West Burton is a little-known
jewel in the Dales crown, and some claim that it is
the prettiest village in England. We have seen some
very pretty villages in our travels around the country,
and while I would wholeheartedly agree that West Burton
is indeed exceptionally pretty, it is but one of several
we could easily reel off. Tucked away to the side
of Wensleydale up the little-traveled Bishopdale,
the village huddles around a long Green under the
watchful eye of Pen Hill. It boasts a village shop,
a couple of churches, some little businesses (including
a rare village butcher shop), a school, and our destination,
the Fox & Hounds.
The previous landlord had
managed to alienate all the villagers (I never did
discover quite how he achieved that feat) and the
new owners were clearly working very hard to get people
back, and on the evidence of this evening, they were
succeeding quite well. When the doors opened at 6:45pm,
I was amongst the first in, but within half an hour,
there must have been a dozen people come through.
Good news is that it was
a Black Sheep pub. The bad news, well, there really
was not any bad news. The accommodation was upstairs
and across a bit, over the archway to the yard in
back, and was comfortable enough without being sparse.
The barman kept us well entertained with some particularly
bad jokes, but at least he kept the beer coming. The
evening ebbed and flowed with a constant turnover
of patrons, who were all entertaining in their own
way. I finished the evening with an Old Peculiar,
which was a lovely nightcap.
Strangely, the Inn Way
directed us to head straight up the village and out
at the top to continue our walk in the morning, thereby
missing most of the village. Far better, we deduced,
to loop around the other end of the village and take
in the picturesque waterfalls, which inspired even
Turner to come by and put them on canvas. This lead
us to the conclusion that maybe it would be better
to make our own walks in future, with our desired
mileage, our desired number of pubs, our route beginning
to end. By now, we know what we like, and armed with
suitable Ordnance Survey maps, we should be able to
string together some perfect days.
Coming out of the village
the way we did was far better than the road slog out
of the top end, plus we got to see the Water Corn
Mill, which is one of those buildings of indeterminable
age. There may have been a mill of some kind here
for a thousand years, with much of the present building
being put up in the 1600s. There are mentions of it
in 1421, when they paid 34 shillings of rent to the
Earl of Westmoreland, and the village itself is listed
in the Domesday Book. It was about to fall into ruin
recently, when someone bought it and converted it
into four apartments, which are available for rent
by the week. Be assured, I have no commercial connection
with the venture, but it sounds like fun to me.
