The Pennines are the high-country presence that gives the country around Darrowby its defining scale and changing character. For James Herriot, they are at once a beckoning horizon, a series of familiar views altered by weather and season, and a demanding landscape where snow, livestock, and distance shape the work of rural veterinary practice.

Setting and Approach

On his first journey into Yorkshire, Herriot travelled uphill for roughly fifteen miles as the bus laboured around steep bends and the distant blue swell of the Pennines drew nearer. The county he had imagined as solid but dull opened into grassy heights and broad valleys: rivers threaded among trees, grey-stone farmhouses stood amid cultivated ground, and green fields pushed up the hillsides into the dark heather near the summits. Fences and hedges gave way to dry-stone walls, which crossed the fields and climbed over the surrounding fells in seemingly unending lines.

The range also marked Herriot’s return to Darrowby after an absence. Driving west across the Plain of York, he caught glimpses of the long Pennine spine above the hedges and between the trees. It appeared pale violet in the hazy morning light. As the car climbed and the hedges yielded to limestone walls, the familiar high country seemed to open around him; Darrowby lay beneath Herne Fell, with the folds of the Dales beyond.

A View Altered by Weather

From a narrow, unfenced road between Sildale and Cosdale, Herriot repeatedly stopped on the roadside turf to look out across the landscape. The view reached east over the Plain of York to the Hambleton Hills, while the moorland behind him rolled across the flat fell-top. Though he had stood there scores of times during his year in Darrowby, the prospect never remained the same. In winter, the low country could look like a dark trough between the snow-covered Pennines and the distant white Hambletons. In April, rain crossed the green and brown plain in slow veils; on another occasion, sunshine revealed a broad layer of fog, with trees and hilltops protruding through it. In summer, the fields lay quiet beneath a warm, heavy air.

Seasonal change is also registered at ground level. In late March, after examining sheep in a hillside fold, Herriot rested beneath a pine in its sheltered lee. Snow still ran in long strips behind the walls, and the grass remained winter-yellowed, but sunshine, larks, and wind in the branches made the high country feel newly released from the cold. By May and early June, the air carried the scent of wild flowers across the pastures, while early-morning fields glittered beneath lingering mist.

The Working High Country

The landscape’s beauty does not separate it from agricultural labour. In spring, cattle came out of a long winter spent confined to a few feet of byre, and their calves were vulnerable to disease just as coughs, pneumonias, and other cases crowded the veterinary schedule. Lambing added a concentrated rush of work: for much of the year sheep were a distant presence on the hills, but during the lambing season their pregnancy disorders, difficult births, and subsequent diseases could dominate the practice. The pastoral landscape was therefore also a cycle of animal need and urgent work.

Winter made the terrain more directly obstructive. During Herriot’s second winter in Darrowby, snow could cover the high country within hours, smoothing over familiar landmarks and filling the roads even when the plain below had only drizzle. Traffic crawled between snowplough banks; Herne Fell loomed above the town, where residents cleared paths and doorways, often knowing they would have to do it again the next day. The veterinarians reached most calls, but sometimes could drive only as far as a plough had cleared and had to walk the remaining distance. The same uplands that offered expansive views could thus make access to farms slow and physically taxing.

Place and Perspective

The Pennines acquire their significance through recurrence rather than through a single defining encounter. Herriot’s account returns to the high country in different seasons: first as an unfamiliar destination, then as a landscape he pauses to study, and finally as a place whose weather enters the routine of animal care and travel. Its beauty is not merely a backdrop to country life. The stone walls, exposed roads, seasonal pasture, and sudden snow belong to the material conditions of farming and veterinary work, while the changing horizons give those repeated journeys a strong sense of place.