Yorkshire

That erudite Yorkshire topographer, J.S.Fletcher, writing at the end of the 19th century, introduces us to the county with these words:

The motorist, the cyclist, or the pedestrian, who wishes to form a good impression of the heart of Yorkshire and incidentally to see much of the county which is not usually visited by the average tourist, who seeks out the famous show places, cannot do better than traverse its entire length from south to north by way of the Great North Road. This historic highway, running through the centre of the county of wide-spreading distances, passes through scenery which is essentially middle-Yorkshire, and therefore most characteristic of the Yorkshire of long ago. From Bawtry, on the borders of Lincolnshire and Notts on the south, to the banks of the Tees, dividing Yorkshire from Durham, on the north, the entire country on either side of the Great North Read is pastoral and agricultural, as Yorkshire was in the main before manufacturers and steam and railways came into being. Nowhere are seen the black vapours of Sheffield, the greyness of Leeds, the gloom of Barnsley - the wide belt of land which runs from south to north in Yorkshire, through Osgoldoross and Barkston Ash, through the beginnings of the greater dales and the Vale of Mowbray to the romantic stretches of Teesdale, is an expanse of corn-land and meadow-land, deep woods and quiet villages, old manor-houses and ancient churches. There is nothing larger than the smaller market-towns from one end to the other; there is no clank and clang of machinery - but there is infinite quiet and greenness and many places to see to which many travellers in Yorkshire never, or but rarely turn - nooks and corners unheard of and neglected in view of places more famous. Naturally, such a journey along the Great North Road must be made in leisurely fashion. A swift motor could travel from Bawtry to Pierce Bridge or Croft Spa in a few hours and a good cyclist would accomplish the journey in a day without discomfort, but neither would have time for turning aside from the old highway whose foundations were largely laid by the Romans. and to see the nooks and corners of the Great North Road it is necessary to turn aside very often - sometimes for a hundred yards, sometimes for a mile, sometimes for a few miles, but never without profit.

And how do we (sad people who weren't born here) get to Yorkshire? The Ward Lock Guide to Whitby and the Yorkshire coast tells us that: From London the best way is by the Great North Road - fast and uninteresting, and for most of the way far too narrow for the traffic load it has to carry. The best way out of London is by the Barnet bypass, joining the Old North Road just beyond Hatfield. Thence the way is unmistakeable by Stevenage (31¹/₂ m.), Biggleswade (45m.), Stamford (89¹/₂ m.), and Grantham (110¹/₂ m.) to Newark (124m.) and Retford (145m.). At Bawtry, 9 miles beyond Retford, the Boothby road bears off to the right, but for York keep to the Great North Road through Doncaster (162m.), forking right after crossing the river and so by Tadcaster to York.

A couple of decades earlier the AA Road Book of about 1920 introduced us to Yorkshire thus:

The traveller from the south who has adventured up the Great North Road as far as Doncaster is on the threshold of a land very different from any that lies behind him. There is a spaciousness about the broad-acred shire of York which is new - spacious are its dale and its heathery moors, and spacious, too, the great green vale through which the historic highway marches towards the border.

The Great North Road is a fine approach to Yorkshire from the south, but it is a poor guide to the tourist for the beauties of the county. Travelling northward from Doncaster, the vistas whether the way be the Great North Road, which runs by Wetherby and Catterick, or the loop thereof which passes through York and Thirsk - show a great farmed landscape right the way through to Darlington. It is to the right or to the left of this tract that the scenes which make Yorkshire notable have to be sought. On the right, many miles eastward of Selby and York, rise the Yorkshire Wolds, bare chalk hills largely appropriated to the plough, but with a bold-edged dip where they face the plain and, along the seaboard, some magnificent cliffs.

Northward of the Wolds, away across the pleasant Vale of Pickering and taking up most of the space between Scarborough, Saltburn and Thirsk, lies another hill country, the Moors, a genial upland, carpeted with purple heather, cleft by a few exquisite glens and rounded off by perhaps the most picturesque stretch of seaboard on the whole East Coast of England.

On his left the traveller from Doncaster to Wetherby has only the evidences of industrialism, for not far from his path lie the great towns of the West Riding. Beyond Wetherby, however, there marches beside him at a few miles' distance the long range of the Pennine Hills, which, not only through Yorkshire but through Durham too, are the repository of much wild and beautiful scenery. In Yorkshire it is not so much the hills themselves, stone-walled expanses of arable, rough pasture, or long moorland grass, as the glorious valleys that claim and hold the attention, and the famous Dales, as they are called, furnish some of the most captivating landscapes in the North Country.

Entering Yorkshire by the Great North Road, Selby for its abbey church is the first point or attraction on the cast, and there from, via Cawood, where Wolsey's last tragic journey began, is reached the glorious and peerless old city of York. York, whose roots are set deeply in Roman soil, whose choicest blossoms - the noble minster, the proud walls and gates, the ancient shadow-haunted streets - are glamorous heirlooms from the Middle Ages.

