All Creatures Great and Small Series 6: Filming in Grassington with Nicholas Ralph, Callum Woodhouse and Anna Madeley

Nicholas Ralph (who plays James Herriot) and Callum Woodhouse (Tristan Farnon) delighted the many fans who had turned out to see them by happily chatting, signing autographs and allowing selfies in-between takes.

Season after season, the filming in Grassington has been drawing in crowds in increasing numbers to watch the making, by Playground, of the Channel 5 adaptation of James Herriot’s best-selling novels. Last month All Creatures Great and Small won Best Drama Series in the TV Choice awards - an accolade voted for by TV viewers.

Before the airing of the Christmas episode last year (which was filmed in June in Grassington), Nicholas Ralph told The Yorkshire Post how much he enjoyed meeting All Creatures fans in the village: “The filming there is brilliant because you get to meet some of the people, some of the fans just watching or passing by, so it's always lovely just to have a quick chat or that you have to sign a picture, or whatever it is,” he said.

“And they all have just lovely things to say about the show. So I really do enjoy that part of the job as well, getting to meet people face to face for a little moment.”

Callum Woodhouse said: “We've got two cameras filming the TV episode, and then behind the cameras you’ve got upwards of like 100 members of the public who've all gathered to watch it. Every time they shout ‘Cut’, there's a round of applause.”

Anna Madeley was also on location in Grassington, which portrays Darrowby. She was seen rehearsing in the doorway of the house used for the exterior of the vets’ home and surgery, Skeldale House. The iconic stone pillars with the vets’ brass plaques were added earlier this week to recreate the familiar porticoed entrance.

Meanwhile, the shop frontages around the village square were transformed into 1940s-style stores. Local pub The Devonshire again stood in for the exterior of the vets’ favourite watering hole The Drovers Arms, while popular bookshop The Stripey Badger was again made over to become greengrocer's GF Endleby. Several other shop fronts changed and Second World War posters and other memorabilia were added.

There has been speculation that the series will jump forward in time to the end of the war, after an acting agency published casting calls for identical twin girls - aged two and three - for “an iconic North Yorkshire TV production”, adding that they “must have really good availability between Feb and June” - the filming window for previous series of All Creatures.

This will mean that, come this autumn when series six is expected to air, little Jimmy Herriot (who was one at the end of series five) will be around five, and a sister would be two or three. It is well-known that the real James Herriot, Thirsk vet Alf Wight, had two children, Jim and Rosie. The series has their blessing and they help advise on the scripts.

This leap-forward-in-time theory gained more traction this week after eagle-eyed fans spotted a noticeboard among the props in the village square featuring a poster with a 1945 date.