, with cliffs and coves, sandy bays and picturesque harbours, and a whole menu of seaside action at resorts like Filey and Robin Hood’s Bay. Go fishing from Scarborough, set off on a whale or dolphin spotting cruise from Whitby, or grab your board and head for the renowned surf beaches near both of these harbours and at places like Cayton, with some of the best waves in England.

Gaze out to sea from viewing points such as the battlements of Scarborough’s medieval castle.

The castle isn’t by any means the region’s only slice of heritage and history. Not far away, the spooky ruins of Whitby Abbey inspired Bram Stoker, author of Dracula.

Whitby draws a loyal audience of fans for its famous Gothic Festivals, and also plays host to a busy calendar of events ranging from the annual Whitby Regatta, when the white sails of racing dinghies fill the bay, to Whitby Folk Week, attracting musicians, singers and dancers from all over Britain.

Scarborough’s festival schedule is a busy one, too, with the Scarborough Literature Festival bringing authors and poets together with readers and listeners for readings, workshops and performances.

The sound of jazz and blues fills the streets during Scarborough Jazz Festival, while the whack of willow on leather announces the Scarborough Cricket Festival.

Filey’s annual summer festival brings a fantastic week of old fashioned, seaside family fun to the Yorkshire coast every year in summer. There’s more festival action inland, where Pickering hosts the nostalgic Wartime Weekend, taking visitors back to the ’40s with veteran vehicles and big band sounds. Pickering is also the venue for the annual Traction Engine Rally, an exciting celebration of the steam age, and for the Pickering Walking Festival. The region is graced, too, by some of our grandest country houses – such as Castle Howard, inspiration for Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, and location for two film versions of one of Britain’s great 20th-century sagas. Duncombe Park, Kiplin Hall and

Beningbrough Hall are other stately relics of an elegant, romantic past.

Exploring our coast, countryside and heritage is a great way to work up an appetite, and Yorkshire Moors and Coast is one of the finest destinations to indulge yourself with an array of delicious produce sourced from local fields, pastures and waters, including tasty ales from the Cropton Brewery, unique cider brandy from Ampleforth Abbey, marvellous kippers from Fortune’s Smokehouse in Whitby, and so much more.

Whitby, with its long seafaring traditions, is a magnet for seafood lovers, with the legendary Magpie Café serving superb fish and chips and Green’s of Whitby providing a more sophisticated culinary experience. There are more superb places to eat scattered all over this area, from the acclaimed Star Inn at Harome and the award-winning Feversham Arms at Helmsley to Scarborough’s highly regarded Lanterna and the gastro-pub pleasures of the Black Swan at Oldstead and AA rosette winners such as Beiderbecke’s Brasserie in Scarborough or Estbek House, in Sandsend.

For delicious dining, inspiring history and dramatic landscapes, to festival fun and wide open spaces, there really is no place like Yorkshire’s Moors and Coast.

THE NEXT STEP www.yorkshire.com/destinations Tel: + 44 (0) 1723 383637

Main picture: Sunset over Robin Hood’s Bay. Clockwise from left: Stunning Whitby Abbey; Biking in Dalby Forest; Fine Food at the Star Inn, Harome; Enyoying Whitby Goth Festival.

64

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

65

FESTIVALS & EVENTS

WELCOME BACK TO THE SHOW THAT NEVER ENDS Whetheryouwant to rock out to classic bands, listen to some of our best-knownwriters and film-makers discussing theirwork,watch top-notch sportsmen andwomen,or just savour the flavours of fine ales,silky cheeses and fresh-baked bread,Yorkshire has a party foryou – allyear round.

Clockwise from top left: Rocking at Coastival; Galtres Festival; Illuminating York; Flying high with Heliosphere at Grassington.

Books and bikes, film, food and drink, skating and snooker, jazz and blues, steam trains, spring flowers,thoroughbred horses and cutting edge comedy – Yorkshire celebrates all these - and more - with a packed calendar of inspiring events.

for more information on festivals & events in yorkshire FOLLOW US ON

@WELCOME2yorks 66

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

67

Above left: Ryedale Festival at Castle Howard. Left: Burton Agnes Jazz Festival.

Above: Welcome to Yorkshire Ebor Festival in York. Below: Swaledale Festival.

THE WORD IS OUT Music, arts, comedy and literature are celebrated at events like Coastival, Scarborough in February, where musicians, artists and DJs gather for a week of laughs, jazz, theatre and performance.

Whitby Folk Week, in August, is a must for lovers of traditional music and traditional ales. Also in August is the Burton Agnes Jazz and Blues Festival. In September Hull hosts Freedom, a weekend of music and arts that has featured bands like Foals and Florence & the Machine. In October, Sheffield becomes Britain’s comedy capital with Grin up North – a chance to encounter some up-and-coming talents for the first time and meet again with some Yorkshire comedy stalwarts in venues around the city. Grin up North has attracted stars such as Al ‘Pub Landlord’ Murray, Jimmy Carr, Ross Noble, Dara O’Brian and Josie Long – and you can expect a similarly stellar line-up in 2011. Book lovers, and would-be writers, will love the Ilkley Literature Festival. Readers of all ages can meet some of their favourite authors during three weeks of readings, workshops and literary walks in countryside that has inspired some of England’s greatest novelists. Mix these with great boutique festivals like Limetree, Moorfest, Deer Shed and Tramlines for a recipe of festivals all year round.

This image: Heliosphere at Grassington. Right: York Food and Drink Festival.

equally exciting showcase for their wares, and the Harrogate Spring Flower Show becomes a colourful carnival of stunning flower displays and show gardens alongside cookery theatre that makes the most of local produce and tips on how to make the most of your kitchen garden.

Of course, it all reaches a summer crescendo in July with the Great Yorkshire Show, where gardens and good food are so much part of a mix that pulls together everything that’s great in the county – award-winning farm breeds, art, fashion and music, country pursuits and a whole lot more. Then, over August bank holiday, the Galtres Festival combines great music and fantastic food with around 100 different types of ale, cider, perry, stout, and mild from North Yorkshire’s independent breweries.

FOOD, DRINK AND FLOWERS For a taste of the best of our local produce, visit the Wakefield Festival of Food, Drink and Rhubarb in February, when the county’s most famous traditional crop takes pride of place. Yorkshire forced rhubarb now has the same coveted iconic ‘European protected’ status as champagne and Parma ham, but rhubarb is just one of the myriad tastes on offer at this White Rose Award-winning event – along with dozens of other deliciouslyorkshire products and demonstrations by some of West Yorkshire’s most talented chefs. In April and May, the Dales Festival of Food and Drink offers farmers, market gardeners, chefs and brewers from North Yorkshire an

68

SADDLE UP!

COME AND HAVE A GO

Showjumping is one of the keynote events at the Great Yorkshire Show, and, from heavy horses to thoroughbreds, Yorkshire is one of the heartlands of the equestrian world.

The Yorkshire International Showjumping Event, at Sheffield’s Motorpoint Arena in April and supported by Welcome to Yorkshire, sees sensationally skilled mounts and riders contending in classic events. There’s also must-see entertainment such as Horseball – a 21st-century tournament between teams representing age-old rivals Yorkshire and Lancashire which combines the skills of polo, rugby and basketball, all exercised on horseback.

