A WET time in the old town today. It had been raining on January 18, 1957, and again on July 31, 2000, when our latest picture of North End, Bedale, was taken from a similar vantage point looking towards St Gregory's church and Bedale Hall.

After 43 years the scene is different only in matters of detail, and in the number of cars which have invaded the town whose hopes of a relief road seemed to evaporate with the shelving of an A1 motorway scheme four years ago.

The cobbled part of North End in the immediate foreground, known as the top side, is owned by Hambleton District Council and was the venue until 11 years ago for the weekly chartered market, now back on its former central pitch.

This is the only area of the town centre exempt from the disc parking system - now sadly open to increasing abuse in the apparent absence of a traffic warden - introduced by the county council in 1995 to bring order into what had been a chaotic situation.

On the other side of the road, what were cottages in 1957 are now occupied by a restaurant and a veterinary practice, and in the 1960s the new Chantry Hall was slotted in beside the old grammar school, visible here as the last building before St Gregory's church.