All Creatures Great and Small Tours — Visiting the Real Darrowby

The Yorkshire Dales play themselves in All Creatures Great and Small, and they are the one cast member you can visit. Here is where the series is actually filmed, what you can and cannot walk into, and how the tours from York do it. (This is an independent visitor guide with no connection to the programme’s producers — we just live in its landscape.)

Can you visit where it’s filmed?

Yes. The current series films Darrowby in Grassington, a Dales market village whose square and shopfronts are dressed for the cameras — between shoots it is simply itself, and open to anyone. The wider filming landscape is the national park: the stone-walled valleys of Wharfedale and beyond, which no ticket controls. Fans of the original 1978 BBC series have a different pilgrimage — that Darrowby was Askrigg, further north in Wensleydale.

Can I visit Skeldale House?

Two answers, both good. The series’ Skeldale House is a Grassington exterior — the interiors are sets, so there is nothing to enter. But the real Skeldale exists: The World of James Herriot at 23 Kirkgate, Thirsk, is the actual practice where Alf Wight — the vet who wrote as James Herriot — worked, preserved as a museum, consulting rooms, dispensary and all. For anyone who came to the books before the cameras, Thirsk is the truer stop.

The tours from York

Two Dales day tours cover this ground, both with free cancellation:

• The All Creatures Great and Small Yorkshire Dales tour — 4.8/5 from 234 reviews, $110 — built around the filming locations, Grassington included.
• The Herriot and Yorkshire Dales day trip — 4.8/5 from 171 reviews, $80 — the book-first version, Thirsk and the Herriot country.

Driving yourself instead? Grassington is about an hour from York, Thirsk about forty minutes — combinable, at the cost of a full day.

Check the filming-locations tour

The pass angle, honestly: day tours are separate bookings, not Visit York Pass inclusions — the pass covers the city’s attractions. A Dales day pairs best with a pass used hard on the city days either side — the day-trip overview lays out the combinations.