A1-The Great North Road
Road sign opposite The Fox, Brotheron.
Between the rivers Don and Wharfe, the ancient Kingdom of Elmet was a late stronghold of the post-Roman British, holding out for a long time against pressure from Danes and Anglo-Saxons in Deira to the north-east and Mercia to the south-west. When Deira and the northern Bernicia combined to form Northumberland the pressure proved too great and Elmet's existence as a separate kingdom ended at the beginning of the 7th century.
| At the Fox, Brotherton, the Great North Road divides, left fork for Wetherby and Sctoch Corner, the right for Tadcaster and York. The left fork now takes the road over the railway and the A1, both in deep cuttings just here. |  |
Taking the right fork at the Fox in Brotherton, the Great North Road headed for Tadcaster, passing by Burton Salmon and Monks Fryston to the east of the road and passing through South Milford, Sherburn and Towton. Milford and Sherburn have now been by-passes by the A162, leaving them to the west. The Mail-coaches changed horses at the Red Bear, Sherburn, six miles either way from Ferrybridge and Tadcaster.
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The 15th century Streeton Hall Gateway stands just west of South Millford |
Squires Cafe Bar has moved out of Sherburn, a couple of miles west along the B1222 to Newthorpe. A favourite for the bikers.
A little to the north, between Saxton and Towton, lies the site of the bloodiest battle ever fought in England. The Battle of Towton, on Palm Sunday, the 29th of March 1461, left about 30 000 Yorkist and Lancastrian men dead. Most of the action seems to have taken place on the high ground to the west of the road. There is some controversy over the state of the the 15th century roads and there is much discussion of the roads hereabouts on the Towton Battlefield Society website.
| This map, published in 1858, and reprinted in Bruff's Village Atlas shows the main road heading north from Towton, past Little Grimston and crossing the Cock Beck at 'New Bridge', then past the 'New Br. Inn' and across Tadcaster Ings at the top of the map. The exact route of Ogilby's 1675 road is open to interpretation, but Armstrong mapped. the Post Road very clearly, in 1776. This is the turning to the left at the north end of Towton, marked 'Old London Road'. It descends steeply to the Cock Beck, crossing at 'Cock Bridge' before turning towards Tadcaster but remaining to the west of Stutton. The present road north from Towton was not shown by Armstrong as the Post Road. It may be that this more direct route with its New Bridge and New Bridge Inn, is also an old road but was unusable in Armstrong's day. Perhaps an old bridge had collapsed or the Ings were too marshy for a Post Road and the route awaited repair as a turnpike road, perhaps in the late 18th century before Cary's 1795 map was published, at which time the milestones would have been erected. Old London Road dates from a time when the avoidance of the marshes of Tacaster Ings was more important than the steep descents to Cock Bridge. Pack horses were less affected by gradients than the coach traffic that required the construction of the turnpike with its gentler slopes. |
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Armstrong's map of the York Post Road, 1776 Note that the Post Road turns at Towton to follow the route marked as Old London Road in the 1858 map above. However, John Davey presents a number of pieces of evidence which argue in favour of the straight-north-from-Towton road. It would be interesting to find the date at which the local turnpike Act was passed.
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Right or wrong, the argument does not detract from the eloquent writing of Edmund Bogg as he describes the road of 1461:
And even to this day the ground on either bank (in most places), for a hundred yards on more, is a dangerous morass, yet tenfold worse four hundred and fifty years ago, as at that period the length of the valley from Lead Mill to Stutton, or even lower, to where the beck joins the Wharfe, was one continuous mire and swamp, impossible to cross without becoming engilfed. The Old Norman Bridge which stood at the north-west corner of Renshaw Wood was, at that period, the only available crossing place...the present good road from Towton to Tadcaster was not in existence until three centuries later. The old Norman track turned sharply to the left at Towton town end, passed down the precipitous slope on the north side of Renshaw Wood to Cock Bridge, climbed the opposite ridge, and thence along the west side of Stutton into Tadcaster.
Lincolnshire
©Biff Vernon 2002, 2005