At the three-day Welcome to Yorkshire Bramham International Horse Trials in June, skilled riders and graceful steeds contest in the arena and in cross-country events against the backdrop of one of Yorkshire’s most impressive stately homes. The excitement continues for nine days in July, when eight of Yorkshire’s great racecourses – York, Ripon, Redcar, Beverley, Pontefract, Catterick, Doncaster and Thirsk – plays host to the nine-day Yorkshire Racing Summer Festival, climaxing with a breathtaking finish at Pontefract.

For those who thrill to the sound of racing hooves, the Welcome to Yorkshire Ebor Festival in York in August and the legendary St Leger in Doncaster in September rank among Britain’s most thrilling flat racing events.

Yorkshire excels at sport – and through the year, there’s always excitement. In January, Sheffield hosts The 66th English Open Table Tennis Championships, a gripping event for fans of the art of the paddle, and in March the Motorpoint Arena is the venue for thrills on ice during the World Short Track Speed Skating Championships. Dalby Forest has become one of the nation’s top venues for off-road mountain biking, and hosts round two of the 2011 UCI World Cup Cross Country Championships in May, when the best off-road cyclists in the world return to the trails that they raved about after hitting them for the first time in 2010. The challenge kicks off again with the Pro-Sprint Eliminator through the streets of Pickering, and for novices who may be inspired to pick up the challenge of Britain’s toughest trails, the Dalby Dare amateurs’ event will be back.

Back now in Sheffield, and Cliffhanger has become one of Britain’s biggest events dedicated to outdoor sports. Like it says on the tin, Cliffhanger began as an event for climbers and mountaineers. It’s still quite a party for people who like nothing better than to show off their toe-and-finger skills inspiring others to experience the breathtaking thrills of free-climbing, bouldering and indoor climbing walls.

Yorkshire has long been renowned as one of the heartlands of snooker, and for connoisseurs of the cue, chalk and ball, Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre is the venue in April for the 2011 World Snooker Championships. Perhaps even more dramatic will be the clashes of steel that highlight the European Fencing Championships in Sheffield in July.

“ Music, comedy and the arts. Fine food, sport and country shows - there’s a fantastic Yorkshire festival for you.” yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

To discover all events happening in Yorkshire in 2011, go to www.yorkshire.com/festivals

69

ADVERTORIAL

Other great places to visit across Yorkshire include: • Brimham Rocks – Experience the amazing views across Nidderdale and North Yorkshire from fantastic rock formations.

• East Riddlesden Hall – discover whispers of mystery and civil war at this brooding Royalist mansion in Keighley.

• Goddards Garden, York – The former gardens of Noel Goddard Terry, of the famous York chocolate-making firm.

• Hardcastle Crags & Gibson Mill – Take a woodland walk through the Crags down to Gibson Mill – discover its 200 year history as a cotton mill, entertainments emporium and now a flagship building for sustainability.

Get out into the outdoors and discover the natural beauty of Yorkshire with the National Trust.

We have places waiting for you to walk, cycle and explore whilst having a great day out.

Time well spent The National Trust has a wealth of places to visit across Yorkshire. Visit our houses, gardens, coast and countryside for a great day out.

For more information, opening times and admission prices please visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/yorkshire or call 01904 702021.

70

yorkshire.com

At Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal, near Ripon, the whole estate is a contrast of beauty and surprises and is the perfect place to escape. Take a wander into the stunning water garden or down the valley of seven bridges to explore the Abbey’s beautiful surroundings.

With over 800 years of history in one place, you can also explore not just the abbey, but the mill, Elizabethan Hall, Victorian Church and medieval deer park – home to our wild herd of 500 deer.

Stroll around the acres of gardens at Beningbrough Hall, near York, and visit the fantastic walled garden to see where the restaurant gets its supplies of fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs from. The Hall is home to over 100 Georgian portraits from the National Portrait Gallery’s collection. See the kings and queens from one of Britain’s most elegant periods of history and visit our interactive galleries – where you can commission your own 18th century portrait.

yorkshire.com

Built over a Roman road in the heart of York, Treasurer’s House was owned by visionary, eccentric Yorkshireman Frank Green, who owned the house from 1897. He cared so passionately about interior design that he threatened to haunt his home if any of his furniture was ever moved!

You can also take a tour down to the ghost cellar, where plumber Harry Martindale was saw a ghostly league of Roman soldiers in the 1950s – will you be the next to see this famous apparition? For something a bit more relaxing, the garden at Treasurer’s House is a tranquil oasis in the heart of a busy, bustling city.

Nunnington Hall sits in the heart of Ryedale and was a family home for over 350 years. See the Carlisle Collection of 23 miniature rooms and furniture, the haunted rooms and our ever changing programme of exhibitions. When exploring the gardens, look out for peacocks and spectacular views of River Rye. Nostell Priory, just outside Wakefield, is a house full of treasures – with over 100 pieces of Chippendale furniture; it is a place not to be missed. Surrounded by 300 acres of parkland it’s a stunning place to come and walk or cycle.

• Rievaulx Terrace & Temples – an elegant Georgian terrace, ideal for picnicking, with stunning views across the Hambleton hills and down to Rievaulx Abbey.

71

FLAVOURS OF YORKSHIRE

CURRYING FLAVOUR Zoë Ross finds Rafi’s Spicebox blends are just the job for a self-catering cottage holiday in Yorkshire – and she knows what she’s talking about.

C

urry’s in my culinary DNA. With a granddad who came to England to open one of the very first Indian restaurants in Britain, I like to think I know my way around a spice rack.

In my own kitchen, I feel guilty if I use anything but freshly ground cumin, coriander, mustard seeds and more of the myriad tastes that create the authentic taste of the subcontinent.

Much as I’d like to, it really isn’t possible to pack up my spice cupboard’s compendium of condiments for a week’s self-catering with friends in a Yorkshire cottage, and I flatly refuse to go along with my partner’s solution, which is to bring a packet of off-theshelf curry powder mix and hope for the best.

So it was great to discover Rafi’s Spicebox shop and the 27 varieties of unique Curry Packs invented by cookery author Rafi Fernandez. Rafi’s Spicebox shop on Goodramgate in York is a colourful place, with shelves packed with colours and flavours from all over the world. I could have browsed for a while, but for this taste test I went for that guaranteed crowd pleaser, Jalfrezi Masala.

This is originally a Delhi dish and British restaurants like to bung in heaps of hot green chillies. Rafi suggests that instead you add a green pepper, to bring out the savoury flavours without blistering your guests’ tastebuds.

“Probably our most versatile curry,” it says on the packet. “It can be cooked with any ingredients and can be adapted by adding coconut, cream, yoghurt, or tinned tomatoes – each will change the final texture and style of the dish.”

Which should, I thought, make it perfect for a dinner for six, put together in an unfamiliar kitchen. And it worked. Maybe it worked a little bit too well. My dinner guests are used to, when I’m at home, being served dishes that I have painstakingly put together according to recipes that have been handed down over three generations of my family. That night in our Yorkshire cottage, they raved about Rafi’s jalfrezi. I didn’t have the heart to tell them it wasn’t my own blend.

72

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

PURELY BLUE Blue Keld’s artesian wells produce water with a difference.

Robin Gauldie.

T

he French have always had a thing about mineral waters.

Some years ago, staying in a hotel in Vichy, which is famous for that sort of thing, I opened the minibar to discover nothing but… water, in a dozen different bottles.

