Postcard from Yorkshire: Masham

Masham is a charming market town in Yorkshire, notable for two reasons, both of them breweries. It also shares a characteristic with many other strikingly pretty towns or villages that are popular with tourists in that the name of the town is pronounced differently to how it is spelled (or 'spelt'), it's 'Massum', not 'Mash-ham'. At least, that's what we were told, it could all be an elaborate double bluff but is most likely true for a couple of reasons, the first being that such devices are a handy way for the locals to quickly divine who the tourists are (other clues include a relaxed expression and a tendency to anoraks), the second being, in all probability, a feature of the local accent which from the pronunciation guide above you may think is Deep South but is actually Rural Yorkshire.

As a warming up exercise, simply say 'Ow do!' ten times every morning. This is not only excellent for getting your mouth in gear for the correct pronunciation of Yorkshire place names, but will be your practical experience of greeting people on the short walk to the shops of a morning.

Masham is a destination town. It has a market square that, unusually, features a market twice a week, selling real things such as veg and cake as well as the staple features of modern markets, second-hand paperbacks and DVDs (Catherine Cookson and Jason Statham will be with us forever). It also plays host to groups of motor bike enthusiasts and car enthusiasts, the attraction being that they can all rumble down to the road to the town and then park up in the substantial town square. There they can have a pint, look at each others vehicles, talk about, presumably, carburettors, and then rumble home.

As a town, it's pretty much picture-perfect. There are two excellent butchers, a little store (the Co-Op), a post office, grocers, newsagent and a deli featuring the hundred-cheese-challenge. At least that's what I think they meant when they advertised a cheese counter with over one hundred cheeses. It even had a bank, with a cash machine! The cash machine was guarded by a cat that would lazily perch on a sunny windowsill nearby and keep a relaxed feline eye on proceedings. Obviously a brewery cat taking a break from an arduous routine of snoozing among the casks, it was a regular feature by the cash machine in the evening (as was I, withdrawing more money for beer and cheese), to the extent that on my return I half expected to receive a call from my bank along the lines of 'we've noticed some unexpected activity on your account, somebody has used your pin number to purchase two hundred tins of Whiskas'.

The post office featured a selection of post cards and humorous regional cards, the sort that can be found in any county with a strong sense of identity and a distinct regional accent, giving local dialect translations and so on, although my favourite was along the lines of 'Never ask an Englishman where he's from. If he's from Yorkshire, he'll soon tell you, if not, you would not want to embarrass him'.

While the Professional Yorkshireman surely exists (just like the professional Welshman, Scotsman and so on, with Liverpudlians only ever making it to 'talented armature Scouser' status given that there are so bloody many of them in competition for the role) they don't actually exist in the county itself. It's almost as if as soon as you trip the threshold for droning on about how great Yorkshire is, you are given a ticket to London and a letter of introduction to the BBC. Yorkshire people are incredibly friendly. I wasn't there long enough to firm up just why, but my hypothesis is that a combination of the weather and enforced periods of isolation in snow drifts and so on make them so bloody happy to see other people that they are, as a result, good in company, unfailingly polite and cheerful.

And helpful. Masham has four pubs, not counting the two brewery taps. One evening we are in The Bay Horse, a quirky family run place, when the gas goes out in the cellar. Not the heating or cooking stuff, but the stuff that moves the beer from the cellar to the pumps at the bar. This was clearly a matter of gravity on a par with somebody from a nearby research facility dropping a flask of Ebola on the floor. As panic spread, a fellow wearing a brewery polo shirt who had clearly just come off shift asked if there was anything he could do? Did he know anything about beer pumps? He slipped from his stool and was back in two minutes, with the landlady instructing 'get that man a pint'.

His neighbour asked 'pulling a foreigner?'
'Well, the gas had gone and my pint was empty.'

Anywhere else, he would have been carried shoulder high round the pub, possibly concussed on some low beams but in an affectionate way. Not here, the hero of the pub was self-effacing. Now that's Yorkshire.

