The main character of the film is American opera singer Jessica Bailey, who is traveling to Vienna, Austria, for a concert. She only knows that there will be “an overnight stay” after her flight is diverted, but she is unsure of how long it will be.
She nods off and misses her stop while traveling from the train station to the nearest town. She is currently stranded in the small English town of Knaresborough. She spends the night in a lodge owned by attractive, unmarried father Andrew Hunter in Pine Falls, a name that isn’t particularly British, but it’s close to the town.
Jessica is attempting to book the next flight out so she can make it to her concert, while Andy’s family is having financial difficulties with his lodge and parks (a major mining firm wants to buy him out and solve all of his financial troubles). After learning about the park’s tragic past, Jessica resolves to save it!
A Very Yorkshire Christmas Filming Locations
Filming venues for A Very Yorkshire Christmas remain authentic to North Yorkshire, including Pickering Station, Knaresborough Station, and Knaresborough Castle, as well as nearby cafes, galleries, and a real holiday park.
Filmed on location at Pickering and Knaresborough stations, Knaresborough Castle, a North Yorkshire vacation park, and the actual The Crumb Café in Knaresborough, the film was also known as A Very British Christmas in the US and A Very Yorkshire Christmas in the UK.
In the opening shot of Very Yorkshire Christmas train station, Jessica is seen waiting at an old station. This station is Pickering Station on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. Pickering Station had an appearance in the Downton Abbey movie and served as Doncaster Station in BBC One’s The ABC Murders. In 2016, it served as the filming site for The Dad’s Army Movie’s rail station.
After Tom Cruise shot scenes at Pickering in April 2021, it’s scheduled to feature in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning – Part One, which is scheduled for release in July 2023. Pickering is a favorite location for historical plays because of its 1930s design, which wonderfully sets the mood for the steam trains that stop there.
North Yorkshire Moors Railway is the name of the heritage railway line featured in A Very Yorkshire Christmas. North York Moors National Park is traversed by Jessica’s vintage railway.
The same train route, which passes through Pickering and Goathland (the setting for Heartbeat and Harry Potter), is available for use. You may be able to reserve a meal along the way if you keep an eye on the timetable on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway website.
The line may appear in Indians Jones 5, where filming is scheduled to take place in June 2021 between Grosmont Tunnel and Pickering. In the scene where Jessica arrives and wanders into town in A Very Yorkshire Christmas, the actual Knaresborough Station is used.
Unlike the steam-powered North Yorkshire Moors Railway, it is an everyday railway run by Northern Trains on the Harrogate Line. Knaresborough Station is located near the High Street on the northern side of the viaduct. Because Jessica can get to the Crumble Café location in just five minutes on foot from the station, her subsequent trip there seems plausible.
Thirteen on Castlegate, Knaresborough, is where you can find the actual Crumble Café. This vintage coffee shop and bakery offers loose-leaf teas from Sheffield and coffee blended with North Yorkshire. Jessica might have strolled easily along Kirkgate and then Castlegate to the café owned by Amber’s family.
The Christmas decorations were a unique touch to the café, which is just as charming in real life as it was during the filming of A Very British Christmas in March 2019. The remains of Knaresborough Castle served as the backdrop for Jessica’s sightseeing sequence. The castle was first mentioned in the 1100s when defenses were reinforced at the cost of a hefty £11.
However, its most well-known reputation comes from being the castle where the assassins of Canterbury Archbishop Thomas Becket took sanctuary after their murderous deed. Hugh de Morville, the Knaresborough Castle Constable, oversaw all of them, and they were all related to the castle.
Following multiple periods of service as a royal palace, the King’s Tower and Courthouse withstood the majority of the destruction during the English Civil War. Jessica is spotted strolling around the periphery in A Very Yorkshire Christmas, and a local approaches her to ask to take her picture. She gazes out over the River Nidd and the Knaresborough Viaduct.
