The Craven Arms, Appletreewick: Inside the Yorkshire Dales pub that appears in All Creatures Great and Small

The atmospheric Craven Arms in Appletreewick is the host for both and pub owner David Aynesworth, who took on the pub many years ago and runs it with his son Robert, said this is by no means the first time that location managers have approached him.

“The long-running TV show Dales Diary used to come quite a bit, and a show called The Real Emmerdale showing how the dale really works. We also had a big Ridley Scott production called Get Santa, featuring Jim Broadbent as Santa, filmed in the cruck barn, which was used as Father Christmas’ workshop and control centre about ten years ago.

The Craven Arms and Appletreewick could even be said to have far greater connections with Christmas as it is not inconceivable to imagine the traditional Christmas pantomime Dick Whittington could have come about through the life of William Craven.

David regales visitors with the story of the man who left the village with nothing, bound for London at 14 years of age and who became Lord Mayor of London and was knighted.

“William Craven was a real Dick Whittington. He was born to a pauper family in this village in 1548 and went to London where he worked his way up through a firm of merchant tailors

that produced all the fabrics for the people of the court of Queen Elizabeth I.

“He made his fortune in London. He started a bank, invested in shipping and in 1610 he became Lord Mayor of London.

“After that he came back here. He financed the road from here all the way back to Burnsall, because there wasn’t one, he had the big stone bridge at Burnsall built that everyone knows today. He built Burnsall School, which is a beautiful Elizabethan building. He restored the church and the high hall at the top of Appletreewick and when he died in 1618 his estate was worth several billion pounds in today’s money. He did quite well really.

David said the filming of All Creatures Great & Small at The Craven Arms is set to continue when the next series is to be filmed early next year.

“In the Christmas episode they use the two rooms at front of pub, one has a big, old fireplace and the other is what we call the tap room. The characters of James Herriot and Tristan Farnon were here. I wasn’t in the building myself, I kept out of the way.

“The interior of The Drovers has been filmed at The Green Dragon in Hardraw before now, but I think the producers saw us as much more convenient a location to where the main outdoor sequences are filmed in Grassington and we have the same sort of atmosphere that they want.

Anyone who has ever visited The Craven Arms will appreciate that very little change would be needed to transport it back to 1939, the onset of WWII. David said the fireplace goes back much further than that and is an ideal set for the series.

“I’ve never seen a fireplace range quite as old as this. We know there was one before what is here today, but this one goes back a long way. We have a photograph of it in 1939 and it hasn’t altered at all. It still has the oven to one side. What they used to call a crane & reckon is still over it for hanging your pots on. The idea of the reckon was that you reckoned how near the fire you wanted the crane to be. And there’s also what was called a flake, which was used for drying oatcakes on that were laid on the fire.

David was born in Bardsey, near Wetherby and had been estate manager on the Broughton Hall Estate. He has lived in Hartlington, a mile down from Appletreewick, with his wife Linda and their family for over 50 years and said he’d always liked the pub.

“My daughter came in one night and said The Craven was up for sale. It was the only pub I would ever have wanted. I love its architecture, the style and its history. I just thought how great it would be to take it on.

While the front of the Craven Arms is very much as it was probably a hundred years or so ago and more, the rear of the pub has been transformed to an even older period with a cruck barn that David said is all down to the expertise of his son Robert.

“Rob and I look upon ourselves as joint landlords today, in fact my role is increasingly like that of young Mr Grace from the TV series Are You Being Served?

“I’d always wanted to build a cruck barn and after we’d had The Craven a couple of years it had become apparent we needed more interior space. We had it built at the back of the pub and Robert did most of the building work, particularly the structure of the roof and the thatching. It was a massive job to do it properly, as they would have 1000 years ago.

“Rob and his wife and our two grandchildren live in what was the barn at the end of the pub that we converted and is now quite a sizeable cottage.

The Craven Arms is now a destination pub that serves great food and locally produced beer in the shape of Hetton Brewery that David started with a colleague over a decade ago but is now run by people who David said are doing a far better job then he ever did. The Craven is also home to three and soon four luxury shepherd’s huts.

“The shepherd’s huts have proved very popular. They are really nice ones, you’re not slumming it. They have under floor heating, en-suite shower rooms and toilets, and peat burning stoves.

“Summer is still our busiest time. In the Winter it goes a lot quieter but not as quiet as it used to because there are a lot more people out walking in the winter than there ever used to be and they like coming here.

“Running a country pub is a constant job of maintaining and improving. It’s rather like trying to repair an engine while it’s still running.

“We are all looking forward to watching All Creatures Great & Small this Christmas and next year.”