A1-The Great North Road
Here's Pontefract Castle. You can't see so much of the real thing any more though there are still ruins to visit, but this splendid painting is in Pontefract Museum.
Everyone knows Ferrybridge of course - power station cooling towers and a motorway service station at the junction of the A1 and the M62 (J33). But the real Ferrybridge is a mile further north where there is another world of time for those who stray off the modern tarmac space. Harper introduces us: The road drops down into the valley of the Aire at Ferrybridge, that now dull and grimy town which bears no appearance of having had an historic past. Yet Ferrybridge was the scene of the skirmish that heralded the battle of Towton, and stands in the midst of that mediæval cockpit of England, wherein for centuries so many rival factions contended together.
| Now let's just repeat those words from Harper, written in 1901, ... that now dull and grimy town which bears no appearance of having had an historic past. How can he have been so prescient? A century on, Ferrybridge High Street has just one, rather neglected, Georgian building occupied by the post office and a chemist. The rest is a monument to all that was wrong with 1960s architecture. Even the Greyhound. |
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Back to much earlier times, Ferrybridge Henge is a Neolithic site, seen now as bumps in the ground and cropmarks. It's opposite the power station between the B6136 and the M62, half a mile west of where the A1 crosses the river.
And slightly more recently:...here William the Conqueror fumed and fretted for three weeks because the River Aire was in flood and barred his progress on his grim mission of burning and devastating York. Fletcher.
The Wars of the Roses reached Ferrybridge on March 28, 1461 with a small engagement before the real battle of Towton, up the road. Edward IV had gathered together a large force and marched north toward the Lancastrian position north of the Aire River. The Yorkist army was pushed back and their leader, Lord Fitzwalter, was killed. More Yorkist forces arrived later in the day and beat the Lancastrians back again.
Ferrybridge was the Great North Road's crossing point of the River Aire and that river's head of navigation, at least until until about 1700 when the Aire and Calder Navigation opened the river upstream for small barges. A 12th century bridge, rebuilt at the end of the 14th century, had seven arches and a chantry chapel at one end. It survived until the end of the 18th century but this narrow medieval bridge had became an obstruction for both the increasing road traffic and barges passing beneath it along the Aire and Calder Navigation and so, in 1797, the building of a new bridge was started . Designed by the architect John Carr (his name is on one parapet) and built by Bernard Hartley (named on the other parapet), it was eventually opened in June 1804. The toll house standing in front of the bridge dates from around the same period, probably also designed by Carr. There is a balustrade on the inside of the parapet which does not cut through to the river side and there are niches for statues, alas empty. A stone inscription indicates that one half of the bridge was the responsibility of the north bank's Brotherton, the other half, Ferrybridge. Legend has it the pier foundations were placed on bales of wool.
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The Golden Lion has two very golden lions. |
But before we reached the bridge we should have done a bit of pub history. Bradley tells us of the coaching days: The importance of Ferrybridge as a great coaching centre is shown from the fact of its being the junction on the great main road where the principal coaches branched off on their several routes: the Edinbugh coaches by Tadcaster to York, the Glasgow, Carlisle, and Newcastle coaches by Aberford, and the Leeds coaches by Peckfield Bar - and that from the very earliest days of stage-coaching it was the great rendezvous for the private travelling carriages of Yorkshire noblemen and gentlemen who wished to join the London coaches. |
The Angel was the largest inn but Bradley, writing in 1889, tells us the ...vast premises have long ago been converted into private residences. By 1964 they were demolished. The Swan suffered a similar fate much earlier, being in ruins in Harper's day. The Greyhound was completely rebuilt in the 1960s but the Golden Lion still stands in something of its former shape by the waterside with a fine view of the old bridge (if one squints under the new bridge of the A1 which rather dominates the pub garden).
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Old Bridge |
Bridge Toll House |
New Bridge |
Anyone know what this concrete box in the middle of the old bridge is for?
Neighbouring Knottingly is famous for its glass industry but the first glass making hereabouts was in Ferrybridge about 1840 adjacent to the site of the Swan Inn coaching house. It was on the North bank of the river Aire, opposite the site of the Golden Lion Inn. In 1845 the site was named the 'Yorkshire Bottle Works' but in the 1870 most production moved to Knottingly. Celia Fiennes found glassmaking at Castleford in 1697: ...thence we went to Castleton Bridge where was a Glass house; we saw them blowing white glass and neale it in a large oven by the heate of the furnace; all the country is full of Coale and the pitts are so thick in the roade that it is hazardous to travell for strangers.
There is a great deal of interesting stuff about this area at Knottingly and Ferrybridge Online, including an extensive collection of photos, new and old.
Photo by Keith Woodhouse
It was at Castleford that the Romans crossed the River Aire by a ford. By medieval times there was a wooden bridge. Thomas, a monk, described a miracle whereby people crossing the bridge were saved when it collapsed. Their lives were saved, alleges Brother Thomas, as a result of the prayers of a nephew of the wife of King Stephen. It pays to have the right connections. The wooden bridge was replaced by a stone bridge, built just downstream from the Roman ford. There were seven arches, one of which collapsed in 1765. Although repaired the bridge was demolished and entirely replaced in 1805. This one still exists.