Masham is home to two famous breweries, Theakston's and Black Sheep. Each with their own taps attached (a tap being a pub attached to a brewery, rather than an enormous dispenser of beer bolted onto the side of the place, gushing ale, although the image is a pleasing one). As well as these it has four pubs.

The White Bear is actually a hotel, a sprawling place that still manages to retain the intimate pub feel downstairs. The lounge area is posh, having candles at the tables and opening up into the dining area, where the food is good. But it's the bar area that the locals drink in and the bar is the place to be. Decorated with exactly the right kind of curios that those companies creating new bars strive so hard to duplicate, but never do (for instance a single volume encyclopaedia from the 1930s of the type that my grandparents had, when all the knowledge you would ever need was contained in just over a thousand closely printed pages. While the book didn't actually have a publication date, it had maps of the world at the back and one can normally date a book fairly accurately from the state of the Balkans).

The White Bear served the best Theakston's I've ever tasted, so the strategy was to panic drink the stuff, relax in front of the fire, and make the most of it. This was a plan shared by the locals.

It was also a pub that took the role of the pub, as the centre of the community, very seriously, and not just as a place where locals could come and talk bollocks. One night when we were in there there was a musical session happening in the bar, which was packed to the rafters with people in sweaters nodding in time to folk music. Peering over the heads, one could see a semi-circle of performers and a variety of instruments, ranging from a beautiful banjo and fine acoustic guitars, through to traditional folk instruments like a bucket and a hen.

But the voice was the most important instrument here, with the evening starting with a bloke singing, along the lines of:
'Oh I have known John Barleycorn,
I have known John Barleycorn,
Oh I have known John Barleycorn,
John Barleycorn I have known.'

I think the song is called 'John Barleycorn'. The evening, from what I could work out, consisted of everyone doing a turn and then combining voices and instruments until the session ended in a rousing rendition of, I think, 'John Barleycorn'. Again. Following this fine effort, the bar staff ferried the food in, consisting first of basins of chips cut so thick I swear one was simply a potato halved, platters of thick slices of bread and butter (chip butties!) and, for those still peckish, sandwiches.

The White Bear was an exceptional place, the only thing that might of improved it was four foot of snow drifting at the door delaying departure.


Masham is also home to The Bay Horse. This is your more bohemian place, with hand written messages from the staff on the walls about enjoying life and so on, signed with little hearts. Just the right side of sweet, it's a cosy pub that does good food and also does rooms. The owners, we think, own a race horse or possibly part of a race horse (I hope it's the nose, as that bit always comes first unless the race is especially chaotic), and there is a picture of the landlord and landlady with their arms around a racehorse, the horse looking about as mad as all horses do, the owners looking, as the saying has it, as pissed as an owner on race day. Written on the walls are remarks about owning a racehorse being a sure sign of having too much money and too little sense.


The Bruce Arms is where you go to watch the footie on a big screen telly. Actually, big is an understatement, the thing occupies two post codes. The attraction of the Bruce is that Wednesday night is curry night, meaning that the proprietor and staff of one of the local curry houses take over the pub restaurant and kitchens and serve both eat in and take away meals. That was why we were there, to order and pick up a take-away. It was fantastic, well worth the wait, which was two pints, so let's say forty minutes.

Finally there's the Kings Head hotel, a chain pub and hotel on the square and no doubt the place the tourists go to for beer and food. Actually not bad, although it has a fruiter and that inescapable chain pub atmosphere, it's light and airy if you like that kind of thing, the sort of place you can take a relative who doesn't drink in the reasonable expectation that they will get a decent coffee. To be fair, they also did rather good wasabi peanuts.

As well as the four pub type pubs, the two brewery taps are the Black Bull in Paradise (Theakston's) and the tap at the Black Sheep Brewery. Both reflect the nature of their respective breweries or, more accurately, brewery tours. The Black Sheep is a collection of tables set up by a long bar, bordered by a restaurant and a gift shop. Very much the place where you finish your brewery tour with the complimentary half pint. Also very much the place where the brewery workers finish the day with a pint and a chat. Nothing like drinking your own product to ensure rigorous quality control. The Black Bull in Paradise is, by contrast, a perfect little pub that just happens to be attached to a brewery.