Bedale Hall

Looking down the back straight at Richmond, with a misty view over the cradle of the thoroughbred. Richmond was one of the three most dangerous courses Jem Snowden rode over - the others being Paisley and Durham - but is intact. The hill is steep enough and the turn into the straight sharp. It was an important course in its day, but too remote by its closure in 1891. The strip of grey on the right is the all-weather gallop on which Lord Derby's Teleprompter did much of his work. In the vale beyond, Northallerton is right centre, and Helmsley over the top of the hill 2/3 to the right. Bedale is in the vale on the extreme right - just out of the picture - and Catterick on the left.

The remains of the stands at Richmond; the largest one was raised by public subscription in 1775 and designed by John Carr, the principal architect of the day in the north. His most famous one is now one of the bars at York. It remained intact and was used as a fever hospital until the council took the lead off the roof in 1948. They tried to demolish everything ten years later, but were prevented from doing so. It would cost a fortune to restore now. The other stand was built a few years later by the Dundas family, later Lords Zetland, from adjoining Aske Hall, for their private use. Gallops are in the foreground. Thomas Dundas (1795-1873), the 2nd Earl of Zetland, owned Voltigeur.

The grandstand with its roof intact