Birch Hall Inn is a public house founded around 1860 in

Beck Hole Beck Hole is a small valley village in the Borough of Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England. The village lies within the Goathland civil parish and the North York Moors national park. Geography and description Beck Hole is located at approxima ...

in the

North York Moors The North York Moors is an upland area in north-eastern Yorkshire, England. It contains one of the largest expanses of Calluna, heather moorland in the United Kingdom. The area was designated as a national parks of England and Wales, National P ...

, England. It is designated as a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. It is noted for its small bars and shop, and interior, and is popular with hiking tourists on holiday in the area.

History and description

There is documentary evidence of a building on the site dating to at least the 17th century. The original construction of the current building is thought date to the mid or late 18th century, consisting of a building of two single storey cottages. Contemporary with the arrival of the

Whitby to Pickering Railway The Whitby and Pickering Railway (W&P) was built to halt the gradual decline of the port of Whitby on the east coast of England. Its basic industries—whaling and shipbuilding—had been in decline and it was believed that opening transport l ...

and the establishment of the Whitby Iron Company in Beckhole, in the mid 19th century, the landlords, Ralph and Mary Dowson added a second floor to the original cottages, and added a three storey extension to the building, originally used as a shop with tenements above for industrial workers. The painter

Algernon Newton Algernon Newton (1880–1968) was a British landscape artist known as the "Canaletto of the canals". Biography Newton was born in Hampstead in 1880, a grandson of Henry Newton, one of the founders of the Winsor & Newton the art materials co ...

created a pub sign for the inn during his stay in Beck Hole in the 1940s. The main bar 'Big Bar' is within one of the original cottages, a second bar, the 'Little Bar' was added after the Second World War in the Victorian three storey extension. A very small shop in the building sells sweets and postcards. The building is Grade II listed, and the interior, relatively unchanged since the 1930s is listed in

CAMRA The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) is an independent voluntary consumer organisation headquartered in St Albans, England, which promotes real ale, cider and perry and traditional British pubs and clubs. With just under 155,000 members, it is the ...

's ''

National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors The National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors is a register of public houses in the United Kingdom with interiors which have been noted as being of significant historic interest, having remained largely unchanged for at least 30 years, but usu ...

''.

References

External links

{{National Inventory Pubs National Inventory Pubs Grade II listed pubs in North Yorkshire