A1-The Great North Road
Bawtry says 'Hail' and 'Farewell' to Yorkshire people welcoming them home if they come north, and leading them to fresh sights and adventures if they go south. The little tongue of land on which it lies dips into Nottinghamshire, and makes a porch to the county to usher in the Great North Road. The atmosphere of travel and life of the road yesterday and to-day are in its cobbled market-place. So Ella Pontefract and Marie Hartley introduced us to their Yorkshire Tour in 1939.
At Bawtry, the Great North Road enters Yorkshire, the first house being named 'Number One Yorkshire', and is met by the Roman road coming from Lincoln via the Trent ford at Littleborough.
The Roman route from Lincoln entered Notinghamshire at a ford across the Trent between Marton and Littleborough but soon left the county at another ford on The River Idle near Bawtry. This was the site of the Battle of the River Idle in about 617 at which Rędwald became High King of Britain after defeating Ęthelfrith, King of Northumbria. The site of this battle appears to have been about where the Roman road from Lincoln to Doncaster crosses the River Idle near Bawtry. Rędwald may have been the first King of England both north and south of the Humber so probably found the Great North Road quite handy.
This picture (looking north) shows the Idle bridge crossing the river just south of the Roman ford.
Photo by Dr Sam Newton
Until excavations in 1983, it was not certain just where the Roman road crossed the Idle or how it relates to Bawtry. Here is Margary's position:
"It is not now clear how the road crossed the Idle valley to Bawtry, whether to the north of Scaftworth on or near the present road, or to the west of the village, as the road into it from the east suggests, with a sharp turn northward into Bawtry, and more investigation is needed there. It may well be significant that the county boundary which follows the Great North Road for some distance north of Bawtry, where it is the Roman road, continues straight on southward into the town along a side street to the west of the market-place, whereas the present main road curves into this by a short connecting link, clearly suggesting that the other is the earlier line and so indicating the likelihood of a crossing of the Idle west of Scaftworth from a point on the south of Bawtry."
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While this theory was in accord with the Bawtry street plan it disregards the Roman line drawn by Armstrong and the Roman Camp. Armstrong's line is to the north of both of Margary's alternatives. And White in his 1853 Directory of Nottinghamshire, says: "During the enclosure of the common, several specimens of Roman antiquities were found here. This discovery seems to have confirmed the opinion that the vestiges of some fortifications, near the village, are the remains of a Roman fort or station, through which passed the Roman road from the stations at Doncaster and Littleborough." The 1983 excavations showed that there were actually two different Roman crossings of the idle. An early crossing of the Idle floodplain was constructed of alder timbers and turves, while a later causeway was constructed from oak piles and gravel. Hull University's Scaftworth Roman Road Site has more details. It has been suggested that the first crossing may have been in the early 70s, when the Romans had to build a road in a hurry if they were to put down Cartimandua's rebellion.
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Armstrong, 1776 |
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The Crown became Bawtry's main coaching inn after Thomas Fisher moved his business from the Swan, across the road, to Scrooby Top. |
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Two little stone carvings, more reminiscent of the Knights Templar than modern knights of the road, adorn this garage. |
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Kings Wood Nature Reserve, half a mile out of Bawtry to the north, is a sight to behold in bluebell time.
And another mile further north is the end of the one of Europe's longest runways, that of the disused Finningley RAF airfield, which closed in 1996. It seems it is not to remain forever disused. On 4th April 2003, the government announced its approval for the development of Doncaster International Airport on this site. It will become the closest airport to the Great North Road. A glance at the OS map of this area reminds us of the changing modes of transport. The words ROMAN ROAD appear by the A638 between the main east coast railway and the airport while Great North Road is printed just south of Bawtry. The Elizabethan seaman, Sir Martin Frobisher lived at Finningley. Bawtry itself, lying just two miles south of and directly in line with the end of the runway may not feel quite the same in a few years though modern airliners are a good deal quieter than the V-bombers that used to be based here. Here's a Vulcan landing at Finningley in 1963.
| North of Bawtry, the Great North Road continues as the A638, the signs from different ages confirming changing status. |
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| And the nearby milestone, made by J. Walkinshaw, iron-founder of Doncaster and dated 1859, shows that the Bawtry to Doncaster stage was only nine miles, a little shorter than needed considering that this was a level road with a good surface. This may have been the reason that Thomas Fisher moved his coaching business from Bawtry to Scrooby Top. |
From Bawtry to just south of this milestone the road follows the straight route of the Roman road but the Great North Road bends towards the north west as it approaches Rossington Bridge while the Roman road continued straight on.
