Stray Foodie is a bi-monthly food review written by Michelin-starred chef, Frances Atkins. In 1997, Frances opened the Yorke Arms near Pateley Bridge, where she was the owner for 20 years. During her ownership, she held her Michelin-star status for 16 of those years.

Grantham Arms, Milby, Boroughbridge YO51 9BW

Frances’ Meal: Starter: Garlic Prawns with Samphire £9.95 Main Course: Steak Pie £14.95  Glass of Picpoul: £4.30

The Grantham Arms is a grey painted building that stands on a roundabout as you enter Boroughbridge. I suspect it was once a charming coaching inn but now at the side of a very busy road – not the most salubrious positions. Its fake grass and fairy lights make a statement.

The welcome I received from the young man behind the bar, Sam, was exemplary. It was a busy bar with guests of all ages.

I was with a friend who is the head of a hospitality department at a university. A young lady called Jess showed us to our table and looked after our experience for the duration of the evening. There were brown leather chairs, square tables, candles and bric-a-brac throughout. I imagine in the evening it would be very atmospheric.

The front room of Grantham Arms.

Jess was warm, friendly, with an extensive knowledge of the menu, which catered for all tastes.

To start with we shared Garlic Prawns with Samphire. The Samphire would have welcomed a little less heat.

She advised us that the Pies were a speciality and the thing to have. So, I had the steak pie which was well-made with good pastry and generously presented. I am not sure if the blue cheese in the gravy worked with such good ingredients; it might suit someone with a more robust palate. The cooking of the vegetables was excellent which is a rare achievement.

Would you like Frances to review your restaurant or cafe? 

From pop-up to fine dining, Frances would like to hear from you. If you’d like her to write a review on your food, send her an email to: foodie@thestrayferret.co.uk.

The Chicken Supreme, which my friend ordered, was of grand proportions with a well-made sauce. I was assured it tasted good. However, I would have liked to have seen it looking more comfortable in the sauce with thinly sliced mushrooms, chopped chives and sliced to add a little elegance.

The choice of wines were very limited and they would have benefited from a wider selection of grape variety to balance with the dishes on offer.

The Dessert Menu looked tempting but unfortunately, we were too full. It looked interesting and was the sort of menu that meant no waste for the kitchen. Perhaps a seasonal weekly dessert might be a thought. A Syrup & Apple Sponge or similar nursery pudding for the winter the months might be a popular idea for their regulars.

The atmosphere was young and vibrant and made by the service staff. Such courtesy is always a pleasure to receive.

The outside seating area.

The kitchen, given suitable direction, has the makings of a successful brigade, although, I was disappointed to find the Head Chef was not on duty at the time of my visit, nor was any form of senior management.

If you are hungry the pricing is of very good value and you won’t be disappointed. I am sure it will increase in popularity as a neighbourhood restaurant. In these difficult times, it is a place to be valued.

To find out more about Grantham Arms click here. To read more about Frances’ fantastic career click here.

Read More: 

• Stray Foodie:  Frances visits the Bistro at How Stean Gorge, Nidderdale
• Italian bar and restaurant closes in Harrogate

A unique lights installation kicked up into life last night to highlight the power of the arts ahead of the Harrogate Literature Festival.

The Station Parade office of Raworths, the title sponsor of the festival, was covered in a selection of quotes from popular books.

Those behind the display chose quotes to reflect the difficult time for the arts and their hopes for the future.

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise” by Victor Hugo, and “Books are a uniquely portable magic” by Stephen King were included.

Read more:

• Impromptu concert at Brimham Rocks highlights nature and arts
• Harrogate Theatre awarded £250,000 survival boost

Harrogate’s literature festival is now in its 12th year but will, like many events, move online due to social distancing requirements.

The festival will run from October 23 to 25. It will be streamed on HIF Player on the Harrogate International Festival’s website.

Ten word stories appearing in Harrogate town centre

Meanwhile the literature festival organisers have also started to publish ten word stories on posters around the town centre.

