The Red Lion, Langthwaite: Yorkshire Dales landlady says she has no intention of retiring from running All Creatures Great and Small pub after celebrating 80th birthday

Rowena Hutchinson has been the licensee of The Red Lion at Langthwaite in Arkengarthdale for 44 years – and worked there for almost 60.

She turns 80 in August, and most of her help comes from her sister Marguerita Barningham, who is herself 75 years old.

Mrs Hutchinson’s remarkable longevity at the bar has been celebrated by the Swaledale History blog to mark her impending milestone.

The sisters’ parents, Daniel and Margaret Winkfield, bought The Red Lion in 1964, and their two daughters, then 21 and 16, moved with them from Liversedge, near Dewsbury. Their father had been a headteacher and their mother ran a small poultry farm and plant nursery.

Mrs Hutchinson had been working in horticulture on a country estate, so at first, while helping in the pub, concentrated on setting up her own rose-growing business in a nearby field. She married a gamekeeper in 1966, while her sister married a local farmer.

When their mother gave up the licence in 1979, her elder daughter took it on and has been running The Red Lion ever since – and says she has no plans to retire.

The Red Lion appeared in the original BBC adaptation of All Creatures Great and Small in the 1980s, which put it on the map with tourists.

Challenging times came in 2019, when both the pub and Mrs Hutchinson’s home were flooded by 4ft of water during the notorious Arkengarthdale flash floods.

The sisters recollected a year later that they had been serving customers at 3pm on the day of the summer storms, and by 5pm their business was a ‘wreck’ and the bar destroyed. Mrs Hutchinson was knocked off her feet by the torrent and ‘nearly drowned’, having to be rescued by firefighters. The garden and greenhouse were swept away and the rooms filled with water within’ seconds’.

Her living accommodation was destroyed and she had to move to a cottage further away, while her sister’s family farm also suffered badly.