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PBS’s All Creatures Great and Small transports viewers to the picturesque Yorkshire village of Darrowby in the 1930s. Nicholas Ralph plays a young vet named James Herriot, who lands his first job working for the quirky Siegfried Farnon (Samuel West), who runs a small practice serving the needs of area farmers. James quickly falls in love with Darrowby and its colorful residents. 

‘All Creatures Great and Small’ is based on a book series by James Herriot

Three men talking to a soldier in 'All Creatures Great and Small,' which is filmed in Grassington in the UK
‘All Creatures Great and Small’ | Courtesy of Playground Entertainment and MASTERPIECE

The cozy British drama is based on a series of books written by James Herriot. (Herriot’s real name was James Alfred Wright.) Herriot was a vet in a town called Thirsk, and he drew heavily on his own experiences when writing his stories, which were set in a fictional village he dubbed Darrowby. However, when it came time to film the latest version of All Creatures Great and Small, producers looked not to Thirsk but to another town in Yorkshire. 

Where is ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ filmed?  

In All Creatures Great and Small, the town of Grassington in North Yorkshire stands in for the fictional Darrowby. That’s because the real-life inspiration for Darrowby didn’t have quite the feel that producers wanted for the show. 

“Thirsk is now a much bigger town and it hasn’t got that village-like feel anymore,” production designer Jacqueline Smith explained to PBS. 

A view of a street in Grassington, UK, where the PBS show 'All Creatures Great and Small' is filmed
Grassington, UK | Geography Photos/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

“Grassington stands in for Darrowby. It’s in the heart of the Dales, so it forms a good base to then work out from and find all our lovely roads where we do our drone work and things,” she added. “It’s a town that still looks like it did 200 years ago. I’d say people have been living there since Tudor times, so that’s the 1500s.” 

Because the town is so well-preserved, the All Creatures Great and Small team didn’t have to do much to make it look as it did in the 1930s. According to Smith, they only had to make minor changes, such as hiding satellite dishes and changing shop signs. 

Other scenes for ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ are filmed in the Yorkshire Dales  

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James spends his days crisscrossing the countryside around Darrowby to visit his many patients. Though Smith explained that Herriot’s original stories were set in the Yorkshire moors, the show chose to film in a slightly different area. 

“The original James Herriot stories were set further east, a bit more in the moors,” she shared. “We chose to set our [production] in the Dales because we felt the landscape was so bucolic. Like your quintessential English landscape with soft, rolling hills—organic, curvy.”

All Creatures Great and Small isn’t filmed exactly where Herriot set his stories. But fans of the show and the books can visit the location of his real veterinary practice, which is now a museum in Thirsk. The World of James Herriot allows visitors to explore the author’s restored 1940s home and surgery and see what life was like when he was a practicing vet. 

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