We Brits used to mock that French obsession, but recently we’ve come to see the point of clear water from deep springs and artesian wells. Blue Keld is a case in point. In its distinctive, teardropshaped blue carafe-style bottles, it makes a virtue of purity. If you’re used to the stuff from the tap, this drop from its artesian spring near Driffield, deep beneath the chalk and limestone of East Yorkshire, is something of a revelation. Who knew simple water could taste this good? But it does. There’s nothing in Blue Keld to do anything but enhance your enjoyment of whatever you’re eating – which is why the blue bottle is increasingly evident in some of Yorkshire’s best eating places. It goes as well with a slice of tangy cheese from the Dales as with a dozen Whitby oysters or a slice of luscious lamb.

As a Scot, I’m very choosy about what I put in my whisky – but Blue Keld even works well as an accompaniment to a fine after dinner malt. Perhaps I should drink more from the blue bottle…

73

WELCOME TO YORKSHIRE

HIDDEN TREASURES There are dozens of different ways to explore the inspiring countryside of the Yorkshire Dales, and when it’s time to relax and indulge yourself, the pretty towns and villages of the Yorkshire Dales and Harrogate offer retail therapy, heritage, and great places to eat and drink.

This picture: Enjoying the limestone pavements at Malham. Opposite from left to right: Dales Festival of Food and Drink; Montpellier Street, Harrogate; Enjoying the Black Sheep Boots and Beer Festival; The delicious Yorke Arms, Nidderdale.

74

GEOCACHING IS AN EXCITING NEW way of exploring our countryside, using Global Positioning System (GPS) devices and detailed maps to seek out carefully concealed caches. Each hidden box contains a logbook to recount your visit, and often also contains all kinds of small ‘trade items’ left by previous explorers.

Take something, leave something, is the rule. Several cache trails have been set up within the Yorkshire Dales National Park, with a seven-cache trail around the archaeology of Langstrothdale, and more discoveries to be made along the ancient routes of Wensleydale, in the limestone terrain of Malham Cove, in beautiful Dentdale and in Swaledale too. Use your own GPS (find out how to download the co-ordinates before leaving by visiting www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/geocaching).

You can also load the co-ordinates onto your own GPS using dedicated ‘geocomputers’ at the National Park Centres at Grassington and Malham, and pre-loaded GPS units can be rented at the centres in Grassington, Malham, Aysgarth Falls and Hawes.

Yorkshire Dales and Harrogate have almost 700 square miles of impressive hill country and moorland, fields and meadows, and gentle valleys, making it one of the finest places in Britain for an outdoor activity break. For those who like a real challenge, Yorkshire’s three highest peaks beckon, but only the toughest can rise to the 3 Peaks Challenge to complete the ascent and descent of Ingleborough, Whernside and Pen-y-ghent within twelve hours.

Over in Wensleydale, the ‘Full Cheese’

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

Triathlon – dubbed the hardest triathlon in Britain – also attracts super-fit athletes.

Those with a head for heights can tackle the breathtaking via ferrata route through How Stean Gorge in Nidderdale, or the bolted climbing route at Giggleswick.

But you don’t have to be an iron man (or woman) to relish the beauties of the area. For cyclists, the choice of trails is huge. The new, 170-mile coast-to-coast Way of the Roses cycle route, which opened in 2010, rolls through the National Park and Nidderdale on its way to York and Bridlington, and there are dozens of shorter routes in and around the Yorkshire Dales National Park and all over the area. This is great country for riding and pony-trekking too, and in Nidderdale you can even stroll over the hills accompanied by a packcarrying llama. Native to the high Andes of Peru, these gentle beasts must find Yorkshire’s mellower climate almost tropical.

Walking, beer and crime fiction seem to be natural companions, and all three are celebrated at the Black Sheep Boots and Beer Walking Festival in Hawes, Bainbridge and Askrigg, and at the Theakston’s Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate – just two highlights of a busy calendar that also features countryside events like the Great Yorkshire Show, the Harrogate Flower Show and the Masham Sheep Fair. The Black Sheep Brewery and Theakston’s Brewery and Visitor Centre offer the chance to visit and sample their brews all year round, and of course they can also be found in many of our fine local pubs. Join us for the Dales Festival of Food and Drink in Leyburn to sample the best of the area’s produce – such as the famous Wensleydale dairy products – or visit Wensleydale Creamery’s new Visitor Centre to find out how one of England’s best-loved cheeses is made.

Yorkshire Dales and Harrogate’s natural heritage is matched by a rich legacy of historic buildings and attractive towns and villages such as Richmond and Skipton,

thriving market towns beside landmark medieval castles. The city of Ripon, with a history of over 1,000 years, is overlooked by the spectacular Ripon Cathedral, while Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is an entrancing building set among one of our most tranquil and gracious 18th-century gardens. Harrogate, with its historic spa and stylish old town centre packed with attractive shops and an array of excellent boutique hotels, café-bars and restaurants, is the perfect place for a long weekend or as a base for a longer holiday exploring the area.

Outdoor activities and fascinating sightseeing are guaranteed to whet your appetite, and Yorkshire Dales and Harrogate has a tremendous choice of places to eat and drink. Bettys Café Tea Rooms in Harrogate is a legendary traditional tearoom serving fine Yorkshire teas, cakes, sandwiches and pastries, while restaurants and gastro-pubs such as the Clock Tower at Rudding Park, the Drum and Monkey in Harrogate, the Malt Shovel in Brearton, Vennell’s in Masham and Van Zeller in Harrogate serve a varied menu of fine dishes, lovingly prepared and emphasising the freshest of locally sourced ingredients.

For a special occasion or simply because you deserve a truly indulgent gastronomic experience, the Burlington near Skipton and the Yorke Arms in Nidderdale each offer delicious dining that has earned them Michelin stars.

Inspiring, energetic and relaxing – the Yorkshire Dales and Harrogate are guaranteed to please. Whether you’re passionate about food, hypnotised by history or in love with the great outdoors, there’s something here for you.

THE NEXT STEP For more information on Yorkshire Dales and Harrogate go to www.yorkshire.com/destinations

75

DELICIOUS

Cutlet of Lamb, Pomme Fondant Provençal Garnish.

Thinking outside the box

Ratatouille 1 red pepper 1 orange pepper 1 onion Dice the above small and sweat down in a little olive oil until soft without colouring. (About 10 Minutes).

1 courgette diced 1 aubergine diced 2 firm plum tomatoes blanched, skinned and deseeded and diced.

1 clove of garlic chopped.

In hot olive oil sauté the courgette and aubergine until lightly coloured. Add pepper and onion, mix lightly, when hot add tomato dice chopped garlic and finish with fine chifonade of basil. Sea salt and white pepper.

Fondant Potato x 4

© Kippa Matthews

This image: Cutlet of lamb, pomme fondant provençal garnish.

Above: Simon Gueller and Marco Pierre White outside the Box Tree.

4 Ukon gold potatoes cut into rectangles (10cm x 6cm x 4 cm) 1 packet of unsalted butter sprig of fresh thyme sea salt garlic x 4 cloves crushed white pepper Cut the butter into thin strips and line the bottom of a thick bottom, ovenproof frying pan. Sprinkle with rock salt and cracked white pepper. Place the potatoes on top.

Add garlic and thyme. Heat slowly until all the butter melts, turn up the heat to colour the potatoes but do not burn the butter. When they are coloured on both sides put the pan in a low oven until the potatoes are very soft.

(About 45 Minutes).

Anchovy Beignets x 8 8 pickled anchovies To make the tempura batter 50g flour 50g corn flour 175ml soda water pinch of salt pinch of baking powder Mix all ingredients and whisk until smooth. Flour anchovy fillets, dip in batter and drop into hot corn oil (180 degrees) until golden and crispy.

