George and Dragon
A1-The Great North Road
Patterson notes that: "This small town is situated on the north bank of the river Wharf, over which there is a handsome bridge. It consists principally of one street, and has a market on Thursday. The river forms a very fine cascade, a little above the bridge, by falling over a dam that has been constructed for the convenience of the mills. The country surrounding Wetherby is pleasingly diversified, and a little below the town is St. Helen's Ford where the Roman military way crossed the river Wharf.
| Patterson's "one Street" starts with the George and Dragon, one of several pubs in the high street but Market Street lies to the west and several short roads now form the town centre. The Angel Hotel, at the top of the High Street was the principal coaching inn though the older Swan and Talbot was the posting house and dealt with the Mails. Just north of the Angel the road used to turn sharp right and then left to get round another pub that almost blocked the very narrow North Street. It was demolished in 1929 to widen the road and ease congestion. Bradley tells how the stables behind the Angel, once occupied by a hundred horses serving traffic on both the Great North Road and the cross-road between York and Leeds, was converted into the cottages known as Angel Court. |
George and Dragon |
Scottish cattle, London bound, were rested in the fields south of the bridge while the drovers rested at the Drovers Inn in Micklethwaite. North of the town, The Fox was another inn used by the drovers. By the start of the 19th century 30 000 cattle a year were passing through Wetherby. The gradual increase in traffic through the 18th century, local wagons, long distance stage coaches and the cattle trade, were contributing to the disrepair of the road and in the 1750s, both this western and the eastern York-Thirsk routes of the Great North Road were turnpiked, interests in each route being concerned about competition from the other.
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The "fine cascade" is a weir with a salmon ladder, built in 1871, on the south bank. On the north side, the waterfront blocks of flats, in typical late 20th century dockland and warehouse conversion style, are actually new buildings on the site of a derelict saw-mill. There have been corn mills here since Medieval times but the last use as a saw-mill ended with a fire in 1944. A large cog from its machinery has been set up, monumentally, along with a bronze salmon, in case you don't see a real one. The riverbank on either side and under the bridge have been made into pretty gardens with benches from which the anxious grannies can watch the children paddling in waters. |
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IN 1233 WALTER DE GRAY ARCHBISHOP OF YORK FORGAVE THE SINS OF THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED TO THE BUILDING OF THIS BRIDGE. THE ORIGINAL BRIDGE WAS ONLY 3.6 METRES WIDE AND HUMPBACKED. FREQUENTLY REPAIRED, IT WAS WIDENED AND RAISED IN 1826. THE PRESENT BRIDGE IS THE RESULT. So reads the bridge plaque. |
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The foundations of an older bridge lie in the river just downstream and as the plaque reports the existing bridge has developed over the centuries. A peek under the arches (click on the picture to enlarge) shows clearly the taller curve of the newer downstream half, added in 1826. The bridge was widened on the upstream side in 1773 and the roadway made level.
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Unwin
described this 17th or 18th century sketch as the earliest picture of the
bridge.
This view is a detail from an engraving first published in 1829 but drawn before the 1826 widening. It was reproduced by the Wetherby & Dist. Hist. Soc. |
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One of the earliest recorded road accidents occurred at Wetherby in 1762 when a child was run over by a waggon whilst the driver had fallen asleep.
Wetherby was by-passed in the late 1950s when a modern bridge to the east took the A1 traffic across the Wharfe, just visible from the old bridge but there is still a lot of local traffic using the Great North Road's original route into Wetherby. A further improvement, the 'Wetherby Bypass Scheme', was completed in 1988. This was left as a 2-lane dual carriageway. In 1992 the A1 between the A64 Bramham Crossroads Junction and Wetherby Grange was improved to a 3-lane dual carriageway. With traffic flowing at around 75 000 vehicles per day congestion is common, particularly on the narrow section past Wetherby. Now there are plans to make it all into a 3-lane motorway.
For some information relating to the new motorway from Wetherby to Walshford try the Highway Agency. This four and a half mile section opened on the 19th of December 2004.
B & B Lincolnshire B&B
©Biff Vernon 2001, 2002
