The Farmers Mart Dec/Jan 2016 - Issue 43 | Page 16

Wharfedale Farmers Auction Mart

Wharfedale Mart: The
Traditional Dales Market
Chris Berry talks with auctioneer/manager Ian Smith.
Wetherby, Pannal,
Bingley, Penistone,
Doncaster, Knaresborough,
Boroughbridge, Beverley,
Driffield, Seamer, Stokesley,
Ripon and Masham. You know
the connection. They’re all in
Yorkshire and they’ve all lost
their livestock markets. It has
been a sign of the times, a
gradual thinning out of marts,
but we haven’t lost one in the
white rose county for a while
and there’s a genuine feeling

that those marts left in the
game look likely to stay for the
foreseeable future.
Otley used to have two. Otley
Bridge End Market closed in
March 2000, and its history
has been recorded in Mervyn
Lister’s excellent book On This
Day at the Auction Mart; but
Wharfedale Farmers Auction
Mart -established on Valentine’s
Day 1893 - remains as the town’s
sole representative on Leeds
Road to the south of the town.

Ian Smith started with the
business as a 16 year old and is
now the auctioneer/manager.
He’s a farmer’s son from
Lofthouse near Pateley Bridge
where his father Peter Smith still
has suckler cows and sheep. Ian
has seen the highs and lows that
the livestock market world has
experienced over the past 34
years and believes Wharfedale
Mart is still providing what the
farmers want and need in order
to maintain a market price,
despite the recent climate.
“I’ve been in farming all my
life and there have been good
years and bad years,” he told
me, “but farmers are tough
and resilient. They ride out
whatever is thrown at them
and wait for the good years
to come. T \