Thirsk

This busy market town on the western edge of the moors was once an important coaching stop on the main east–west route from the dales to the coast, known for its inns. Today it's a busy, affluent farm town. You can still stay in the Georgian inns, and on Saturday and Monday the cobbled medieval Market Place is filled with vendors. Thirsk gained fame as the town where James Herriot (real name Alf Wight) practiced as a country vet, experiences he wrote about in his memoir All Creatures Great and Small.