Bettys Tour 2019: Ilkley

Ilkley is a gem of a place, located on the banks of the River Wharfe in the Yorkshire Dales, and overlooked by the famous Moor rising above it to the south. Nothing says Yorkshire to me quite as much as Ilkley Moor does, so when I arrived at the station for Day 1 of the Bettys Tour 2019, I was ready for an espresso shot of Yorkshireness and wasn’t disappointed.

Ilkley is very much as I hoped it would be. It’s a small place, where the drivers are considerate enough to slow down to let you cross the road, the shopkeepers smile and are happy to engage in conversation, and the pace of life allows you to feel that you’ve left city life behind without sacrificing creature comforts. It also gives the impression of being pleasantly affluent, without being ostentatious or showy; a place where you will see the odd Porsche driving by, but no one draws attention by honking the horn or revving the engine. In the same way that Aldeburgh in Suffolk is Islington by the sea, Ilkley is definitely Islington in the Dales. There’s even a stream running down from the Moor through an attractive ornamental garden overlooked on either side by rather smart houses, which will make anyone familiar with the New River Walk feel very much at home. The existence of a branch of Greggs, plus a reassuringly down-to-earth hardware shop, help to maintain a sense of everyday ordinariness, with the added bonus of preventing the town from feeling too much like a set from All Creatures Great And Small. Perhaps most importantly, there’s a branch of The Edinburgh Woollen Mill, an essential feature of any self-respecting provincial town in my humble opinion.

Ever mindful of the Bettys Matrix, according to which I was timetabled to sample the Bettys English Breakfast first thing, I wasted no time in locating my hotel before hurriedly dropping off my bag and heading for my first Bettys visit of the day. Luckily, I was seated by about 11:15am, a little late for breakfast perhaps, but given that it was served all day and the Matrix didn’t specify that I actually had to have the English Breakfast at breakfast time, I figured I could play the Metropolitan card and pull it off as long as I didn’t let on that I’d already had a slice of toast and two weetabix in Doncaster before getting on the train. I placed my order and settled down.

Bettys in Ilkley is located in a rather smart parade of shops on The Grove, the main road running through the town centre. Despite the building’s rather grand Victorian façade, with an iron canopy jutting out onto the pavement outside, the tea room itself feels rather 1920s, due largely to the stained glass in the upper part of the windows running the length of the back wall and the wooden plate rack, decorated with teapots of all shapes and sizes, running high up along the length of the other three. Whilst sitting quietly and waiting for my order to arrive, everything felt reassuringly familiar. A hushed, but friendly, atmosphere, warm and efficient service, and something pleasantly old-fashioned without being stuffy or contrived. The breakfast provided an elegant sufficiency as my grandpa used to say, tasty without being fancy, with toast ready-buttered and arranged in a jenga-style stack, all served with a warm smile and a double helping of brown sauce.

Invigorated by my experience, I headed off for a spot of post-breakfast sightseeing. A gentle stroll by the river to let things settle down and aid digestion, a quick wander round the town centre to get my bearings and the all-important trip to the Ilkley branch of Booths (the Waitrose of Lancashire), to buy a couple of their famously witty shopping bags. After checking into my hotel, I set off for Bettys once more, this time armed with my new “Eat Barm and Carry On” bag, ready to tick off the second Matrix item, the Bettys Traditional Afternoon Tea.

The atmosphere in the tea room was very similar to earlier in the day, the only differences being a significant increase in the number of cake stands in use and the level of usage of the all-important cake trolley, whose wheels barely had time to stop between journeys. The Head Waiter recognised me from earlier and was considerate enough to seat me somewhere different. The only distraction was the conspicuous consumption of macarons by a group of people sitting diagonally opposite, which involved considerable cocking of little fingers and a surprisingly large number of dainty bites for such small items.

Despite my gannet-like, eyes-bigger-than-my-stomach mentality, the Traditional Afternoon Tea was the perfect size. Not too many sandwiches, a good-sized scone and three tea-time treats. I was a little concerned that the chocolate cube might contravene my non-bite-size chocolate coating prohibition, but it turned out to be easily negotiable with a firmly grasped cake fork. The Engadine slice came up trumps with a topping somewhere between peanut brittle and a Mr Kipling’s almond slice (that’s a compliment by the way, not an insult) and even the lemon tart went down a treat, despite being topped with a yellow macaron. Incidentally I’ve now discovered that the way to make macarons palatable is to smother them in lemon curd and encase them in sweet pastry.