The Stray Ferret enjoyed this ten word story by Ruby Fisher, one of the competition entries:

“Fat Rascals make the world go round. Breakfast of champions.”

Zoe Robinson, Raworths managing partner, said:

“We are looking for all kinds of story, funny, personal or evocative, it just has to involve Harrogate! I had great fun writing mine and hope everyone else has as much fun with theirs!

“I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the 2020 National Libraries Week and can’t wait to read the entries.”

Some ten word stories posted near Raworths in Harrogate.

Arts charity Harrogate International Festivals usually creates 300 live event a year but saw its entire programme cancelled from March.

Sharon Canavar, the chief executive of Harrogate International Festivals, said:

“Whilst the coronavirus pandemic may have cast a dark shadow over the world and forced the cancellation and re-invention of our entire 2020 calendar of events, this installation is a beaming example of the light that literature and the arts can bring in the darkness.”

Harrogate District Hospital is set to ease restrictions on pregnancy visits next week.

From Monday October 19, partners will be welcome to attend the consultant antenatal clinic appointments.

The hospital has asked partners to arrive on time and not early so they don’t crowd the waiting area.

Previously, partners have only been allowed to be present at the 20 week scan – and before mid-September were not allowed at any appointments during pregnancy.

Read more:

• Harrogate district in lowest tier of new local restrictions
• Harrogate hospital unveils LGBTQ+ rainbow crossings

There are still visiting restrictions on midwifery antenatal clinics and drop-in clinics, which the hospital says is out of its control.

A spokesperson for the hospital said:

“We appreciate how difficult it has been for pregnant women attending the consultant clinics in the hospital at Harrogate without their partners. After careful consideration and discussion we have made this plan.”

The home birth service was suspended from August in Harrogate due to increased sickness absence levels in the hospital’s midwifery team.

It will remain suspended until the end of October, for which the hospital has apologised.

Two businesses in the Harrogate district are challenging themselves to get moving in order to raise money for charity. 

Harrogate firm, High Street TV, is aiming to cover 500km in two hours today. Fifty members of staff will take part- walking and running however far they can to make the total distance. 

Their ‘Keep on Moving’ challenge has raised £2,450 so far for Saint Michael’s Hospice, 163% of their original target. 

Speaking about why the company chose to do this challenge, fundraising coordinator Lisa Dallas said: 

“We haven’t been able to fundraise recently because of the current covid situation, so we needed to do something a little bit different. We had to think outside the box, because we had to do something where we wouldn’t be in a group.” 

Over the years, High Street TV have raised £41,710 for Saint Michael’s Hospice and are a member of their Guild of Patrons. 

Read more: 

• Saint Michael’s offers big money lottery Superdraw
• Ripon schoolgirl smashes charity fundraising target

Staff from Yorkshire letting agent Linley & Simpson have already begun their attempt to get “Around the World in 80 Days”, which is raising money for Martin House Hospice. 

To reach their target of covering 40,075km, staff from the Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough branches are running, walking or cycling. A combined daily distance of 505km will have to be recorded via a smartphone tracking app in order for them to make their goal. 

Martin House, based in Boston Spa, supports families North, West and East Yorkshire. They provide palliative care to children and young people with life limiting conditions. 

Will Linley, left and Nick Simpson.

Will Linley, Linley & Simpson chief executive and co-founder, said: 

“Because Covid has denied us the opportunity of taking part in a series of planned fundraising activities for Martin House, we have now devised this challenge as our grand sponsored finale of 2020.

 “Martin house is an incredible charity, and one that we are delighted to be supporting for at least another 12 months. Over the last five years we have raised more than £100,000, and to mark our 24th year in business we have now set ourselves a £24,000 target over the next 12 months.”

To donate to the High Street TV “Keep on Moving” challenge, click here. 

A Harrogate woman campaigning for care home visits to be allowed said she does not see a government pilot scheme as a significant step forward.

