COUNTRY Herb, Cumberland and sage, pork and apple, pork and honey... At Beavers the butchers in Masham, they have turned sausages into an art form, with over 40 different varieties to choose from - many of them award winners.

...pork and stilton, pork and leek, wild boar and ale, black pudding and apple...

The butcher's shop always made sausages, of course, in the days when it was run by Thomas Beaver, but then it was just a case of pork or beef. Richard Welford was 12 when he started helping his granddad. By the time he was 15, he was virtually running the place.

"But then it was just a little one-room, old fashioned butcher's shop," says Richard, now 35.

...pork and chive, hot and spicy, breakfast, venison, venison and red wine...

He started making more interesting sausages when he came across some old recipes in a farm shop sale. This coincided with nation-wide interest that elevated the humble banger into posh food. Richard was right on time.

...hog and hop, lamb and mint, lamb and rosemary, pork and tomato...

Soon, he was winning awards - more than 30 local and national - and supplying many of the region's top shops and restaurants.

"Chefs started getting interested. They'd ring up and ask me to try different flavours for them and so I'd go to work on an idea," says Richard. Before long, the sausages were spilling over from the small shop. "We could have been making them 24 hours day and there still wouldn't have been enough, and I didn't want to neglect the main part of the shop either," he says.

...plain pork, Lincolnshire, sweet and sour, gluten free, beef...

So that led to the Masham Sausage Shop - actually in Kirby Malzeard - purpose-built premises where they can turn out 60lbs of sausage a minute. With business partner Paul Dennis, Richard and his staff sell sausages over the website and by mail order as well as wholesale, leaving the Masham shop - and a department in Campbells in Leyburn - as a proper butcher's shop, albeit with an inordinate selection of sausages.

...beef and tomato, ham and pineapple, pork and cider, turkey and apple...

The Masham shop is generally looked after by Eddie Newcombe as Richard buzzes round on sausage business. Oh yes, and rallying at weekends. "The Flying Butcher" the Darlington and Stockton Times called him recently.

The secret of successful sausages is easy, reckons Richard."Good meat," he says, "especially pork. I know we do a lot of varieties, but pork will always have the edge."

...pork and garlic, pork and baked beans, pork and chestnut, Provencale...

"Our biggest plus is that we use just local suppliers and all our meat is local. We know we where it comes from and we know it's good. Our game comes from the local estate. The gamekeepers bring it in, including wild roe deer," he says.

...chicken, smoked bacon and mushroom, chicken and chestnut, chicken and sage...

And the best thing about sausages is that you can eat them for any meal. "You're hardly going to have roast beef for breakfast, but you might well have a sausage. Then they're quick and easy for lunch and tea too," Richard says. And all those flavours will always make for a change, though despite the variety, the most popular is still plain pork - for which Richard won a gold award this year - and country herb.

Sausages have never been so interesting.

...chicken and herb, duck and orange...

Beavers Butchers, 11 Silver Street, Masham. www.mashamsausages.co.uk