Village of the Week: Beck Hole has a 'time warp' pub, just 17 residents and a surprising history of industry

The Birch Hall Inn in the hamlet of Beck Hole, is a short pub walk away from the village of Goathland.

I was going to add that Goathland is a much more well known place name, thus an easier reference to place, but actually I am not sure.

The Birch Hall Inn is probably up there with the most photographed pubs in the UK and whether you have been or not, more people than you think have heard of it.

Any more than 20 to 30 people in the pub at one time and it is packed out, so it is certainly not your stereotypical pub chain type opening with a menu the same as dozens of its microwave operative counterparts, neon signs, a gin menu and a beer deal of the week.

This is a proper pub, the likes of which we have not seen for decades and it has its place in the heart of the village of Beck Hole which has 12 properties (not counting five holiday homes) and just 17 residents in mainly listed buildings, which at any time of year conjure up different feelings.

In summer they are idyllic, bathing in sunlight, a peaceful haven of a utopian type lifestyle by the river. Think fishing for your supper while bird song provides the back drop.

It won’t be one of a throng of traffic as Beck Hole is approached by a long single track road with some quite perilous bends.

This approach means that come winter, and when winter does arrive in these parts, it really does (the village was cut off for weeks in the winter snow of 2010 and power cuts and impassable roads are not new to the locals here).

But, then you have chimneys puthering away as stoves and fires keep the homes, hearths and hearts warm, lamplit windows look as cosy as a Christmas card and the lack of visitors and passers by make the silence of civilisation almost deafening.

Not blighted by soulless over development, you won’t find a Barratt Homes sales rep within a 30 mile radius at best, village life is just so – and the pub and its landlady are at the heart of it.

Glenys Crampton and her brother bought the pub back in 1981. The previous landlady was Mrs Schofield and she had run the pub for 53 years previously to that.

She was the first publican to buy the building outright and came to Beck Hole as a 19-year-old newlywed.

When she sold the pub, which she had put her heart and soul into, one of the conditions was that it should stay the same as it was.

At that time, the end of the 1970s and onset of the 1980s, a new wave of development was happening and it was rumoured that other people interested in buying the Birch Hall Inn had grand plans for it.

Glenys and her brother didn’t have spare cash beyond buying the pub, therefore Mrs Schofield knew they wouldn’t and couldn’t alter the ethos of the place.

Forty years later, Glenys is still there and running the pub with her husband.

CAMRA calls it a gem of a place and a time-warp. It is cash only and thankfully not a QR code to be seen.

The menu is as follows. Pork pies or sandwiches that are cheese and pickle or ham and pickle. Maybe cheese and ham.

Perhaps there had been a pub or a building here in the 17th century but what is more certain is that the original construction of the current building is of mid to late 18th century and at that time was two single storey cottages.

This is the original pub and ‘main bar’ with concrete floors, beams, an imposing fire place and bench seats. After the second world war, an extension was built within a stone Victorian building. In here is the ‘little’ bar – there are three tables – and a sweet shop which also is like a time warp.

It is only the letter of the law that makes the scales give you measurements in both ounces and grams but the sweets are as traditional as ever.

Speaking of traditional, Beck Hole may appear as ‘chocolate box’ as you like, with the bridge over Eller Beck flowing into the River Esk, the cobbled pathways leading to a lovely walk along the old railway line to Grosmont and Egton, the current line for the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, and Goathland a short walk in the opposite direction.

However, it was actually modern industrialisation that led to the development of the village – after it started out as a single farm.

A mill was in operation towards the end of the late 1700s and when the Whitby and Pickering Railway was opened in 1836 a station was built at Beck Hole.

At first it was just to detach carriages from horses so they could be lifted up the incline (the steep, winding road I referred to earlier) but later had station status.

The Whitby Iron Company followed and blast furnaces were were built which began production of iron in 1860.

Cottages for industrial workers were built and the pub (that single storey set of cottages) was expanded.

But, the furnaces wouldn’t last long. After four years they were cooled as there had been a landslip and other faults.

The steam line operated between Whitby and Beck Hole and in order to avoid the incline, it was later deviated and carried passengers until 1914 and freight thereafter until 1951 when it closed completely.

It was a move that served to take the village back to being a complete get away from real-life and it is no wonder it is so popular with visitors and residents, who rarely leave once they are here.

It is three years since a house came up for sale here.