Despite thoroughly enjoying afternoon tea generally, and the Bettys Traditional Afternoon Tea in particular, the only issue I have with the elegance of it is the potential wastage involved in removing the crusts from the bread used to make the sandwiches. It’s not so much that my inner Yorkshireman shouts “Ow Much?” at the thought of all the bread I have paid for that isn’t making its way onto my plate, as that I genuinely dislike food wastage. Much as I like the appearance of sandwiches cut into dainty triangles, I am still the boy who eats his crusts without being told to do so, for whom slightly stale and buttery pieces of left-over bread are a bit of a guilty pleasure. I always wish that the crusts could be presented doggy-bag-style for scoffing purposes later on, perhaps in a discreet damask “cache-croûte” in homage to Lady Byrne, wife of Mr Justice Byrne, the judge in the Lady Chatterley’s Lover obscenity trial, who hand-stitched a damask bag to contain her husband’s copy of the publication and spare his blushes. At the very least I hope that the crusts are either recycled, by being turned into breadcrumbs for another dish, or fed to the birds, who frankly deserve as much help as they can get as far as bread is concerned whenever I’m in the vicinity.

With my Bettys duties successfully completed for the day, I spent the rest of the afternoon reconnoitring access points from the town up onto the Moor by foot in preparation for a stroll the following day, and then returned to my hotel for a little post-cake lie-down and a quiet evening.

The next morning, after a leisurely hipster breakfast of smashed avocado with a poached egg on sourdough, I consulted the entry on the Bettys Matrix for Day 2 and then set off for a light potter before elevenses. Despite a slight hiccough involving me wearing glasses rather than contact lenses that day, I successfully introduced myself to Jane Furniss (@MaryjaneFurniss) and Andrew Wilson (@pibarrister) whom I had arranged to meet in the queue by the entrance to the tea room. Having always been a bit sceptical about disguises as a result of watching Undercover Elephant as a child, a cartoon in which an elephant manages rather improbably to maintain a cover as a private detective by wearing nothing but an ill-fitting trench coat and a trilby, I was very surprised by how effectively the glasses altered my appearance. Either that, or Andrew and Jane had had second thoughts, and were desperately checking all available exits before saying hello.

Despite resolving only to have a Fat Rascal and a cup of coffee, I let myself be swayed by Andrew’s decision to go for a savoury AND a sweet option and Jane’s decision to go for the Yorkshire Rarebit, and ended up ordering a Yorkshire Rarebit and a Fat Rascal. I justified the decision to myself on the basis that it would still be elevenses (and not brunch) as long as I had something sweet. Jane and Andrew went for a Fat Rascal each too.

I can only describe the delivery of the Fat Rascals as something that made me proud to be a Yorkshireman. Three of them presented on a cake stand, each occupying a tier of its own. Supremely down-to-earth and yet elegant. It was a bonding moment between Jane, Andrew, me and, of course, the Fat Rascals.

Until that point I’d never thought that there might be different ways of eating a Fat Rascal. I have always cut them in half horizontally across the middle and then buttered them. Jane did the same, but Andrew approached his like a bread roll, delicately pulling it apart into bite-sized chunks and buttering each one individually. Either way, they were delicious.

No visit to Ilkley is complete without a stroll on the Moor, so after elevenses I headed off in search of the Cow & Calf Rocks for the start of the Cow & Calf Walk. So-called because it starts at a rock formation about a twenty minute walk from the town centre, that is supposed to look like a cow with its calf (believe me, it doesn’t), it’s billed as an easy walk that takes about an hour to complete. I’d like to say that I completed the walk successfully, but I took a wrong turning at Waypoint 3 and ended up doing the very thing you’re not supposed to do, which is to keep going until you see a building known as White Wells. By the time I realised what I had done, I couldn’t be bothered to retrace my steps. Luckily the flag was flying at White Wells, indicating that it was open and, more importantly, that refreshments were available, albeit at fancy Ilkley prices. Famed as one of the oldest places to take the waters that established Ilkley as a spa town, White Wells is a somewhat austere place which is as I imagine Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor to be. Resisting the lure of the plunge bath dating from the Eighteenth Century, I opted instead for a mug of tea and sat down outside to take in the fantastic view out across Wharfedale and down to the valley below, with a sense of satisfaction that I had finally visited the place which for me is the spiritual heart of Yorkshire. Pretty much the perfect end to the first leg of my tour. In the way that happens now and again these days for no particular reason, I suddenly thought of my mum and wished that she had been there to enjoy it with me, shedding a tear or two in the process. I finished my tea and set off for the walk back down to the town centre, an early dinner and a quiet night in.