Cook your lamb cutlets to your own taste searing them in hot oil and then allowing them to rest. Put some ratatouille in a round cutter in the middle of the plate, put lamb on top. Put a fondant potato next to it a couple of anchovy beignets on top and surround with lamb gravy finished with some black olives and a little olive oil. Garnish with deep fried basil leaves and confit garlic.

76

yorkshire.com

Culinary king Marco Pierre White talks to ‘This is Y’ about his ambitions for the restaurant where the Yorkshire chef started on out his road to Michelin stardom.

A

return to his spiritual home is on the menu for one of Yorkshire’s shining stars of the culinary world as Marco Pierre White announces a return to his roots.

They say home is where the heart is and after years of cooking up a storm around the world, White is returning to Ilkley’s Michelin star Box Tree restaurant… where it all began.

The restaurant, now lovingly run by Simon and Rena Gueller, is one of five Michelin-starred restaurants in Yorkshire.

The county now boasts more stars than any other in England.

After leaving Allerton High School, Leeds, as a teenager White decided to train as a chef and learnt his craft at the Hotel St George in Harrogate before joining the Box Tree.

“The reality is that I was born into humble beginnings. I’m from Leeds stock, very working class traditions and values,” said White.

“So I’m looking forward to coming back because the Box Tree is my spiritual home. It is without doubt, in my opinion, one of the most romantic restaurants in Britain – she’s a very special lady. It has created a tremendous amount of memories – how many people fall in love here or saved their money to go for that special occasion?

“It once again has a Michelin star because of Simon and Rena’s hard work alongside their staff. I’ve been fortunate to be allowed to be part of the Box Tree’s future. There are many opportunities and I think the business can grow and spread across Yorkshire.”

After seeing what can be achieved around the globe, White already has a number of ideas of how to further spice up the Box Tree’s offerings.

It’s still early days, but he said: “Nothing would please me more than to see a country house not so far from the Box

yorkshire.com

Tree as the Box Tree hotel.

“Also, a small Box Tree which is a little restaurant with a different offering and different price points. A lot of great French restaurants that had three Michelin stars had a village bistro down the road – still to the same standard, but a simpler offering.”

Box Tree’s talented head chef Simon Gueller echoes White’s forward focus and potential ideas.

He said: “We want to go on a journey which is to look at the past of the Box Tree and to use all the emotion that evokes and take that forward to try and recreate some of the past which was so special.

“Box Tree gave us our values when we were younger – it was a benchmark.”

While White has spent decades cooking up delights in the nation’s capital, fronting a number of popular TV shows, and generally becoming a household name, he never forgot where he came from – Yorkshire.

“Being loyal to your roots is far greater than compromising what you represent to continue to be competitive,” said White.

“My dear mother used to say a tree without roots is just a piece of wood but Box Tree’s roots are very long.

“I have always flown the flag for my county and never forgot the world I came from. One thing about Yorkshire is she’s always been good to me, always supported me.

“Someone asked me the difference with Yorkshire compared to every other county.

But you know something? You ask someone from this county where they are from and they always say Yorkshire because they are loyal to the county and not just the town or city they are from.

“That’s what makes Yorkshire people very special – their loyalty and their pride, to be born and bred in Yorkshire.”

And the leading chef recognises Yorkshire’s extensive menu as a leading tourism destination for visitors and locals alike.

“Yorkshire has got all the obvious attractions, but it’s not just the attractions – it’s the quality of the hotels and the restaurants that will keep people here too.

And making it affordable for everybody is important.”

Along with the five Michelin star restaurants in the county, we also have highly acclaimed establishments, such as The Milestone in Sheffield, Salvos in Leeds and Prashad’s in Bradford who all featured on Gordon Ramsay’s Best Restaurant Channel 4 programme. Plus old favourites our locals never miss, including Green’s of Whitby, home to the National Seafood Chef of the Year and Silversmiths in Sheffield ‘Taste of Yorkshire’ White Rose Award 2010 winners. With an amazing food larder Yorkshire has a taste to suit all palates.

For more on where to eat around the county, go to www.yorkshire.com

YORKSHIRE’S FINEST Box Tree, Ilkley www.theboxtree.co.uk The Yorke Arms in Ramsgill www.yorke-arms.co.uk The Burlington at The Devonshire Arms near Skipton www.thedevonshirearms.co.uk The Pipe and Glass in South Dalton www.pipeandglass.co.uk The Old Vicarage in Sheffield www.theoldvicarage.co.uk

77

Yorkshire at your fingertips yorkshire.com

Inspiring and informative yorkshire.com gives you everything you need to plan your next break.

Find out all you need to know about every aspect of Yorkshire, from the great outdoors, grand stately homes, to breathtaking coastline and our brightest city highlights.

From inspirational blogs, activity planners for the whole family, and a county wide accommodation booking service offering everything from coastal cottages, city living apartments or a camping spot by a secluded river, you’re certain to find exactly what you need.

JOIN IN FACEBOOK Be sure to become a fan of our Facebook page to enter our regular competitions, and keep up to date with latest events in addition to photo sharing and discussions.

Find us at facebook.com/ welcometoyorkshire

TWITTER AND FOURSQUARE Join our thousands of Twitter followers @Welcome2Yorks for daily updates of all things Yorkshire and for you mobile enthusiasts out there, be sure to join us

78

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

on Foursquare. Foursquare is an exciting new mobile application which allows you to ‘check in’ all over Yorkshire and gather handy hints and tips as you explore our glorious county.

Get involved at foursquare.com/ welcome2yorks

WELCOME TO YORKSHIRE COLLECTIVE New for 2011 the Welcome to Yorkshire Collective is our latest social media initiative. By becoming a member of the collective, you can gain access to a wide-array of exclusive events, special

competitions and one off performances.

You could be attending private film screenings or art exhibition openings just for Collective members and there will be the chance to take part in money-can’tbuy experiences across Yorkshire.

Make sure you’re part of the WTY Collective by visiting www.yorkshire.com/wtycollective where you’ll be able to sign up to find out the latest Collective initiatives.

79

YORKSHIRE PATRONS

I COULDN’T LEAVE Business guru and ‘Secret Millionaire’ Carl Hopkins has roots that go deep into the bedrock of his native Yorkshire.

He tells us why he wouldn’t leave.

80

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

81

YORKSHIRE PATRONS

“ PART OF WHAT MAKES YORKSHIRE A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE AND TO VISIT IS THE BLEND OF COUNTRYSIDE, COAST, AND CITY LIFE.”

“I

’m a huge advocate of Yorkshire,” Carl says. “It’s where I was born, brought up, educated and grew my business.” Trained at Leeds College of Art, Carl started work with Judith Donovan Associates “literally the same day as I left college.” He was in at the beginning of the direct marketing boom in the mid-1980s, and came up through the ranks to take over the business as managing director in 2000 after a successful management buyout. Chairman from 2005 to 2007, he originally planned an early retirement – but instead, he became busier than ever, mentoring businesses in Yorkshire and beyond.

What keeps him here? “It’s such a secure foundation of friends, family and geography,” he says. “You can do so many fabulous things. When my wife’s family come to visit from Germany we take them to places like Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Salts Mill at Saltaire, which is just an

amazing place. In Leeds, I love to take people to the Corn Exchange or for a coffee in the Tiled Café. Caffeine is my only real vice – I don’t drink or smoke, but there are so many great little pubs now that serve fantastic food, as well as top of the line places like the Box Tree.”

