TELEVISION crews took a town back to the 1960s yesterday as they filmed an episode of the ITV series Heartbeat.

Scenes were filmed in the town hall, houses and community office of Masham, in the Yorkshire Dales, for the latest series of the long-running police drama.

The community office was turned into the premises of the fictional Ashfordly Gazette for what will be episode 16 of the 13th series, which is expected to be screened in the summer.

Among the actors featuring in the Masham scenes were Geoff Hughes, who plays entrepreneur Vernon Scripps, Peter Benson, who plays undertaker Bernie Scripps, and David Lonsdale, who plays bumbling handyman David Stockwell.

The series is usually filmed in Goathland, on the North York Moors.

Sophie Gore, manager of the Masham Community Office, said: "People from the series came round the town looking at buildings, and the office is actually an old police house.

"It is a very solid, respectable-looking early-Victorian building, and that was what they were looking for."

The office now has a firm Heartbeat connection because it was opened in September by actor Derek Fowlds, who plays Oscar Blaketon in the series.