Visit Thirsk by Mouse
Thirsk (Web site), in North Yorkshire, is 232 miles north of London, 110 miles north of Nottingham, 23 miles north of York and
53 miles south of Durham. It is a rural community very near the Yorkshire Moors and the Yorkshire Dales. We visited on
our 2003 trip.
Thirsk is a special place because of one of its citizens. It is the home town of
veternarian Dr. James Alfred Wight, a.k.a., James Herriot, the author of the "All Creatures Great and Small" series of
books. In that series, Thirsk is known as Darrowby. There also has been a BBC television series (1978) of the same name. There
is information about the series on the link from the series title, and about Wight, (Herriot) Thirsk (Darrowby) on the Thirsk
web site link above
Alf Wight practiced veterinary medicine in Thirsk, and you can visit his "surgery" which is now
a museum. We did that, of course, because Adelle is a big fan of the books and the TV series. The "house" set for the
series has been preserved and is now part of the Wight house. When you tour the house you also tour the TV program set.
And in the garage there is a car used in the series. We have photos of all that to show you.
Thirsk also has a race track.
In fact there is a very pleasant campground as part of the track complex where we stayed. It was there that we learned that
there is a city bus that makes a tour of the surrounding villages that you can get on and off. And the bus traverses the moors.
We took that bus on a foggy day, which made the moors look just like you would imagine moors to look--covered with pinkish heather
and all misty. Nice. The bus jolted along but Ron managed to get a few good photos from it.
We also have a short letter about our stop in Thirsk.