Part of what makes Yorkshire a great place to live and to visit is the blend of countryside, coast, and city life, he says.

“We love to go up to Skipton and the North York Moors, and I have a nostalgic fondness for the seaside resorts that we used to go to when I was a kid – Bridlington, Whitby and especially Robin Hood’s Bay. “But I’m a city boy at heart. I do like a bit of concrete under my feet, and Leeds is the city that I love best, and where I belong. It’s also a fantastic place to visit, with great shopping, great food, drink and entertainment, and an amazing heritage.

I’d recommend it to anyone.”

I WOULDN’T LEAVE Lawrence Tomlinson sleeps only five hours a night, but his native Yorkshire means he is always on holiday.

‘The Secret Millionaire’ hard at work.

yorkshire.com

83

“ I AM SO FORTUNATE THAT I AM ALWAYS ON HOLIDAY WHERE I LIVE, BECAUSE I LIVE IN THE YORKSHIRE DALES.”

Above: Lawrence is at home in boardrooms and behind the wheel of a racing car.

“T

he great thing about Yorkshire is that you can have the best of all possible worlds,” says the Batley-born, Bradford University educated entrepreneur and racing driver who brought iconic British car marque Ginetta, to Yorkshire when he relocated its factory to Garforth, Leeds in 2005.

“For me, living in Yorkshire is all about that great balance between vibrant city life and the most beautiful countryside in England. I can be in the heart of Leeds, a great cosmopolitan city, and yet only 30 minutes away I can be enjoying a lovely walk in lake and moorside scenery near Harrogate.” It’s the people, too. “You always know where you are with Yorkshire people. They are warm, welcoming and very straightforward. I have a great team working for me.”

With a net worth estimated at around £500,000,000, Lawrence, who is Chairman of the self-titled LNT Group could, presumably, take a holiday anywhere in the world, whenever he wants. But he won’t. “I am so fortunate that I am always on holiday where I live, because I live in the Yorkshire Dales. My weekend starts there, and I am always having a holiday in the inspiring, welcoming place that I come from.”

84

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

85

ADVERTORIAL

Rievaulx Abbey.

Whitby Abbey.

LAZY SUNDAY AFTERNOONS Brodsworth Hall and Gardens, near Doncaster, is the perfect place for a lazy family picnic, with local brass bands providing live music on summer Sundays and a play area where children can let off steam. Have a stroll round the lawns, fern dell, and glorious rose gardens where there is always something to do no matter what time of year you visit.

EASTER INSPIRATION AND DARKER TALES

Whitby Abbey can claim to be the place where the English Easter was born, as it was here in AD 664 that the Synod of Whitby agreed to follow the system that we use to this day to decide when Easter falls. But there’s more to this evocative ruin than eggs, bunnies and theological small print.

Swashbuckling pirates at Scarborough Castle.

Whitby has inspired creative spirits from the 7th-century poet-monk Caedmon to the 19th century novelists Elizabeth Gaskell and Bram Stoker, as well as contemporary chiller-writer G.P. Taylor.

Read more about Whitby Abbey’s role as an inspiration for authors and poets in Whitby Abbey: Pure Inspiration. Available from Whitby Abbey’s gift shop and from online retailers it is the perfect companion for a visit to this ancient Gothic place of worship.

THRILLS AND SPILLS At Clifford’s Tower, visitors can seek out hidden dragons, go on a knightly quest, or don royal robes to survey the realm of York from the tower’s summit. In the summer English Heritage sites host a busy calendar of action packed re-enactments and events including pirates taking over Scarborough Castle. If you manage to avoid walking the plank you can climb the medieval battlements for a spectacular king’s eye view of the North Sea Coast and look back across 3,000 years of history.

few Carthusian monasteries. In the late 19th century it was bought by steel magnate Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, who hired the leading lights of the flourishing Arts and Crafts movement to give it a whole new look.

Now, English Heritage has recreated two rooms at the manor house, near Northallerton, to their full Arts and Crafts finery, with timber oak beams, polished wood flooring, and handmade wallpaper which has been created to match a fragment of the original William Morris wall covering.

DISCOVER MORE DAYS OUT WORTH TALKING ABOUT With English Heritage annual membership you can explore over 400 historic sites in England, plus free or discounted entry to hundreds of events all year round.

Sign up at any of our sites, call 0870 333 1182 or by visiting www.english-heritage.org.uk/membership

TRANQUIL HAVENS If Clifford’s Tower, Whitby Abbey and Scarborough Castle evoke dungeons, dragons, Gothic horror and the clash of arms, Rievaulx Abbey conjures up more tranquil images of Yorkshire’s heritage.

Founded in the 12th century, Rievaulx is one of Britain’s greatest treasures of medieval religious architecture, and its lovely setting in one of our most beautiful valleys perfectly enhances the serenity of this once-great monastic foundation.

INSPIRATION & EXPLORATION

ARTS AND CRAFTS REVIVAL

Be king of the castle, explore our wild gardens and Gothic ruins, enjoy action-packed events or follow in the footsteps of medieval pilgrims with English Heritage in Yorkshire.

86

Mount Grace.

Pimms and a picnic.

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

During its medieval heyday the honeystoned manor house at Mount Grace Priory housed dignitaries visiting one of England’s

87

SPORT

The science behind the medals

T

Ever wondered what goes into the making of a world-class athlete?

Sprint over to Weston Park this January and you’ll have all your questions answered in a fascinating new exhibition.

he science behind Britain’s sporting champions is explored in a brand new interactive exhibition called ‘Sports Lab: The science behind the medals’, opening at Weston Park in January. Hosted by Museums Sheffield in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University, the exhibition is packed with amazing facts and shows how technological innovation lends a helping hand to natural talent, propelling athletes to the very top of the podium.

Check out the specially created interactive exhibits designed to test your physical abilities, such as the cycle race where you can test your power output in a virtual race around Weston Park. Then try measuring your body movements on our interactive dance floor and show off your lightning reflexes in the Beat the Clock reaction test.

Be sure, too, to catch examples of the latest sporting technologies whilst discovering the often left-field inspiration behind them.

And remember to leave time to explore the Computational fluid dynamics analysis of a triathlete.

huge collection of intriguing objects tracing the development of sport through the ages, alongside local memorabilia telling Sheffield’s own impressive sporting story.

Kim Streets, Director of Learning and Development at Museums Sheffield, can’t wait for the starting pistol: “Sport has always played a huge part in the life of Sheffield and its people. The remarkable work done by Sheffield Hallam University contributes to the success of some of the country’s top athletes and this exhibition will offer visitors a unique chance to really explore the science and technology that helps to make our sporting champions.”

Running from 29 January – 20 November 2011 at Weston Park Museum ‘Sports Lab: The science behind the medals’ is sure to be one of the exhibition successes of the year.

For more information please contact the Museum on 0114 278 2600 or visit www.museums-sheffield.org.uk

SPORTING CHANCES As the UK’s capital of sports science, Sheffield is pioneering the use of technology in training athletes of all disciplines. Developed

by Sheffield Hallam University in conjunction with UK Sport, such ultra high-tech training aids are leaving our sports men and women well placed for the 2012 Olympics. Here are just a few examples: Diving for gold Sheffield Hallam University’s sports engineers developed a system for Great Britain’s Diving Squad, which uses high speed video capture equipment and large plasma screens to analyse their dives.

Boxing clever A fleet of high speed video cameras have been installed above the rings in the Great Britain Boxing gym at the English Institute of Sport. The cameras feed into supersized screens and computer analysis software to help scientists and coaches perfect a boxer’s technique.

