A1-The Great North Road
Like Cambridgeshire's Bullock Road and Rutland's Sewstern Drift, Yorkshire has a route that parallels the Great North Road, used by the drovers. Throughout the 18th century and reaching a peak in the early decades of the 19th, an enormous trade in Scottish cattle developed to feed the rapidly expanding population of London and, to a lesser extent, the industrial cities of northern England. As many as 100 000 cattle may have made the journey per year. There were several routes down the Pennines but a large proportion used the Great North Road through Boroughbridge and Wetherby, where, with 2000 cattle on a busy day, there was considerable congestion at times. Although the cattle were frequently fattened in East Anglia before their final journey to Smithfields, they did need some grazing on the way and space to stop at night. The drovers may also have avoided the tolls on the turnpikes where possible so drove roads that took apparently difficult routes developed.
From Durham to York many of the cattle were taken by a route that lay east of the turnpiked post road, through Yarm to Swainby and then up onto the Cleveland Hills. The drove road ran southwards, keeping to the high, though fairly level, ground of the Hambleton Hills until it descended steeply to the village of Oldstead. An Oldstead History includes a detailed description of the Drove. As it drops off the high ground the road passes an area called Scotch Corner. Not the one at the A1 - A66 junction, this marks the area where the English army of King Edward II was defeated by the Scots of Robert the Bruce on 14th Oct 1322. Edward had been more successful that spring at Boroughbridge but, although he escaped to fight another day, this battle was probably a turning point in his fortunes, the beginning of his end. Now, in more peaceful times, there are arguments over the conflicting interests of landowners, walkers, cyclists, horse riders and motor bikers all wishing to use Hambleton Street, now the Scots, armies and drovers, are gone. Much of it forms part of the long distance footpath, the Cleveland Way. The numerous Bronze and Iron-Age earthworks lend credence to the general assumption that Hambleton Drove is an ancient trackway, rather earlier than the White Horse which was cut in the hillside in 1857.
Back on the low ground, the route made for York, passing through Crayke, whilst keeping east of the Thirsk to York branch of the Great North Road. The Hambleton Drove may not have been the only off-turnpike route for the drovers. There is a continuous line of minor roads and tracks leading from Yarm all the way to Knayton, just north of Thirsk, where the line meets the present A19, after running for many miles parallel to that old road.
There is more about the old Drove Roads at the pages about The Bullock Road and Sewstern Drift
Lincolnshire
©Biff Vernon 2001, 2002