A DRIVER approaching Bedale from the north-east drops down through Aiskew, clicketty-clacks over the tracks of the Wensleydale Railway and then crosses the River Em – or Bedale Beck, as it is now known.

He is immediately presented with a dilemma: does he go left up Bridge Street to one of the most awkward crossroads in the district, or does he turn right up the narrow Emgate and risk losing his wing mirror?

As he ponders – going "um" in Emgate – immediately in front of him is one of the town’s most noticeable buildings. It is the home of Kitchings’ furniture store, which this weekend is celebrating its 40th anniversary.

In centuries past, the Emgate area was Bedale’s industrial area. In comparison to the fine, wide main street lined with its prosperous Georgian houses, Emgate’s “low and numerous” cottages, built of timber and daub, were the home of the people who worked in the riverside industries of cloth fulling and tanning. Fulling was the cleaning of wool in which fullers walked on the fleeces until the dirt had been flushed out; tanning involved steeping animal hides in vats of urine.

This was probably not the most sweet smelling area of town.

Those industries were beginning to disappear when, in 1828, a new bridge was built over the beck and a new street – Bridge Street – was cut through the gardens of the big houses overlooking the Market Place.

A prominent Victorian villa was built to greet travellers as they arrived on the bridge. From 1905, it was occupied by Edward Kettlewell who converted it into a furniture shop. Mr Kettlewood was a joiner and cabinet-maker by trade and advertised himself as the “complete house furnisher”. As well as tables, chairs and bedsteads, he sold pianos and organs, and he specialised in mattresses – be they spring, hair, wool or straw.

Kettlewell’s lasted until the 1960s, when Hare’s garage used the building as a car showroom, and then in the late 1970s it returned to a furniture usage as Kitchings took it over.

Paul Kitching founded the business 40 years ago in the old drill hall in Bridge Street. The drill hall was built at the start of the 20th Century and was the home of the 1st Volunteer Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment before the First World War – in the last five years, the hall has been replaced by a block of shops and flats.

Kitchings expanded into Kettlewell’s, where they are celebrating their anniversary with a weekend of special offers.

Manager Andy Gibb has worked there since 1977 and has noted how times have changed. “Back then, beds were beds, and things were stagnant,” he says. “But now, beds are redeveloped every year and fashions in furniture change every six or 12 months.”

Customers have changed, he says, as they now expect a deal – “that never would have happened even five years ago when only the occasional farmer asked for a deal” – and so have the rules.

“We would deliver beds and wardrobes through bedroom windows by climbing up ladders,” he says, “but health and safety doesn’t allow us to do that any more.”