Sir, - I write in reply to your report concerning Well Hall (D&S Aug 4).

It is apparent that some busybodies in the village have stirred Hambleton District Council and English Heritage into their ill-conceived interference. It was certainly not Well Parish Council, our corporate elected representatives.

This very minor problem of the removal of a little rendering should be looked on in the context of the restoration of the whole of Well Hall, its walls and outbuildings by the present owners. There is no doubt that they have done a magnificent job in saving and enhancing a unique building and its policies. I know that I speak for the vast majority of villagers in expressing our thanks to and support for them.

With regard to the reported comments of the head of planning services in Hambleton District Council, I have two points to make. Cobbled cottages existed in the village centuries before the advent of photography. Similarly, rendering was not introduced until the 19th century purely to waterproof cobbled buildings. Would there now be a more modern method of both waterproofing and returning these houses to their original state, it makes sense and is far more pleasing so to do. I therefore find it insulting and patronising for Mr Quartermain to refer to these people as crazy.

H J A MOORE

Kirkgate House,

Well,

Bedale.

Safe drinking

Sir, - Mr William Hague, Leader of the Opposition and MP for Richmond, has given an interview to the magazine GQ relating tales of his alcohol drinking abilities as a young man.

Apparently whilst working as driver's mate delivering drinks for his father's business, he would drink up to 14 pints a day, and this whilst at work. Allegedly he describes this as an 'education'.

I have not read the interview, so I wonder if Mr Hague has tempered his words with caution to those who might follow his example? Might those young men who read the article believe that drinking at work is cool, after all the Conservative Party leader did it when he was young, and he has done OK, has he not?

As a trade union activist, I encourage my colleagues to turn up for work sober, and not to have anything alcoholic to drink whilst at work or travelling home. On those occasions he was drinking at work, Mr Hague was a major health and safety hazard to himself and all those he came into contact with.

Can we expect a statement of sobriety from one of such responsibility along the lines of 'Do not do what I did, it is illegal'?

C D KIRK

Danes Crest,

Brompton,

Northallerton.

Sir, - I am surprised that a reputable newspaper should print such a farrago of falsehood and prejudice as the letter from Philip Ross on the supposed horrors of the English Catholic past (D&S, July 28).

The sixteenth century was indeed a dreadful period in which power was exercised cruelly against faithful Christians on both sides of the religious divide.

But to talk, now, of harmless Catholic recusants, or late medieval Carthusian monks leading lives of exemplary holiness, as conspirators against the state funded by foreign gold, is only to perpetuate ill-informed hatreds centuries beyond their tragic times.

"A few scholarly history books" would help Mr Ross more than Nicholas Rhea, whose original article (D&S, July 21) not only illustrated the harmonious ecumenical spirit that prevails in Osmotherley, but showed that it has prevailed there, with unusually productive results, for several hundred years.

LUCY BECKETT

Beck House,

Rievaulx,

York