At this village, Margaret, wife of King Edward I, was obliged to stop, when hunting, and was here delivered of a son, afterwards named Thomas de Brotherton; he was born June 1, 1300. Camden
Brotherton, on the north bank, marks the branching of the Great North Road. The York road via Sherburn-in-Elmet and Tadcaster goes north and to the right, now forming the A162, while the A1 takes the left fork going north-west to Wetherby. The Old Fox (or Fox Inn as it is now called - it got younger with age), at the junction of the old roads in Brotherton, was more of a drovers' pub than a coaching house, that trade staying at Ferrybridge.
A couple of miles north of Ferrybridge is Fairburn and a little west of the village is the nature reserve of Fairburn Ings. 'Ings' is an Old Norse name, associated with the Danelaw, for wetland but this landscape of flood meadows on the side of the Aire has been humped about a bit by a couple of centuries of coalmining, tipping and subsidence. The resulting lakes, marshes and low hills are home to a rich diversity of bird life. 240 species have been recorded by the RSPB., who manage almost six hundred acres of reserve, and about 180 species, including a lot of water birds, are seen each year. There is a visitors centre and paths and loos and hides and suchlike. The nature reserve actually occupies only a small part of the Lower Aire Valley north of Castleford and west of the A1, an area that seems more lake than land. The ducks, geese and swans don't know about nature reserve boundaries, so if you're into birding but don't fancy being one of the 75000 visitors to the reserve, explore further through Allerton Bywater towards Bower's Row. For more info about the valley and the local authority's role in managing the area click here. If bird-watching is too energetic, try the Wildgoose Gallery in Fairburn. They've some nicely expensive paintings of birds.
(Stuff has happened and the following paragraphs, written in 2002, are retained for historical curiosity.)
The A1 north from the M62 junction at Ferrybridge for 8 miles to the M1 junction is a bit of a busy bottleneck but things are changing. Here's what the Highways Agency say of their plans.
"Things are looking fairer for Fairburn"
"Coming together: HA project will reunite residents"
The Yorkshire village of Fairburn is a step closer to being united as the new £200 million A1 Darrington to Dishforth motorway upgrade scheme continues to make progress. The village near Castleford, split by the A1, will be bypassed, removing fast-moving through traffic and bringing the two communities closer together. This project was identified in the Government’s 1998 New Deal for Trunk Roads and is a Targeted scheme. The works include upgrading 11 miles of the A1 between Ferrybridge and Hook Moor and the three-mile Wetherby to Walshford section to motorway standard, and the operation and maintenance of remaining sections of the A1 between Darrington and Dishforth. The new motorway section will remove large volumes of traffic, including heavy goods vehicles, from communities on the A1 at Ferrybridge, Brotherton and Fairburn. This will improve residents’ conditions and create a safer, more efficient road. The contract will be awarded in the 2002/2003 financial year.
Here's a bit of topology.
The new A1(M) will leave the old route south of the present M62 junction, swing left to run parallel to and along the north side of the M62 to a new junction west of the power station and very near Ferrybridge Henge. This, of course, is a scheduled monument. West Yorkshire Archaeological Service investigated the Iron Age and Roman ditched enclosures known to exist in an area called Holmfields. This is the site of the new A1/M62 interchange, to be called, bucolically, Holmfield Junction. Here's what they found:
Ferrybridge Henge is a Scheduled prehistoric monument, constructed some 4,500 years ago. Although the henge itself will remain untouched by the proposed road scheme, the high archaeological potential of the landscape in which it sits necessitated that this particular area was subject to detailed excavation at an early stage.
Previous work in this area had revealed the presence of prehistoric ritual monuments, burials and settlement sites. The 10-month investigation aimed to excavate sufficient of the site to enable a full understanding of how the landscape was exploited since early prehistoric times, and to preserve its archaeological record for the benefit of future generations.
The earliest features discovered were a series of circular ritual monuments, probably associated with the henge. The most tangible of these were four round barrows, dating from the Early Bronze Age (c. 4000 years ago). Four crouched burials were associated with one of the barrows. These `beaker' burials, so called because of their association with a particular type of pottery vessel, are amongst the oldest known burials in the county. The skeletons were remarkably well preserved and, apart from the beakers, two were accompanied by flint weapons and bone tools. Other circular monuments encountered were formed of either a series of pits or short sections of curving ditch, some having cremated bone deposited within them.
The Iron Age (c. 3000-2000 years ago) was a period that saw the Ferrybridge landscape divided and demarcated by ditches and alignments of pits which continued to respect the monuments of earlier periods, maintaining a around the henge and sometimes veering to avoid still upstanding barrows. A least three ditched settlement enclosures have been found, within which have been identified various typed of roundhouse, represented by arrays of post-holes, gullies that housed wall timbers, and hearths.
The latest settlement enclosure on the site dates to the Roman period (c. 1800 years ago) which seems to have been associated with a regime of large-scale land division. Within this enclosure was a number of rectangular buildings, represented by former post positions. The buildings seem to have focused upon a large oven that is believed to have been used for drying crops.
The A1(M) will continue northwards to the west of the power station, across Brotherton Inngs, to cross the old course north of Brotherton. From here the new road keeps east of the old, only rejoining it at Hook Moor. Here are the plans. It will all mean that a very substantial piece of the Great North Road will lose its through traffic. It could become quiet pleasant.
The A63 branches off the A1 a little south of Micklefield heading for Leeds. This used to be the old coaching route to west Yorkshire, leaving the Great North Road at the Peckfield Turnpike by the Boot and Shoe Inn.
Lincolnshire
©Biff Vernon 2001, 2002, 2003, 2007
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