In April 1639 John Aston stayed for three weeks in York, "A faire lardge cittie", accompanying the King, before heading up the Great North Road towards Scotland. During the stay in York the army gathered strength and manouvers were practiced in fields outside the city. It seems the King was hoping that the Scottish, who had been behaving in a disloyal manner, (some fuss over a prayer book which provoked the Bishop's War), would hear about the mustering army and think better of any awkwardness. But it was not to be so simple and soon King, army and our journalist headed north.

I went from Yorke the 27th April, being Saturday, on which day there fell aboundance of raine, and made foule travelling over the forrest of Gautrie which lies betweene Yorke and Topcliffe where I baited, being 17 miles from Yorke, there runns the river Swale. That night I came to North Allerton, 7 miles further, and there lodged all night in a poore house, the towne being filled with troupes before mee. Yet I found indifferent accommadacion both for my selfe and horses, good meate for 6d. ordinary, and good provender beanes and oates for 8d. a peck. The dearest provision was beere at 4d. a small flaggon, not a wine quart. But there had been all the foote (in their passage) quartered before us, which occassioned that scarcity of drinke.

Red line = modern roads.

Black lines = Roman roads from Armstrong's 1776 map.

The evolution of the Great North Road's course through Yorkshire is particularly complex. The modern route of the A1 is the westernmost red line on the map. North of Boroughbridge it follows the line of The Roman Dere Street, long known as Leeming Lane, to Scotch Corner. Although the road is drawn straight on the maps, the real road waves a little to left and right as if it has slipped off the Roman line. Between Wetherby and Boroughbridge the new A1(M) has been built alongside the older road, now designated A168. In the 18th century the stage coaches used the Scotch Corner route only if Penrith and Glasgow bound. The Edinburgh coaches turned right at Dishforth, north of Boroughbridge, across the Swale at Topcliffe and through Northallerton. An alternative route took coaches through Tadcaster, York, Easingwold and Thirsk before joining the other route at Northallerton. This route, via York, entered the city from the west through Micklegate Bar and over the Ouse Bridge and left northwards through the Bootham Bar to follow what is now the A19. Ogilby's 1675 atlas presents an alternative route via York. He takes us back through Micklegate Bar, retracing our steps a little way along the Tadcaster road before turning north west along what has become the A59 to rejoin the Wetherby to Boroughbridge road.

Fletcher, in 1900, takes us from Ferrybridge through Sherburn-in-Elmet to Tadcaster along what is now the A162 and then to Wetherby on the A659. He tell us that it is this route ...that has the real title to the name Great North Road...based on long study of the subject, confirmed by evidences, historical and topographical, which need not be entered into here. A pity he didn't present the evidence. Bradley, in 1889, agrees that the Ferrybridge to Tadcaster road was used by the stage-coaches but they went on to York, not Wetherby and this is the route of Ogilby's "London to Barwick" strip map. Armstrong, in 1776, has the the Great North Road dividing at Brotherton, just north of Ferrybridge, between the Wetherby road and the York road but he acknowledges a cross-road (the A659) between Tadcaster and just south of Wetherby.

Further north, another route is suggested in John Aston's 1639 account quoted above. He rides from York to Northallerton via Topcliffe but does not mention Boroughbridge. Instead he passes through the Forrest of Galtres which lay to the east and north of the Ouse. This implies he took what is now a very minor, but direct, road between the Easingwold - Thirsk road and the rivers Ouse and Swale, crossing the Swale at Thornton Bridge just north of Brafferton and re-crossing it again on entering Topcliffe. There was a great mansion at Thornton Bridge, long gone and more modestly replaced, but the medieval bridge remains. Topcliffe's importance is described below. This road is confirmed by Ogilby, who draws a branch road just south of Topcliffe, heading south-east and marked "To York".

Beneath the modern and medieval network, lie the Roman roads, faint ghostly traces, often more clearly seen on maps than on the real ground. Armstrong drew the Roman roads on his maps of the Great Post-Roads in 1776. He drew rather more than are marked on the modern OS maps. A notable feature is that usually the modern (that is 1776) roads do not lie on the same ground as the Roman road. They may follow a similar route but the Roman road often runs nearby, a straight line ruled alongside the more wobbly course of the actual road.

The first Roman version of the the Great North Road crossed the Humber by ferry at Brough (Petuaria) and then headed north via Stamford Bridge (Derventio), Easingwold and Thirsk. York came a little later and required a detour leaving the Brough-Stamford Bridge road at Barnby Moor. Malton was an important Roman fort and excavation on the York-Malton road has revealed an unusually large carriageway. Here's a report from the Guardian.

With the fording of the Trent at Littleborough, a more western route, avoiding the Humber ferry crossing, was opened up. This ran south-north, well west of York and a road leading to York approached via Tadcaster (Calcaria), running a little north but alongside the present A64. To get back to the main road the Romans presaged Ogilby's path, retracing their steps westwards from York, then turning north-west along the route of the present A59. At about Great Hammerton the Roman road turned more northerly to begin what we call Dere Street, a straight road to Scotch Corner. First stop was Isurium, now Aldborough, quite a significant Roman town in its day, just south-east of Boroughbridge.