Speaking to MPs this week, care minister Helen Whately said a pilot scheme to give relatives ‘key worker status’ – testing them for covid and allowing them to visit care homes – is being planned.

However, Judy Bass, whose 99-year-old father lives in a Harrogate care home, said more urgent progress needs to be made across the country for the sake of residents’ well-being.

“I don’t think it’s particularly a step forward. I think it’s placatory, because they have known about this for so long. It just needs to be put in place.

“Piloting it – I don’t even know how that would operate or if it would have any effect. They just need to put it in place. Relatives need to be given key worker status and tested and allowed to visit.”

Ms Bass also questioned whether the project would even be possible, given the struggle to deliver testing around the country.

Last month, introducing a ban on visitors across the county throughout October, North Yorkshire County Council’s head of health and adult services, Richard Webb, said although he was in favour of testing relatives to allow them to visit, the lack of tests available made that “unrealistic”.

Read more:

• Task group meets to discuss care home visits
• North Yorkshire districts could be placed in different covid tiers

Ms Bass and her brother are being allowed to visit their father this week for the first time – but only to see him through a window. As he has dementia, she is concerned the visit will distress him or, even worse, that he will not recognise his children.

“We will try and see how he copes with it, but he might not understand what’s going on. He might not know who I am, he might be exhausted by the whole thing. I go with trepidation.”

This week, care homes have reacted strongly to the suggestion that they could be asked to take in patients from hospitals who have tested positive for covid. Some councils have approached care homes to ask them to provide separate space for people recovering from the virus after being discharged, away from other residents.

Sam Monaghan, the chief executive of MHA, which runs care homes across the country including Berwick Grange in Harrogate, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he was “highly concerned” about people with the virus being brought into close contact with vulnerable communities. Speaking about the logistics of accommodating them separately, he added:

“Unless you are talking about care home providers who have got buildings that aren’t yet occupied, it will be moving people out of their home, their room that they have got, if you are trying to cohort part of the home.

“You would be having to separate your staff group into those who are working with people without covid and those who are working with covid, and what the arrangements and protections for those staff at the heightened level of risk would be.

“And then there is the risk of transmission within that geographic space, even if you managed to create an artificial barrier between the two.”

Judy Bass and her father, a few years ago.

For Ms Bass, who has not seen her father since March, introducing covid patients to a care home while still preventing relatives who have tested negative for the virus from visiting, is beyond comprehension.

She told the Stray Ferret action needs to be taken quickly for the sake of residents who may not have long left to live and whose families are missing vital time with their loved ones.

“It’s going to be a hard enough winter for everybody, but to make things harder for us and our relatives is so unfair. We speak as often as we can, but conversation is very limited. He is stable, but it’s very difficult for me to tell how he is mentally without sitting with him and being with him to get those vibes.

“I don’t think we have seen a particular mental deterioration, but it’s just he shouldn’t be in that situation and we shouldn’t either.

“Ours is very minimal compared to a lot of people, but if my father has deteriorated and doesn’t know who we are, we’ve lost that little window of time with him that we had.”

A peer has expressed concerns the Harrogate Nightingale hospital will not open because it “simply does not have the staff available to allow it to operate safely”.

The government said this week the hospital was on standby to receive covid patients.

But Lord Newby, the Liberal Democrat leader in the House of Lords, told the Lords yesterday:

“It is widely believed in Yorkshire that, as far as the Nightingale hospital in Harrogate is concerned, this will not happen because the hospital simply does not have the staff available to allow it to operate safely.”

Lord Newby, who lives in Ripon, asked Baroness Evans of Bowes Park, the Conservative leader of the House of Lords, if she could “assure the House that this is not the case”.

Baroness Evans replied that the hospital was already being used for CT scans — which did not reassure Lord Newby.

Speaking today to the Stray Ferret, he said:

“I raised the issue yesterday because I had heard from several NHS sources that the Nightingale hospital had neither the equipment nor more importantly the staff to open fully.