At Rossington Bridge the Great North Road crosses the River Torne. The village of Rossington lies half a mile west of the road. To the east is the site of an early Roman Vexillation fortress. It was a large fort, about 23 acres, and might have been as early as the late AD40s. The fort was built across earlier fields and enclosures. This was a well populated area in the iron-age. A Roman pottery operated in the mid 2nd century. Pottery from Rossington Bridge, particularly the shallow bowls, called mortaria, used for grinding food, have been found throughout northern England and in southern Scotland. Mortatria were often stamped with the makers name and place of manufacture. Other jars and dishes attributable to the Rossington Bridge pottery have been found on the Antonine Wall and at Corbridge. It seems Roman pottery was carried up the Roman's Great North Road.
It is in Rossington's churchyard that, in 1709, Charles Bosvile, king of the northern gypsies, Bosvile's People, was buried.
| The Hare and Tortoise stands at the junction of the A638 and the B6453 to Rossington. With two dozen lampposts within a hundred yards this could be the most illuminated spot on Great North Road. This was the Rossington Bridge Inn which once horsed the stage southwards to the Bell at Barnby Moor and northwards to the Red House. It has been a private residence, known as Rossington Bridge House, through most of the 20th century but has now reopened as a pub. The recent vogue for naming roundabouts has produced a new road sign announcing that this is Parrot Junction. Why, I know not. |
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Thanks to Graham Wren, who sent me this message:
"Regarding the origin of the name Parrot's Junction. Well, it was always known locally as Parrot's corner but, like you, I never knew why, until now. Seemingly a bloke called Jim Parrot lived in a cottage opposite the Rossington Bridge Inn. He was employed by the Burnett family who lived in Rossington Bridge Inn when it was a private residence. The cottage is no longer standing but the foundations can still be seen."
But who was Jim Parrot and why did he get a road junction named after him?
And thanks to Eddy, who sent me this postcard. The house on the left is clearly what is now the Hare and Tortoise. There does not seem to be any pub sign which supports Graham's view that the building had a spell as a private residence. Perhaps one of the cottages on the right is Jim Parrots'. And could that be Jim standing by the roadside! Anyone have an idea about the date?
Andy Emmerson (consultant writer on the BT historical website www.connected-earth.com) sent this message in response to a question about the telegraph poles in the photo above:
There are in fact two poles at the side of the road!
The left-most is carrying about seven wires (hard to see) and is for local distribution (individual telephones and possibly an ABC telegraph instrument to the local post office (that would account for an odd number of wires; telephones were generally two-wire circuits but telegraphs were one wire and earth).
The right-hand pole is technically a stayed pole (note the strut or stay to the left) and appears to have seven arms (possibly eight), each with four wires. This is a trunk line, used for junction circuits between adjacent towns and long-distance circuits between major places. Date? 1890 onwards, although by the number of wires on both poles I'd say 1905 plus or minus five years either side. The children's clothing looks Edwardian to me as well.
On the stayed pole there are in fact eight 4-wire arms plus a short arm at the bottom carrying two wires. So 34 wires in all. There is another picture of the Great North Road just north of Stamford in Rutland published in 1912. This is perhaps the same trunk line but by now it has a double pole arrangement, known as 'H-Poles', with fourteen arms carrying six wires each. There are earlier pictures of H-poles at Stevenage. That's 84 wires and the 200lb per mile copper wire used meant each pole carried an enormous weight. The trunk lines are now all underground and telegraph poles are only used for local connections, such as near East Linton, but there are a couple that are protected ('listed') structures on the main road just south of Jedburgh.
Jim Parrot is not the only local name to be remembered in the place names. A popular walk through the golf course on the west side of the road and over the M18 is called Stringy Billy's. Billy lived on the outskirts Bessacarr and was just thought of as "simple". He collected bits of string and made them into a large ball. But the origin of Warning Tongue Lane is more obscure. This is the lane off to the east side of the main road just north of the bridge over the River Torne. After a couple of hundred yards it turns sharply on to the alignment of a Roman road, described by Margary as the Cantley Spur Road:
North of Bawtry the Great North Road makes a slight turn on Galley Hills to west of north, and then runs very straight for 3 miles to near Rossington, being raised by 2-4 feet; then it bends westward towards Doncaster, but the Roman road continued straight on, accompanied by parish boundaries, and the agger can be faintly seen along the west side of a wood and then along hedgerows, passing 1/4 mile to the east of Rossington Bridge on the present main road. The agger is particularly clear just before it reaches the road leading from the bridge towards Cantley, at an angle in this road, where it is 36 feet wide and 2 feet high. Then it turns a little more westerly and hedgerows follow it, with the agger still visible, past Bessacarr Grange until Cantley Road takes up the line, and then a lane called Rose Hill, on to Doncaster racecourse, where it rejoins the main road into town.
The old road books mention a Tophall, somewhere between Rossington Bridge and the racecourse, but whatever it was it seems to have vanished with little trace beneath the suburban sprawl of Bessacarr.
B & B Lincolnshire B&B
©Biff Vernon 2002, 2003, 2004, 2008
