Grassington

Ten minutes from the square down Sedber Lane. The Wharfe drops over a limestone fault in a broad white cascade, best after rain, crossed by a footbridge locals call the Tin Bridge. Free and open at all hours. Continue five minutes to Linton village green and the Fountaine Inn, one of the best-set pubs in the dale.

Hebden Road, at the main car park. Maps, a good bookshop, weather and path conditions, and staff who will tell you honestly which walk is a bog this week. Usually open daily 10am-4pm in season, weekends only in deep winter. Parking is around £5 for the day and fills by 10.30am on summer Saturdays.

A mile and a half north up Moor Lane from the top of Main Street. Grassington Moor was one of the most productive lead fields in the Pennines and the flues, dressing floors and the restored Cupola smelt mill chimney all survive on open access land. Free, exposed, no shelter — take a map and do not enter any shaft.

The cobbled Square, five metres from the Devonshire Hotel door. The All Creatures Great and Small production dresses these frontages for filming, and the village shops lean into it with signage and window displays. Best light is early morning before the day visitors arrive; the Devonshire serves coffee from mid-morning.

Three miles downstream on the riverside path from the Tin Bridge, following the Wharfe past Loup Scar into Burnsall's green with its five-arched bridge. Around ninety minutes each way, mostly flat, boots after rain. The Red Lion at Burnsall serves lunch; the 72 bus can bring you back if your legs have gone.

Four miles north on the B6160, Kilnsey Crag overhangs the road by some forty feet and is a landmark climbing wall. Continue to Kettlewell for the Racehorses and Blue Bell pubs, then on to Buckden if you have time. Twenty minutes' driving each way and the finest stretch of road in Wharfedale.

There is no railway. Skipton, ten miles south, is the railhead — around 45 minutes from Leeds and 50 from Bradford — and the 72 bus runs from Skipton bus station beside the railway station to Grassington square in about 40 minutes, roughly hourly on weekdays with reduced Sunday service; some journeys continue up the dale to Kettlewell and Buckden. Summer Sunday DalesBus services add links to Malham, Ilkley and Leeds. A taxi from Skipton station is about £22. In the village everything is within four hundred metres, though Main Street is steep. Use the National Park car park on Hebden Road; roadside space in the centre is close to nonexistent from May onwards.

The National Park Centre car park on Hebden Road is the main one, at around £5 for the day, and it fills by mid-morning on summer weekends and bank holidays. There is limited additional space near the top of Main Street. Do not plan on parking on the Square itself — it is tiny and mostly restricted. During the December Dickensian Saturdays the centre closes to cars entirely.

The Channel 5 series dresses Grassington's Square and Main Street as the fictional Darrowby, and much of the surrounding filming happens in Wharfedale and Swaledale. The original books were rooted around Thirsk, where the real Herriot practice was — that is where the World of James Herriot museum sits. Fans generally do both, an hour and a quarter apart by car.

Yes, if you accept the 72 bus from Skipton as your lifeline. Linton Falls, Grass Wood, Hebden, Burnsall and the lead mines are all walkable from the square, and the bus continues up the dale to Kettlewell and Buckden for linear walks back. Check evening return times, which finish early, and expect a much thinner Sunday timetable outside the summer DalesBus season.

Midweek in May, June and September is the sweet spot: the paths are dry, the crowds are thin and rooms are £20 cheaper than a Saturday. January and early February are genuinely quiet, with a number of guesthouses, cafés and shops closing for a few weeks. December Saturdays are the opposite of quiet, thanks to the Dickensian Festival, and the village is packed from mid-morning.