“I was not at all reassured by Baroness Evans’ response. She said that the Harrogate Nightingale was currently being used for CT scans and implied that it was on standby to open for covid cases.

“She explicitly refused to answer my specific question about whether the hospital had the staffing levels which would allow it to open safely for covid patients.”

Read more:

• Harrogate Nightingale hospital put on standby
• Harrogate’s Nightingale hospital cost £27m to set up

Lord Newby said he doubted NHS England would want to admit there would be real difficulties getting the Harrogate hospital working with covid patients on any scale.

An NHS England spokesperson for the hospital said:

“As part of our comprehensive activation plans we have developed a model that can be scaled up as and when additional critical care beds are required in the region.

“This ensures that the right skill mix of staff will be available from NHS trusts in the region, and via NHS Professionals and through direct recruitment if required.”

Harrogate Borough Council is to publish a 10-year vision for horticulture in the district — but it’s unclear if it will include plans to grow wildflowers on the Stray.

The Harrogate and District Green Party has called for wildflowers to be planted to attract more wildlife, such as bees, and to act as a focal point for visitors.

It recently launched a petition, which has almost 600 signatures, urging the council to support this.

At last night’s full council meeting, Rebecca Maunder, chair of the Harrogate and District Green Party, asked Cllr Andy Paraskos, cabinet member for the environment, if HBC would commit to planting more bulb species as well as sowing wildflower seeds on the Stray.

Cllr Paraskos said he “absolutely” agreed with the Green Party’s sentiments on biodiversity but did not commit to any specific changes on the Stray.

He said:

“Biodiversity is not just about the Stray but across the whole district so hopefully we will see some exciting projects over the coming years.

“The Stray does not belong to us, so everything we do on the Stray is by negotiations with the Duchy, but we will continue to look at biodiversity”.

Read more:

• Hundreds sign petition to make the Stray bee-friendly

• Plant wildflowers on the Stray, says Green Party

The council held a consultation on the future of horticulture in the district this year.

Its horticulture strategy, which is yet to be approved, will detail the authority’s planting plans.

Cllr Paraskos said biodiversity “is a strong theme” of the upcoming strategy.

The council has already committed to planting 60,000 crocuses on the the Stray at West Park in the coming months.

Speaking to the Stray Ferret after the meeting, Ms Maunder said “now is the perfect” time to add a greater mix of bulbs when the Stray is replanted.

She said:

“Why not grasp this opportunity and make a significant impact?”

Bars and cafes in Harrogate are increasingly opening their doors to people forced to work from home due to covid.

The shops typically rent out a table and plug socket, hook you up to the WiFi and keep the coffee or tea running for a set fee over a set period of time.

North Bar Harrogate and the Harrogate Tea Rooms are two of a growing number of venues enticing workers away from their home offices with the promise of endless coffee and other perks.

Read more:

• Colourful charity crafts store opens in Harrogate
• Hampsthwaite coffee shop to reopen after covid deep clean
• Harrogate survey: Nearly 80% want to keep alfresco dining

Since the offers began, people have turned up in numbers at both venues. Indeed coffee shop working has become so popular the venues are considering carrying on with it beyond coronavirus.

Deborah Przychodna, the manager at North Bar Harrogate, told the Stray Ferret:

“This is the third day of Work From North and it has been great. The response from people has been amazing. I think a lot of people are tired of working from home, they want to see other people and they feel safe here.”

What are the offers?

There may be other bars and cafes with similar offers – If your favourite bar or cafe has a similar offer then lets us know by email – but here is what we found:

North Bar Harrogate (five hours): For £15 customers get a refillable tea or coffee, a focaccia sandwich or similar and a pint of beer to end the day. Available from 12pm to 5pm.

Harrogate Tea Rooms (three hours): For £10 customers get unlimited tea or coffee and brunch. Available from 10am to 3.30pm.

How practical is it?

As one of those people working from home and tiring of the same four walls, I thought I would try the concept.

