At the antiquarian book sale at the Dales Countryside Museum in early July 2026 over £700 was raised towards the cost of restoring books in the Macfie-Calvert Collection which is in the Research Room at the museum.

Eleanor Scarr, a trustee of the Macfie-Calvert Collection and vice chairman of the FDCM said: ‘We strive in the Research Room to make space for more books in our very informative collection.’

The original basis of the Macfie-Calvert collection was bequeathed to the people of Wensleydale by R A Scott Macfie who died in 1935.

Richard ‘Dick’  Chapman recalled that Scott Macfie had one of the finest collection of books about the dales at his home at Lunds. Scott Macfie had offered this collection to him but Dick refused as he was living in Bingley and didn’t want the books to leave the Dale.

Following Scott Macfie’s death money was raised to purchase the books and they were placed in a cabinet at Yorebridge Grammar School at Askrigg. Dick became a founding trustee of the collection.

Later the collection was moved  to the Wensleydale School in Leyburn and in December 1992 it was relocated to the Askrigg home of Dick’s daughter, Denny Minnitt for safekeeping until the Local Studies Room (now The Research Room) was made ready within the renamed Dales Countryside Museum. Both Denny and her sister, Signy, became trustees of the Macfie Collection.

Bob Ellis helped to save the collection from being sold when it was at the Wensleydale School and later became a trustee.  He came to an agreement with Kit Calvert for Kit’s local historical books, including a set of The Wensleydale Advertiser, to be added to the Scott Macfie collection. As others have given books to the collection this led to there being many duplicates, hence the sale of those not specifically linked to donors.

More recently Bob (who died in January 2024) with two other trustees, Eleanor Scarr and Mary Scarr, catalogued the collection and instigated a searchable catalogue. Bob did a lot of fund raising for the collection with the fees from his talks and lectures in the dale and further afield being donated to the Macfie-Calvert charitable trust. This made it possible to have books professionally rebound when necessary.

It was at one of his lectures that he met John Elphinstone, a descendant of Scott Macfie. This led to the Macfie clan from all around the world holding a family gathering at the Dales Countryside Museum in 2019 when Bob showed them the collection. They donated several other items including the portrait of Scott Macfie which now hangs in the Research Room.