Tucked away at the bottom of a steep hill in the North York Moors, life in this hidden Yorkshire village is a world away from Manchester. There are just ten residents living in Beck Hole, each of whom find it hard to tear themselves away from the 'special' surroundings.
The micro village sits in a beautiful valley nestled between steep inclines on all sides. Perched next to tributaries of the River Esk, the tiny area sits just a 10 minutes walk from the Thomason Foss waterfall and sheep often roam freely on the picturesque village green.
A steady stream of walkers often flow through the village during holidays to pass through its cluster of listed cottages, visit its small pub, sweet shop and cross its narrow, recently repaired 19th century bridge.
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Travelling down the M62 and onto the the M1, it takes just over two and a half hours to get to Beck Hole from Manchester, but you can make a day out of it by visiting Whitby beach which is just a 20-minute drive onwards.
A reporter from Yorkshire Live visited the village to speak to its residents. Although there are only around 10 of them in the village - they admitted they find it hard to tear themselves away.
Glenys Crampton bought Beck Hole's pub, the Birch Hall Inn, back in 1981, and has lived there ever since. The quaint pub is cosy, with just a few tables, but is popular with walkers as they come past.
Asked what's kept her in Beck Hole all these years, she told Yorkshire Live: "Look out the door. It’s beautiful and special. Once you’re here you have to tear yourselves away even to go do your shopping. The lady before us was here 54 years.
"We get a good mixture of tourists and walkers who help our pub and shop survive. We're well placed for people to come on the way to Whitby - we get some wonderful visitors.
"The scenery is lovely and we all know each other here."
Eller Beck passes just metres from the pub's door, running fast in the rain but glittering in the sunlight. It takes just 10 minutes to follow it up from the village to reach Thomason Foss, where I have the entire peaceful view of the waterfall to myself.
The path to Thomason Foss runs alongside the North York Moors Railway line momentarily. A train rumbles the whole ravine as it thunders past at the top of the hill.
Residents Colin and Judy Pyrah, who have lived in Beck Hole for 30 years, moved all the way out from Wakefield. After Colin left the newspapers business in Wakefield to work in museums and heritage, the couple were looking to be closer to York - but ended up falling in love with a specific house.
"I had a granny who lived in Whitby and we wanted to be nearer," Judy says. "My mum moved to Goathland [the next village over], and we saw this house had come on the market as we walked to the pub here.
"We've been here ever since."
"Judy absolutely loved the house when we walked here," Colin adds. "We shot over as soon as it came on the market and bought it straight away. We absolutely love it here."
The river runs right past the bottom of Colin and Judy's garden, and they speak delightedly of people who come to wild water swim or white water raft by the village.
“It’s a lovely little community and the community spirit is so important. There’s only about 10 houses but everyone knows and helps everybody else. We never feel cut off because everyone comes together," Colin says.
"We’re a quarter an hour from the sea but we have the woods and moors too. I look out of the window in the morning and see so many birds.
"Beck Hole is down in a hole and we almost have a microclimate. It’s a bit dodgy in the winter in the ice but it’s never as windy here.
"We go to the pub a lot in the summer to sit outside. Part of our deeds is that if we had a flock of sheep we could put them out.
"There's also only two or three holiday cottages here which is quite unusually low. What’s so lovely about it is we have a lovely mixture of residents with different backgrounds and ages. We have a fisherman who is on the sea most of the time and he brings things back for, an ex-aeronautical engineer can ex coal miner turned livestock farmer - everyone is lovely."
Judy remembers a particularly hard winter in 2010 when Beck Hole was entirely snowed in and cut off - but the couple said everyone comes together. "We were a bit worried about running out of propane gas since we're not on mains here," she says.
"But I love the different seasons here. Autumn is so beautiful as the tourist season is ending but we're always happy to see more people again in the spring."
Walkers come through the village steadily, stopping in the shop or the pub for a drink or sweets if they have cash to hand.
Couple Rob and Diane had come for a short break from their home in York to stay up in Goathland - just a half hour hike up the hill. From there, they sing the praises of the £2 bus that takes you out to the coast.
"Today we've done the walk through Beck Hole and it's been lovely," Rob said. "The scenery is beautiful and it's so peaceful and tranquil."
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