When walking
huge distances with substantial packs in adverse conditions
for extended periods of time, sustenance becomes increasingly
important. So for the second time on this walk, I
found myself legging it down a street, complete with
backpack, in order to get some lunch before last orders
for food were taken. I could not run the stretch from
Bolton Castle to the road, because, well, walking
was difficult enough, such was the rather sodden terrain.
Streams crisscrossed our path repeatedly, their banks
swollen in the Yorkshire Monsoon we had battled through
(the weather was now mercifully fine). I made it to
Carperby, and the Wheatsheaf, in good time.
We had by now experienced a string
of great pubs, and were beginning to search for reasons.
High up the list was that we were walking, with full
packs over difficult terrain in inclement weather,
while in some of the best scenery England has to offer.
Any source of food, shelter and beer in such an environment
is welcome. But even higher up the list is the fact
that Yorkshire pubs are generally of a very high standard
and offer great service to their patrons without ever
getting pretentious about it.
Carperby's name
comes from Caipere, an Old Irish personal name and
'By' is the Viking word for a settlement, so the founder
of this place was probably of mixed Irish-Viking origin.
Carperby itself is a classic linear Dales village,
stretching itself out along the quiet main street.
When we left the pub, we crossed the street, stepped
through a gate, and we were in fields, even though
the Wheatsheaf is right in the middle of the village,
close to the market cross of 1674.
The Wheatsheaf
in Carperby is where Alfred Wight and his new wife,
Helen, spent their honeymoon in 1941, and the occasion
is commemorated with a plaque in the wall of the pub,
because Alfred Wight went on to write a series of
books about life in the Dales under the pen name of
James Herriot. "Our bedroom, with its brass bedstead,
looked out over the old roofs of the village across
the Ure to the hills beyond, and I still feel that
wherever Helen and I may have spent our honeymoon,
we could not have found greater beauty." So wrote
the author in 1979.
A pub is of course
a very appropriate place to spend a honeymoon. It
was the accepted practice in Babylonia 4,000 years
ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's
father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead
he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because
their calendar was lunar based, this period was called
the honey month, or what we know today as the 'honeymoon'.
The pub was a Black Sheep pub, which
so far has always been a good sign. The beer was good
(that first one always slips down nicely!), the food
more than acceptable and the atmosphere fine for a
lunchtime feeding frenzy. The pub had tell-tale signs
that it could get the crowds in: A big-screen television,
presumably for watching football, since there was
football memorabilia festooning the walls; and spaces
where they had pull seating out to make way for the
audio-visual system.
It is claimed
the Wensleydale breed of sheep originated here. The
Wensleydale sheep is a wonderful-looking animal, having
charismatic dread locks cascading down its face. 'Blue
Cap', the ram, born in 1839 is regarded as the foundation
of the Wensleydale breed. He weighed 440 pounds when
a two-shear (which I find very hard to believe) and
was recognized as the best ram in the North of England
in his day. The sheep was created by mating a Leicester
ram with a Teeswater ewe.
For some reason,
a slight red tinge is considered desirable in the
breed when showing at local agricultural fairs. To
this end, I would occasionally be sent to the River
Cover with a handful of my employer's show sheep,
and told to go swimming with them in the deeper sections
of the river. The iron in the water apparently lent
the desired hint of red to the fleece without changing
the color altogether. Swimming with sheep is not quite
swimming with dolphins, but it was still fun.
