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Thirsk

Thirsk in the North Riding is a market town just off the A1 and A19 in the Vale of Mowbray at the foot of the Hambleton Hills. About 5,000 people live thereabouts as do another 4,000 in nearby Sowerby. The cobbled market place dates back to medieval times. In the 1970s there were plans to replace the cobbles with tarmac or concrete but they never materialised, thank God. Market days are Mondays and Saturdays and there is a livestock market on Thursdays. The remains of the old market cross are now in the gardens of Thirsk Hall.

Thirsk was Tresche in the Domesday Book. James Herriot, or rather Alfred Wight, who died in 1995, practised as a vet here; he, of course, called Thirsk Darrowby. I hardly need tell you that there is a World of James Herriot Centre and busloads of tourists from all over the world come to the town.

St Mary’s Church is over 500 years old. It has a buttressed tower and ornate parapet and is a fine example of Perpendicular architecture.

The current racecourse dates from 1854. Previously racing took place at Black Hambleton at the top of the spectacular Sutton Bank with its magnificent views west across Yorkshire. On a clear day you can see forever.
Thirsk was a staging post on the Edinburgh-London route. The Three Tuns Hotel was built in 1698 as a dower house and was converted to a coaching inn in 1740. William Wordsworth spent his honeymoon there in 1802. The Golden Fleece dates back to the eighteenth century. In Ingramgate is a milestone showing Tom the Tippler, a drover, taking refreshment. It is the emblem of Thirsk museum.

The town stands on the Codbeck, a tributary of the River Swale. The Holms is a walk through willows by the waterside opposite Norby. James Herriot (James Herriot’s Yorkshire, Michael Joseph 1979) writes of Pudding Pie Hill beyond World’s End Bridge. This is a burial mound of early sixth century Anglian settlers rather than the fairy house which generations of local children believed it to be.
Thomas Lord, founder of Lord’s Cricket Ground, was born in Thirsk in 1755. He lived at what is now Thirsk Museum in Kirkgate.

The coiner and murderer Thomas Busby’s ghost haunts the Busby Stoop Inn at the crossroads where he was gibbeted. No one would sit in his chair for fear of the dreadful fate said to befall anyone who did. The chair remained empty in the pub for years and is now in the museum.

Nearby are the White Horse of Kilburn and the Mouseman Visitor Centre (see Kilburn). At Coxwold is Shandy Hall where Laurence Sterne wrote Tristram Shandy in the 1760s.

Thirsk Town Council has what must be the most boring website on the internet. There you will find council minutes, standing orders and news of the progress of the invasive ivy in the cemetery.
James Herriot described Thirsk as a ‘happy town’ of ‘smiling people’ and ‘welcoming landlords’. The Thirsk Festival is held each year in July. ‘Nine days of fun and entertainment’ gushes the promotional literature. If that fails, seek out the welcoming landlords.

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