— Cobble Hill Farm

After her grandfather’s death, Harriet Bailey inherits her grandfather’s home, veterinary practice and art gallery at Cobble Hill Farm in White Church Bay, Yorkshire, UK. 

It can be challenging to convey the layout of such a large property. And since, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, I’m sharing a pic of the hand-drawing I made before I started writing. Thankfully, our series editors approved, only shifting the barns more behind Aunt Jinny’s and Harriet’s homes. 

Although in the UK, medical clinics are referred to as surgeries, and what we in North America might call a surgery or operating room, they call theatre, our editors opted to use the terms Harriet, as a transplanted American, would typically use. So…the Veterinary Clinic occupies a portion of the main floor of her two story house and shares a parking lot (aka car park) with the two-story dower cottage, where her Aunt Jinny lives and has her doctor’s office.  

Below are some of the pics I took while touring the east side of North York Moors National Park. They depict what some of the fictional buildings and views might look like. 

In this area of Yorkshire most of the farmhouses are built from stone. There are few whitewashed walls or thatched roofs. But Bailey’s Art Gallery has a thatched roof similar to this one I spotted: 

Since Harriet Bailey is the third generation of Bailey vets to practice out of Cobble Hill, I imagined that parts of the home and clinic might still look as it had sixty or more years ago…as seen at the James Herriot museum:

Public Footpaths abound in Yorkshire and run through the fields adjacent to Cobble Hill Farm, while a coastal path traverses the tops of the cliffs overlooking the North Sea at the back of the property (minus the fence): 

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