Reaction time The Centre for Sport and Exercise Sciences uses a 12-camera digital motion capture system to capture movement in 3-D, allowing coaches to analyse an athlete’s movement, reactions and forces in hundreds of different ways. This analysis can be applied to every sport from fencing to figure skating.

Extreme conditions

© Sheffield Hallam University

88

It’s not only Sheffield where sport and technology are being combined. The Environmental Chamber at the Carnegie Research Institute at Leeds Metropolitan University is used to acclimatise athletes to environmental extremes such as high altitude, freezing cold, sweltering heat and high humidity.

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

89

INDULGENCE

Pillow talk

Crisp white sheets, down-filled pillows and featherweight duvets that keep you cosy all night long, fluffy bathrobes and deep, thick towels create the ultimate indulgence in Yorkshire’s fine hotels and guesthouses. Robin Gauldie snuggles up.

Above and to the right: The comforts of Cundall Lodge Farm. Above right: The boutique Leopold Hotel. This image: Feversham Arms Hotel and Verbena Spa.

I “ People no longer want to go anywhere that is not at least as comfortable as their own home.

They’re looking for more”

90

yorkshire.com

t’s attention to detail to those extra special comforts that makes the difference, I find. For me, a hotel is ultimately in the business of providing a cosy cocoon and a glorious night’s sleep. Of course, looks are important too. But no matter how imposing its façade, how opulent its public areas, how fabulous its restaurant or how sybaritic its spa, it’s the room I’m staying in that’s important to me.

I’m a sucker for thick, white towels that are just scratchy enough, bathrobes that enwrap you in a loving, deep-piled embrace and – at the end of the day – crisp, cool cotton sheets and duvets light as clouds. If there’s an afterlife, and if I’ve been a good boy, heaven will be very much like this.

In this life, Yorkshire’s best places to stay all set a standard for Paradise to live up to. I’m talking about dreamy places like the Leopold Hotel, Sheffield’s first boutique property, winners of Large Hotel of the Year at the 2010 White Rose Awards and a member of Small Luxury Hotels group. The hotel is formerly the old boys’ grammar school and boasts 90 stylish bedrooms. Located in the heart of the city centre with beautiful views from the hotel’s Terrace Bar’s arched windows, the Leopold overlooks the Spanish-inspired Leopold Square where you can experience a peaceful haven of select bars and restaurants, fountains and foliage. It’s a wonderful hotel full of character. There’s also the Feversham Arms in Helmsley, 17 Burgate in Pickering, the Hotel du Vin in Harrogate and its sister

yorkshire.com

in York, the Cave Castle Hotel at the foot of the Yorkshire Wolds with its Victorian four-poster beds, or Tickton Grange, Beverley where you can slumber in 21st-century comfort and Georgian style in an array of new, stylish bedrooms. I’ve cherry-picked just a few of my favourites, but all across Yorkshire, it seems that there’s enough Egyptian cotton being used in absolutely fabulous town and country hotels and cosy guesthouses to keep the farmers of the Nile Delta in work for the foreseeable future.

As always, it’s the details that count, and with luxury bed linen it’s the thread count that’s important. The higher the thread count, the finer, softer and smoother it is. The minimum is around 220, but some of Yorkshire’s finest places to stay insist on bed linen with a thread count almost double that. So now you know…

At 17 Burgate, the elegant Georgian town house in the heart of Pickering that reaped Welcome to Yorkshire’s 2010 White Rose Award for Best Small Accommodation, owner William Oxley says the county’s guesthouse owners, just like luxury hoteliers, have joined the trend towards enhanced comforts in the bedroom.

“People no longer want to go anywhere that is not at least as comfortable as their own home. They’re looking for more,” he says. “All of Yorkshire is raising its game to meet that trend.”

William is a driving force behind the Yorkshire’s Finest consortium, which now has more than 80 members providing five-star bed and breakfast and guesthouse accommodation across the county.

91

The White Swan Inn, Pickering.

“Membership has doubled in the last five years, and that’s evidence that we are constantly upgrading standards. Comforts in the room are all part of that. Fine linens and high quality towels are no longer luxuries that you’d expect only in a five-star hotel – they’re seen as things that guests can expect at our best B&Bs and guesthouses, too.”

Another Yorkshire’s Finest member and White Rose winner is Cundall Lodge Farm, on the banks of the River Swale.

You wouldn’t, perhaps, expect vast fluffy bathsheets, luxury robes and posh toiletries from The White Company in farmhouse accommodation, so I am pleasantly surprised. “People want to feel special and valued, and a lovely big bathrobe to wrap yourself in after a lovely shower helps us to make them feel that way and give them something a little bit different,” says owner Caroline Barker.

Yorkshire Gardens Guide Yorkshire.com/gardens

Turner Trails Yorkshire.com/turner

Michelin Star Experience Yorkshire.com/michelinstarexperience

Yorkshire Gardens Magazine Yorkshire.com/gardens

Y Golf Yorkshire.com/golf

Railways of Yorkshire Yorkshire.com/railways

Explore More

SENSUAL ESCAPES “Hoteliers like us are not just accommodation providers – we are experience providers,” says Simon Rhatigan, owner of another White Rose Award winner, the Feversham Arms Hotel and Verbena Spa in Hemsley, North Yorkshire. “There has to be value packed into every element of what we do.

People visit us for the whole aesthetic experience, and that’s all about the softness of the towels, the quality of the linen, the whole sensual element. It’s all part of that sense of escape that comes with staying in a hotel like this.”

Truer words were never said.

I can’t wait for my next escape to the white cotton comfort of an indulgent Yorkshire break…

92

Yorkshire’s Great Outdoors Yorkshire.com/outdoors

If you’re inspired by our magazine, why not order some of our other exciting publications.

ORDER YOUR COPY

UNESCO World Heritage sites

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

Equestrian Yorkshire Yorkshire.com/equestrian

To order your free copies now, call us on 0113 3223500, email us; info@yorkshire.com or go to: www.yorkshire.com/magazines

93

CITY LIFE

Yorkshire nightlife Lately, Leeds and Yorkshire more generally have emerged as so much more than the rolling hills and stunning landscapes that define it. The last two decades have seen a radical transformation of the county’s nightlife, from the emergence of a cuttingedge club scene to the world-renowned names lining up to play there. Anna Millar discovers Yorkshire at night.

“ There are few places outside London that provide such a quality and variety as Leeds does, for a night out” 94

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

95

W

here once there was a smattering of Northern Soul, Yorkshire’s nightlife has blossomed to integrate dance music, indie nights, jazz bars, bhangra beats and more, becoming a 24-hour county, with cosmopolitan allure and gargantuan charm. From rock stars to pop princesses, world-renowned clubs to underground treasures, Yorkshire can boast chart toppers, such as the Kaiser Chiefs and Arctic Monkeys, as well as Girls Aloud star Kimberley Walsh and jazz chanteuse Corrine Bailey Rae. And just as they have gone on to the world stage from their Yorkshire beginnings, so it is that the world’s talent is happier than ever to head to Yorkshire.

Those closest to the scene say the sheer variety of nightlife on offer has ensured Yorkshire remains at the top of its game. Gareth Chapman made the move from Manchester to Yorkshire and is promoter of Leeds’ bar Fibre and clubbing emporium Mission.

