I decided to investigate the moorland village of Goathland for this assignment. Its history goes back to the Vikings, with later evidence of Roman activity. The tenants of the farms have ancient rights to allow their sheep to graze on the village green, so it’s quite normal to see flocks of black faced sheep running down the road.
The village was used in the television series ‘Heartbeat’ where it became ‘Aidensfield’. The railway station, which is run by the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, became ‘Hogsmeade’ station in the Harry Potter series. These recent uses have changed this village into a tourist attraction, with excursion coaches arriving regularly and the local shops becoming souvenir shops. I believe the village has now become focused on tourism as its source of income, with farming now a thing of the past. With this in mind I want to see how the village and the locals have adapted to the change.
The village boasts three hotels: The Goathland Hotel (The Aidensfield Arms in ‘Heartbeat’), The Inn on the Moor (a more modern addition), and the Mallyan Spout (The biggest in the village – named after the nearby waterfall). There are also numerous guest houses which cater for the many walkers in the area.
The Church: St. Mary’s is the modern church (built in 1896) but there has been a place of worship here for over 800 years.
There is a row of shops: post office, general store, sweet shop and garden / gift shop.
Three cafés: A coffee shop and a tea room in the village and a tea room at the station.
A garage (now a gift shop)
The railway station: on the Grosmont to Pickering railway line where steam trains run a regular service during the summer months. This is serviced entirely by volunteers.
In March, the tourist trade is restricted to Tuesdays for the coach excursions and weekends for the railway station. This increases as Easter approaches, with steam trains running daily through the summer months.
Having approached the owners of the local businesses and gaining their consent to take photographs in the majority of their properties, I started planning the project. It would obviously take several weeks to collect a reasonable amount of work to select a meaningful selection of images. As the activity in the hotels was very slow, I began by getting to know the locals, trusting that the tourist trade would pick up as Easter approached. Deterioration of the weather didn’t help to encourage tourists, so the attractions weren’t shown at their best – some attractions were on reduced opening times and the garage kept its doors closed. I decided to use one camera with two lenses and a flash gun with a diffusing globe if necessary. This would reduce the amount of kit which could be a problem in some of the smaller venues.
As the weather dictated, the majority of images were captured over the Easter weekend. With temperatures staying around freezing point for most of March and into April, tourists generally stayed away from the village.
Having taken in excess of 600 images for the project, I used the ranking system in Lightroom to determine which ones to keep for the assignment. Getting to the 12 best images was difficult, but to further reduce this to 6 was much worse. The first six images shown here are those that were rejected in favour of the final six.
The Green
As this is the main commerce area of the village I felt it was reasonable to show this image. Some of the shops have retained their television names, so the village store is ‘Aidensfield Stores’ after the ‘Heartbeat’ series. Similarly the garage still sports ‘Aidensfield Garage’ and ‘Scripp’s Funeral Services’. This image gives a feel of what to expect, with the 1960’s cars in permanent residence and souvenirs to be collected in every venue.
Aidensfield Garage
Now a souvenir shop cum motoring memorabilia store. The owner has been there for 40 years and ran it as a working garage before the television series changed everything. He says he’s happy with his new business, but that wasn’t what came across to me. This image was included in the initial 12, as the garage is a significant attraction in the village. It’s not a venue that the discerning traveller would be looking for, so it didn’t make the final 6.
Reading Room
This building is often closed, so it hasn’t been included in the final six. It’s now being used mainly as a practice room for the local sword dancing team – ‘The Plough Stots’. Memorabilia of this traditional dance team adorns the walls. If the hall is open, as it was for this fund raising event, it’s worth a visit.
The Goathland Hotel (aka Aidensfield Arms)
This is the hotel that everyone wants to visit when they go to Goathland, due to its association with Heartbeat. It’s also the closest inn to the railway station. The bars are very busy at weekends and throughout the summer. I’m afraid it didn’t give me that comfortable feeling that you’d associate with a country pub. I felt as though I was being tolerated, but really had to watch where I was positioning myself. Still, they allowed me to photograph, so I should be grateful. This didn’t make the final list because there were better hostelries in the village.
General Store
This image made the initial 12 because it showed the local people going about their business. Typical of all the businesses there are souvenirs to be collected. This business also has a café attached. They’re amiable types who welcome anyone into their premises. The lady customer was also chatty and welcoming. It seems to be a pleasant place to work.
The Post Office
This shop is so obviously much more than the post office. Like other businesses in the village it’s very much aimed at the tourist industry. Here there are souvenirs to be bought alongside the stamps, lottery tickets and cigarettes. I was pleasantly surprised at the reception of the postmaster and postmistress when they were happy to allow me to photograph here – I thought there would be some objection as it’s a post office, but they were as accommodating as everyone else in the village. I was sure the shop would be much busier in a few weeks, but it’s obvious that tourism is welcomed here with open arms.
The Final Six
These images have been chosen as I believe they portray the village in the way it could be seen by the discerning visitor – not looking for the souvenirs or to say they’ve been to ‘Aidensfield’, but enjoying this part of the moors and what it has to offer.
