There is something about arriving in Appleton-le-Moors on an autumn afternoon that makes you want to slow down almost immediately. As you come over the common towards the village, the light has that golden amber quality you only seem to get at this time of year. Sheep wander through the long grass and, as the days get cooler, start taking advantage of the warmth left in the tarmac, so you may find yourself gently slaloming around them on the road. The hawthorns and blackthorns are beginning to turn, with bright red rose hips and hawthorn berries amongst the leaves, and there is often the faint smell of woodsmoke drifting from chimneys in the village.
Then you turn over the cattle grid into the Long Barn and are met by the beech hedge, now turning into a tapestry of russet, gold and brown. There is usually just enough of a chill in the air to justify lighting the woodburner, although in truth the Long Barn is already toasty warm. Sometimes it is really the glow of the fire that we are after.
Friday night: stay in
For the first evening, we would stay put. It takes away the pressure on anyone who has been caught in Friday traffic and means that late arrivals are not worrying about getting here in time for a table booked at the pub. Save that for Saturday or Sunday, when everyone has arrived and settled in.
Light the fire, open a bottle of wine and let the evening unfold. Some guests might wander up to the Moors Inn for a drink while supper gets underway back at the Barn. There is often someone cooking, someone else offering advice from the stone steps with a glass in hand, and several others doing very little at all. Or make it even easier and arrange for one of our local caterers to leave something ready to heat up. Then everyone can gather around the big table and do what these weekends are really about: catch up properly.
Saturday: woods, fields and open moor
If friends asked us where we would walk on an autumn Saturday, we would send them down through the woods towards Appleton Mill and then across the fields towards Lastingham and the moors beyond. It feels a little like the North York Moors in miniature. First there are the woods, with fallen leaves crunching underfoot, then fields of sheep and the path alongside the river, before the landscape opens out as you climb onto the heather moor with big skies and views towards Ana Cross.
Very conveniently, the route also takes you through Lastingham. The Blacksmiths Arms is exactly the sort of pub you want to find halfway through an autumn walk, with a real fire in the grate, horse brasses and Yorkshire flat caps hanging from the beams, hand-pulled ales and good home-cooked food made with local produce. This is also the time of year when Jackie’s favourite autumn beer comes into its own: Theakston Old Peculier, dark, rich and just right after a walk on the moors.
Or spend the morning in Helmsley
Not everybody wants to pull on walking boots, and Helmsley is lovely in autumn. It is small enough to wander around without a plan but packed with independent shops and good places to eat. Our usual stop is Mannion & Co, especially for brunch, and we have a particular weakness for their Eggs Benedict with smoked bacon and truffled hollandaise.
If you have children with you, drive a little further to The Flower Belt. Earlier in autumn you can pick sunflowers and, later in the season, pumpkins. Entry is free, and they serve Roost coffee with cakes from Hunters of Helmsley. We would probably call at Hunters on the way home too, because it is difficult to walk past the cheese counter.
When everyone comes back
One of the things we like most about autumn weekends is that nobody feels they ought to be out making the most of every last hour of daylight. As the light begins to fade, coming back to the Barn feels like part of the day rather than the end of it.
Someone might start a jigsaw, there may be a table tennis competition in the West Barn, while others brew some tea, reopen the wine or simply settle in around the fire and talk. There is a big stack of logs in the wood store, with kindling and firelighters too, so there is no rationing the woodburner. Just help yourselves.
And if it rains?
Autumn here can bring some beautiful clear days, but inevitably there will sometimes be rain. We do not think that necessarily spoils the weekend. With the right clothes, walking through the woods or across the moors in wet weather can be surprisingly magical, particularly when you know there is a warm boot room waiting when you get back.
For those who would rather stay dry, it is a good excuse to hole up in the Barn, bring out the board games and properly stop for a while. And should the only expedition of the day be the five-minute walk to the pub, there are several enormous golf umbrellas by the door.
Autumn on the table
This is the season when the countryside around us seems especially generous. Apples and brambles find their way into crumbles, game begins appearing on local menus and wild mushrooms start turning up at markets.
Luke, our local mushroom grower, also forages at this time of year. The last couple of times we have bought mushrooms from him, he has had wonderful porcini too, or penny buns as they are often known here. Apparently one of his young daughters is better at spotting them than he is. We have tried questioning him about his best foraging places, but the closest we have ever got to an answer is: “somewhere in Cropton Forest.”
Sloe gin also makes its return to the Long Barn welcome hamper. And if guests fancy collecting their own, we can usually point them towards somewhere the sloes are looking good and share our recipe.
A slower Sunday
Our ideal autumn Sunday would begin slowly. If guests let us know beforehand, we can arrange for our newsagent to leave a Sunday paper for them at the Moors Inn, so they can join the familiar Sunday morning trickle of villagers wandering up to the pub to collect theirs.
Back at the Barn, breakfast might be eggs from our hens, which we put in the welcome hamper, followed by another coffee and absolutely no hurry to do very much. Later, it is back up to the pub for a proper Yorkshire Sunday roast, where the most demanding decision of the morning is likely to be which roast to choose.
The signs that autumn has arrived
There are little changes we notice every year. Once the leaves begin to fall, roe deer become easier to spot amongst the trees. Through summer we are more likely to hear their strange bark from somewhere in the woods than actually see them.
The rooks begin gathering in larger groups too. Towards dusk they swirl overhead, cawing loudly before heading back to roost, and for us that sound is one of the clearest signs that the season is turning. Then there are the skies. Appleton sits beneath some extraordinarily dark skies and, on a clear moonless night, the Milky Way can stretch right across the village. Even after living here for years, we still go outside and look up.
What would we do?
If we had a completely free autumn weekend ourselves, we probably would not do anything very different from all of the above. There would be a long walk somewhere on the moors followed by a pub lunch, then home before dark to light the fire and, at this time of year, almost certainly watch Strictly with a small glass of sloe gin.
Sunday would involve a roast chicken with all the trimmings and Ian’s roast potatoes, which Jackie maintains are the best roast potatoes anywhere. Nothing very complicated, which we think is rather the point of an autumn weekend here.
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