So I packed up my laptop, chargers, camera and notepad and headed to North Bar Harrogate at 12pm.

With a coffee boost I interviewed the manager Deborah, took a couple of pictures and connected my laptop to the WiFi to write this article.

It may not work for those who prefer privacy but for many it can be a welcome change of scene.

Personally, I enjoyed the coffee and the bright space at North Bar. The staff were welcoming and helpful.

At £15, I wouldn’t rush back straight away but I definitely plan to head back sometime soon or try out the Harrogate Tea Rooms.

Sixteen historic sites in the Harrogate district have been included on Historic England’s at risk register, which was published today.

The register identifies sites most at risk of “being lost as a result of neglect, decay or inappropriate development”.

Historic England, a non-departmental public body, uses the register to work with owners to understand repairs and find funding.

The register downgrades the condition of the Church of St Mary on Harlow Terrace, which is disused, from ‘poor’ to ‘very bad’.

The grade II* listed building dates back to 1916 but has structural problems and needs lots of work. Mineral felt in the roof is leaking and the stone is deteriorating.

The register says proposals to convert St Mary’s into new use are not progressing.

Read more:

• ‘Save our trees’ plea from Harrogate residents
• Plans to demolish Ripon Cathedral Choir School
• Extension plans for Ripon Cathedral on display

Other Harrogate district heritage sites ‘at risk’

The Heritage at Risk register highlights the plight of a further 15 historic buildings or places in the district:

• Temple of Victory in Flaxby – fair
• Orangery at Ripley Castle – poor
• Butterton Bridge in Warsill – poor
• Dob Park Lodge in Weston – poor
• Church of St James in Baldersby – fair
• Carved rocks on edge of Snowden Carr, Askwith – generally satisfactory
• Henge monument at Hutton Conyers – extensive significant problems
• Hutton Hall at Hutton Conyers – generally satisfactory
• Round barrow at Hutton Conyers – generally satisfactory
• Medieval fishponds in Markington and Wallerthwaite – generally unsatisfactory
• Howe Hill motte and Bailey Castle at North Deighton – generally unsatisfactory
• Allerton Park at Allerton Castle – generally satisfactory
• Plumpton Rocks at Plompton – generally satisfactory
• Swinton Castle at Swinton – generally satisfactory
• Site of Battle of Boroughbridge – generally satisfactory

The competition to find Britain’s best Christmas tree, which will then stand outside Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Downing Street home, is to be held in Harrogate this month.

It is the first time the town has been chosen to stage the event, which also includes a category to find a champion wreath to hang on the PM’s door at number 10.

The competition will take place at the Great Yorkshire Showground on October 28.

It is run by the British Christmas Tree Growers Association, which is now managed by the Yorkshire Agricultural Society.

The association, which is a trade group for people who grow specialist Christmas trees, has 320 members nationally.

Yorkshire TV stars Amanda Owen, shepherdess on Channel 5’s Our Yorkshire Farm, and Peter Wright, from Channel 5’s The Yorkshire Vet, will join the judging panel.

Because of covid, growers will send their tress to the ground but will be unable to attend in person.

Heather Parry, managing agent for the BCTGA, who is also the managing director of Yorkshire Event Centre, said:

“We are very much looking forward to seeing the best in the business being crowned, right here on the Great Yorkshire Showground. The champion tree winner will head to 10 Downing Street to provide that iconic Christmas tree for this year.”

Peter Wright said:

“There’s nothing like the scent of a real Christmas tree to really launch you into the festive spirit and I am really looking forward to seeing some of the best in Britain at the Showground.”

Read more:

• From Santa’s grottos to winter wonderland walks, events across the Harrogate district are seeing record levels of demand for the festive season. 
• Our survey revealed a third of Harrogate residents will do their Christmas shopping in the town. 

Many growers in the competition have changed their business to suit covid measures by, for instance, introducing online sales and allowing customers to pick their own tree with social distancing measures.

Christmas tree orders are reported to have already exceeded early orders from 2019.