We start at the Railway Station:
Railway Station
It was difficult choosing an image to use from the station. There’s so much going on here and the images of people are many and varied. The village atmosphere makes this such a pleasant place to be and they’re very relaxed about access to the platforms / shop and tearoom – no tickets necessary. This image shows the train arriving from Whitby. The station is one of only two passing places between Whitby and Pickering, so there are often two trains in the station, travelling in opposite directions. People visiting the village really must see this place.
The steam experience is appreciated by so many and there are always photographers here. With a variety of steam / heritage diesel engines and rolling stock dating back to the 1930’s, there’s so much to enjoy. Roaming tickets can be obtained to give unlimited use of the trains for a full day and Goathland is good place to be based.
Also at the railway station is the signal box.
Signal Box
Operated by volunteers, the signal box controls train movement on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. It’s an intriguing place with different sounding bells from different signal boxes to alert the signalman of a train passing in his direction, interlocks which will not allow signals to be changed if the points are in the wrong position and so many telephones. There’s nothing automated about this system but it works really well – the Victorians certainly knew about engineering. Every movement and communication must be logged – that’s what the signalman is doing here. Although this area is not generally open to the public, you only have to ask and the signalman is more than happy to give you a guided tour if he’s not busy with a switching operation. For photographers, this is also the place to obtain your trackside access permit and fluorescent jacket.
The next image shows a group of walkers taking one of the paths by the side of the river Murk Esk. This being one of the attractions for visitors, I thought it important to show this aspect of the use of the village.
Walkers by the Murk Esk
This was taken from the bridge by the railway station and still very much in the centre of the village. The anonymity of this group leaves the viewer to appreciate the beauty of this part of the moors.
The haze was caused by mist and in part by smoke from the annual heather burning. I like the smell of this burning and the smoke haze can produce some wonderful lighting effects as it colours the sunlight:
While this image shouldn’t be a part of the assignment I feel there should be some appreciations of what people (tourists and locals) come here for and with scenes like this it’s easy to understand.
Moving back towards the village green and ready for a cup of something hot, we look at the Tea Rooms
Tea Rooms
The cheerfulness and openness of the staff here is wonderful, particularly on a cold day. Good, simple food, served by cheerful people in comfortable surroundings is what this café is all about. In the winter there’s a fire burning and when it gets warmer there’s a garden area. All very pleasant and well recommended.
It’ll set you up for the ½ mile walk to the next venue.
The next place to visit is the church:
St Mary’s Church
With the church being lit solely by the low sunlight from the windows, naturally occurring light areas were formed. The couple was seated in one such area while the altar was similarly lit.
While the couple form an important part of the image, their functions here are to give the space some ‘life’, and to direct the eye towards altar.
This beautiful little church is an important part of the village life which seems to be well respected by the villagers. As well as its religious uses it’s a place for quiet reflection, which is what this couple came for. There’s a calmness and warmth here, which is a welcome aspect after experiencing the ‘Heartbeat’ sales pitch.
Across the road from the church is the Mallyan Spout Hotel.
The Public Bar
With pleasant, welcoming staff; warm comfortable lounges; excellent restaurant and real ale in the bars. What more could you ask for.
It’s away from the bustle of The Green, so it’s a place to go to relax. The hotel takes its name from the nearby 70 ft waterfall which can be accessed from the grounds. It’s a good base to explore many parts of the North Yorkshire Moors – as well as the scenery there are ancient crosses, standing stones and Roman relics to explore. This, for me, is what the village is all about and the owners and staff have got it just right.
Assessment of the project:
I believe I achieved what I set out to do regarding seeing how the locals have adapted to their change of lifestyles. Some have made the transition better than others. There are examples where the owners don’t seem happy with their lot, possibly due to the downturn in their trade as recession bites and the ‘Heartbeat’ series has finished. Similarly there are those who will survive because of their friendliness and openness – their service will keep customers coming back. I think it’s a bit worrisome that there’s so much emphasis on ‘Heartbeat’ – this interest must wane soon and the businesses that rely on this now could be left high and dry. The railway and the walking will always be there – neither of these activities mentions any of the ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘Heartbeat’ series, so they’ve still got sound bases to work from.
I was thwarted to some degree by the poor weather, which delayed the photography for almost a month and necessitated wearing heavy clothing while reducing the amount of equipment. Also, some of the venues’ proprietors were a little reluctant to allow my access, but I feel I still managed to fulfill my remit.
I had a problem deciding which images to use. A great deal about the village is what can be seen outdoors, hence the views of the high street and the walkers, so I would have preferred a bigger allowance on the number of final photographs. I feel that what I’ve produced is just a snapshot of the village when there are places which I couldn’t consider including.
Having a defined end-result certainly concentrated the mind when taking the photographs, although I did deviate to capture images of the heather burning which I’ll keep as stock images for further investigation. If I hadn’t had a defined remit I wouldn’t have concentrated so much on the job in hand, so the outcome could have been much more fragmented and not cohesive.
I’ve certainly learned a lot about the people of Goathland and made some new friends on the way. I’ve also found some well-kept beer!
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