Gareth believes that responding to what people want and rolling with the changing times has kept the scene vibrant in recent years: “The Leeds nightlife has gone up and down over the years, and like everywhere it’s been affected by the recession, but people are still coming out because it has something for everybody now. It used to be that if you didn’t like the electro house sound that Leeds had to offer, then it wasn’t your night, but the last five or so years has seen a real change: gay or straight, whether you want an indie or an R’n’B crowd, you can find somewhere in Yorkshire with what you want.”

There’s certainly little denying that, after hours, Yorkshire has become a place to see and be seen in, with a steady stream of wellheeled clubbers and laidback lounge animals ensuring the party is always getting started somewhere. Particularly in Yorkshire’s most prolific stomping ground: Leeds. With its Gothic architecture and bustling nightlife there’s much to love about the crop of relaxed watering holes affording great drinks and better entertainment.

Ever hip, The Wardrobe has become a popular favourite with its rotation of live acts, from jazz and indie to world music and rock.

Spread over two floors it’s a good shout whether you want to drink, eat or dance yourself merry. Alternatively, for great beers, cool art and laidback sounds, North Bar enjoys a loyal following. Close by, Mojo Bar and Chilli White equally provide space for those looking for a more sophisticated cocktail menu and slightly rowdier crowd.

While Leeds continues to cover ample ground across the scene, more unusual outfits are getting in on the scene, namely American cantina bar Sandinista and sister restaurant and bar Smoke Stack, who offer regular hip hop and funk nights and swing nights, respectively. Sandinista’s owner Si Ord believes that late night spaces have to play host to a more discerning customer. “Leeds is such a vibrant city and we really got on the scene when it was on the up. There are few places outside London that provide such a quality and variety as Leeds does, for a night out - Manchester and cities like that are catching up, but Leeds is still at the forefront.

It’s about fitting into the different niches that people want now.

We get a lot of students in, and obviously the large student population has really helped boost the scene, but on any night we get people from 18 to 65 years old through the door because we try to cater for everyone.

“Also, we’re open until 3am which means that people who want to go home and watch some TV after work and then come out, can do. In places like Spain people do tend to head out later for a few drinks, that’s something we’re seeing a bit more of here. Equally we were keen to have somewhere that other people in the service industry could come and relax in after an evening shift.”

Which is not to say that Leeds is shy of more commercial ventures:

96

the 02 Academy has boasted The Stone Roses and Blur in the past, and welcomes big name bands James and Mogwai in 2011. For more intimate, secret gigs there’s the Brudenell Social Club, which stages live music most nights and has enjoyed performances from Franz Ferdinand and Yorkshire’s own Kaiser Chiefs. The Refectory at Leeds University, by night, transforms from a canteen into one of Leeds’ biggest spaces, previously showcasing the wonders of Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones.

Leeds’ most famous club Back to Basics still attracts the masses after almost 20 years at the top. Other popular favourites include the funky offerings of The Warehouse and the top quality DJ rotation of the more intimate Mint. And it’s not just Leeds keeping the punters coming. Sheffield also affords charm and opportunity for the discerning night owl. Adele Bailey, MD for live music venue and club Plug, believes that their success lies in bringing quality

In York, the city’s beautiful surrounds are emulated in its approach to its nightlife. At Kennedy’s Bar and Restaurant, set over a rather stylish three floors, tipplers are invited to lounge on the rooftop terrace (weather allowing) or opt for the ground floor bar or basement music centre and dance floor. For something a little lower key, Oscars Wine Bar and Bistro boasts smooth sounds and close proximity to the area’s live music venues, including Fibbers and The Duchess, which both lay their stage for local, upcoming and well-known acts across the spectrum.

For upcoming acts and a chance to spot some local talent, Hull provides a number of good shouts. The Lamp has all the magic of signed and unsigned acts with a music roster that ranges from live rock and indie to electronic sounds – the gallery space attached, used for photography, visual art and film, is also worth a look, so keep them peeled for special launch nights. Nearby, The Welly Club

“We get a real cross-section of people through the door.” acts to the fore: “I think there was a lot of cheesy music on the scene for a while and not necessarily places for just great music, and so as the largest independent space in the area we wanted to respond to that. We’re a seven night operation and we have everyone from Dizzee Rascal to Annie Mac on the bill, as well as showcasing up-coming local talent. We get a real cross-section of people through the door.”

Aside from Plug, there are plenty of watering holes to choose from in Sheffield. For hip hop, Platillos has been given several award nods for its tapas and atmosphere; for live music, Sheffield Arena, Sheffield City Hall and the ever trendy The Leadmill each provide their own charm, the latter of which is a great call for upcoming bands.

The Art Deco confines of the City Hall is a particularly good catch for classical, jazz and folk music with a bustling programme – including comedy and ballet - running throughout the year.

boasts drum and bass, electro and more. If you’re looking for a true gem though look no further than the Adelphi Club, whose 20-year reign makes it one of the most interesting underground adventures in the county. For more commercial outfits, Hull University’s Asylum has played host to a roster of stars from Razorlight to the Arctic Monkeys.

Finally, last but not least Bradford’s industrial backdrop provides home to some underground treasures. There are some great real ale pubs, namely The Fighting Cock and the Cock and Bottle. For live music, the nearby City Vaults showcase live music on both Saturday and Sunday nights. Those looking to dust off their dancing shoes can opt for St George’s Concert Hall, which boasts soul, bhangra, brass bands and rock acts. Last but not least, Bradford University’s Union offers a wide selection of gig and club nights.

From top to bottom: Classic cocktails at Mojo’s Leeds; gigs are in abundance in Yorkshire cities; our cities’ nightlife is thriving. Far right: Jake’s Bar and Grill, Leeds.

yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com

97

SPORT

THE OLD GAME GETS A NEW IMAGE

The Hull and Humber clipper about to set sail from the harbour.

From a Victorian landmark in Scarborough to supermarket car parks in Huddersfield, Frank Partridge gets bowled over by cricket in Yorkshire. yorkshire.com

99

0

f the many delights of Scarborough – the beach, the breezy air, the theatre and architecture – cricket-lovers will tell you there’s nothing to beat the town’s annual festival. For more than 130 years, as summer begins to fade, legions of famous players have appeared at the finest cricketing amphitheatre in England for a week of high-class but essentially good-natured competition in front of large and appreciative crowds.

Year after year, friends and families have converged on the ground at North Marine Road to mark the passing of another season over a beer, packed lunch and a traditional cinder-toffee ice cream, one of the town’s unique delights. They savour every six-hit and flying catch with extra relish, knowing that the long, dark, cricketless winter is just a gale or two away. Scarborough’s fayre will

sustain them for the long haul.

But sports stadiums grow old too, and for many seasons North Marine Road has resembled a society beauty in sad decline.

The gates were rusting away; paint peeled from the Victorian pavilion; the famous red-brick terraces were crumbling.

Cricket fans will put up with a lot, but when it emerged that Scarborough was in danger of losing its status as the only venue apart from Headingley used by Yorkshire County Cricket Club, the Scarborough club put out an SOS. Help came from a nationwide groundimproving initiative sponsored by NatWest.

One weekend last March, an action force of volunteers set to work with paintbrushes and elbow grease to launch a rejuvenation programme. Among the 350 people who turned up were a handful of cricketing celebs, including Dicky Bird and England

fast bowler James Anderson. In one unlikely but touching scene the former England captain Mike Gatting helped the ex-Yorkshire captain David Byas paint the railings on the West Stand.

After the luminaries had left, club chairman Bill Mustoe put out an appeal to the local community: “Give us a couple of hours in any field you like.” It worked.

Volunteers kept coming throughout the summer, and by festival week in late August the ground had been transformed.

It wasn’t exactly Lord’s, but North Marine Road was no longer an embarrassment.

“All the greats have walked on to this ground,” says Bill Mustoe. “Generations of supporters have come for the festival.

We have a duty to keep this huge tradition going.”

Scarborough’s reward was a guarantee from the county club that they will continue

Sessay CC is one of several hundred Yorkshire clubs whose members drive their partners to despair by sacrificing most of their summer weekends to this most addictive of games. The majority are based in the county’s rural enclaves, because high rents on the receding number of green spaces in built-up areas have taken a heavy toll of urban cricket.

So young cricket fans in the towns and cities struggle to find a safe place to wield the willow. In Huddersfield, another imaginative community scheme is addressing the problem.

Paddock CC is the last remaining club in the town centre. Like many amateur teams, its membership is not getting any younger.

Everyone knows why: boys can’t do what their forefathers did and take an old piece of wood and a tennis ball into the street, chalk some stumps on a wall, and play until darkness fell. That’s how Hutton, Trueman and Illingworth honed their skills, but these days there’s too much traffic, too many competing attractions – and society has become less safe.

Driving around town, a bright spark from Paddock noticed that the only large spaces left where cricket could be played were the various supermarket car parks. On Sundays, the shops close early, the car parks are deserted, and in summer there are several hours of daylight in which to make

:

Below: Action at North Marine Road.

Yorkshire v Middlesex Pro 40 Competition 2010.

to play there until 2020 and have support

by Welcome to Yorkshire.

A few weeks later, a village team from North Yorkshire showed that the game is thriving at grass-roots level too. Sessay CC, whose pleasant ground is overlooked by the famous pebble-dashed White Horse on Sutton Bank escarpment, won the Village Knockout Cup at Lord’s.

Sessay had battled through many rounds to make it to the headquarters of cricket – where they wanted to settle an old score. They’d reached the final in 1976, but one of their young stars, John Flintoff, missed the game through injury and Sessay lost. Flintoff, fit as the farmer he is, carried on playing in the hope of a second chance.

When the winning runs were hit the (by now) 55-year-old was standing at the nonstriker’s end, and was so overcome that he leaped in circles and flung his bat and gloves to the ground. One or two of the members in the pavilion might have taken a dim view of this, but that’s how much cricket means to the true standard-bearers of the game.

The Lord’s final took place two weeks after the Pakistani ‘spot-fixing’ controversy at the same ground that cast the cricket world into gloom. At the awards ceremony, MCC President John Barclay paid a heart felt tribute to village cricket: “This is the real thing,” he said.

:

ALL THE GREATS HAVE WALKED ON TO THIS GROUND’”

100

yorkshire.com

© Scarborough Evening News

yorkshire.com

Above: Yorkshire Skipper Andrew Gale determined to build on success of 2010.

Below: Scarborough Cricket Club.

use of the spaces. Tesco, Asda and others agreed to let the cricketers pitch stumps there.

After an encouraging pilot scheme in 2009, Paddock teamed up with local schools in the Holmfirth area and launched the ’Twilight Slot’ last summer, inviting boys and girls aged between 5 and 11, of all abilities and backgrounds, to try out a game that might have been lost to them. Yorkshire County Cricket Club added their support, more than 250 children took part, and Car Park Cricket (CPC) won an Innovation Accolade from the Youth Sports Trust.

Paddock’s Australian professional, Steve Abbott, identified a crucial difference between English and Australian society: “Back home, we have literally hundreds of guys and girls coming into sport. Over here things seem a bit different – people don’t seem to know how to get involved.”

Ah, so that’s the reason why they consistently beat us at sport.

Future plans include hosting a school CPC sports day in Huddersfield, and extending the scheme to Doncaster, Sheffield and Leeds.

Yorkshire cricket comes in many guises.

It’s a 55-year-old cavorting on the hallowed turf of Lord’s. It’s an emergency facelift to breathe new life into a piece of fading Victoriana. And it’s a car park at the Co-op or Tesco in Huddersfield prising the next generation away from their Playstations.

Whichever version you prefer, the old game in the White Rose County is in rude health.

Readers who would like to volunteer to do maintenance work at the North Marine Road ground in Scarborough can contact the club on 01723 365625.

Find more information about Car Park Cricket from www.carparkcricket.com

101

ARTISTIC

Through the looking glass When Harvey Nichols arrived in Leeds, it set the seal on the city’s retail renaissance.

The flagship store’s window displays are works of art in their own right. Robin Gauldie went behind the scenes to meet the people behind the tempting, fairy tale windows.

“All the windows are unique throughout the company, as each store uses unique styling and clever finishing touches. All the interiors however come down to each of the stores, again, giving each store its own personality.”

I’ve always rather fancied acquiring one of the display team’s psychedelic zebras, daleks or dinosaurs to grace my living room.

So what happens to all that great stuff when the party’s over? Sadly, most of it is doomed to be recycled. Many of the central display items are moved from store to store throughout the Harvey Nichols empire, so that by the time they reach the end of their tour they are showing their age, Andy explains.

“If it’s on its last legs, it just has to go to that big display warehouse in the sky. In some ways it’s a shame, but we’re always looking ahead to our next creative effort.”

The bright lights of Harvey Nichols at Leeds’ Victoria Quarter.

IF YOU LIKE THIS, TRY: Bombay Stores, Bradford The UK’s largest Asian department store is an Aladdin’s Cave.

L

iving just round the corner from Harvey Nichols, I’m always entertained by their brilliant, imaginative window displays, which seem to change every time I look. They’re always colourful, and sometimes so bizarre that I have to go back for a second look.

I’ve always wanted to find out what inspires the creative minds behind these temporary but gorgeous works of art, and I’ve always wondered what happens to the psychedelic zebras, dinosaurs, robots and giant caterpillars – to mention just some of the displays I’ve seen this year – when it’s time for a change of window scenery.

Display manager Andy Berrington heads up a team of four at Harvey Nichols in Leeds. “We all started off with different skills,” says Andy, whose original MA and HND qualifications are in printed textiles and surface pattern. “My assistant manager Louise Dowson has an extensive career in

102

the retail sector both in sales and creative, and our assistants Richard Marsh and Kat Walker both have fashion based degrees.”

Together, they create the look that keeps Harvey Nichols looking like the stylish icon that has made Leeds one of Britain’s most exciting shopping and fashion centres.

Is working for Harvey Nic’s a career peak for these specialist designers, I wonder?

“Creatively speaking, it is definitely up there,” Andy agrees. “The variety of day to day activity is never mundane, and the enjoyment of working in an environment that allows you to be creative gives you a huge buzz.”

Andy’s team are not only responsible for the eye-catching window displays – which change around four times a year, with the seasons – but also for every aspect of styling within the store. “The windows area is designed at Harvey Nichols’ head office in London, but each store team puts its own stamp on the central design,” Andy says.

Princes Quay, Hull 75 shops and three decks keep you busy.

St Stephens, Hull Shopping and entertainment under one roof.

Meadowhall, Sheffield 1.5 million sq ft of floor space and 280 stores can’t be bad.

Stonegate and The Shambles, York The pretty streets are full of lovely independent shops for a treat.

Montpellier Quarter, Harrogate Exclusive shops and pavement cafés make a perfect combination.

Salts Mill, Saltaire Inside a former mill built by Sir Titus Salt, you’ll find art galleries, shops and cafés.

To find out even more search yorkshire.com

yorkshire.com