So what of Roman roads leaving York on the east of the Ouse. Codrington, in 1903 wrote, There appears to be no trace of a Roman road from York, on the east of the Ouse, crossing that river at Aldwark, as suggested by Drake. Drake's Eboracum refers to a Roman station on the banks of the river at Aldwark. The Saxons name ald weorc meaning old fort, probably referred to Roman times. The bridge here dates from 1772. Armstrong's map, however, shows a Roman road on the east bank heading towards Topcliffe, though he draws it only for ten miles, as far as Youlton. Margary is more cautious. His road number 801 is only one mile. The main road Bootham was evidently a Roman street leading direct from the north-west gate of the Roman fort, now Bootham Bar, but recent work in the playing-fields of St Peter's School has disclosed another road running parallel to it about midway between Bootham and the River. This road was about 24 feet wide and well cambered, and its course suggests that it probably led to the south-west gate of the fort.

It is this second road that Armstrong probably described. It is clearly drawn on the Ordnance Survey Historical Map but, except on Bootham, this map admits little archaeological evidence, presuming the course of the roads.

The towns of Boroughbridge, Easingwold, Tadcaster, Thirsk, Topcliffe and Wetherby all now have by-passes, the most recent being the A19 round Easingwold in the 1990s.

These towns all lie in the Plain of York, that flattish, lowish land between the Yorkshire Dales of the Pennines to the west and the Hambleton Hill and North York Moors beyond to the east. Whatever the route of the Great North Road, it passed up this plain. In the 1940s Harry Scott described it thus:

Today the extensive Plain of York is, largely as a result of its earlier ice visitation, among the most fertile in Yorkshire and the most prosperous. Where the dalesman talks of sheep and walls the plainsman talks of corn and cows and with justification. These low flat lands have a rich soil, a mild climate and a rainfall half that of the sodden fells to the west. The drained swamp-land has become highly prized as pasture and arable.

As you look down on this fertile plain from Sutton Bank on the Hambleton Hills or across it from the tower of York Minster (that venerable and most venerated of all buildings in Yorkshire), you have a picture of a very different Yorkshire from the rest, a picture to confound the Southerner whose notion of the county is a hotch-potch of gritty hills, mill chimneys and pit-head gear. Here are woodlands and mansions in fair parks, exquisite little church spires and towers, prosperous market towns like Thirsk and Ripon and Boroughbridge with their butter crosses, Georgian houses and coaching inns, cathedral cities like York itself and Ripon and older ecclesiastical foundations like Byland Abbey, Newburgh Priory and Kirkham Abbey and on its fringe the lovely Fountains Abbey, set in magnificent park-land. As a background to all this are the farms and nursery gardens, the stables of the horse breeders and trainers, the little rural industries and the annual country fairs.

The Great North Road runs north and south through the length of the Plain, and an atmosphere of coaching days still lingers round the towns along its course. Legends of highwaymen are still told of its heaths and inns. For a spell, in the railway days, grass grew in the streets of some of those towns and even on the Great North Road itself, but the motor car has brought a new activity and a new prosperity. The old inns are now often road-houses, the stables have become garages, village greens are parking grounds, and lorry drivers' all-night caf6s are sprinkled along its edges.

And in their 1939 Yorkshire Tour, Ella Pontefract and Marie Hartley Introduce us to the Great North Road and wander down other paths: Plovers following the plough by the side of the Great North Road took us back to the moorland roads where these birds stand with their young ones on the grass verges. The roads carrying the transport of the county echo its story. The Great North Road, along which the Roman legions came, is the spine, the way through, but the smaller roads tell the life of the varied districts which they serve. Some of the drovers' tracks and the routes to markets and fairs are vanishing with the new transport and the dying of the smaller markets; the green tracks and paths which the lead miners used are sinking back into the moors; the paths of the alum workers run aimlessly now along the northern cliffs; and paved causeways along which fish and salt were carried from the coast are pavements to modern roads. On main routes or where industry still progresses many of the old tracks are widened highways, but stiles, turning from these, lead to trodden paths which the colliers take across the fields, or flights of stone steps end at paved 'ginnels' between walls, short cuts for the factory workers.

The roads are visible signs of the way in which industry originated in the rural districts. Winding over the fells from the villages of Hallamshire, they tell of the Sheffield cutlers working in the outlying villages before the slow movement to the towns began. Names of distant places on milestones in Craven, and the winding roads over the high hills round Halifax and Huddersfield, tell of an industry carried on for centuries in country villages where men were spinners and weavers as well as farmers.

Our road runs up the Yorkshire Plain, that low lying land between the Pennines and the North York Moors. The touring ladies again: The Accessibility of the plain has made it a route for travellers and armies. It was inevitable that the Great North Road should go through it from Roman times and probably earlier. Kings have waited on it while their forces have collected; battles have been fought round its bridges and over its level fields. The hills have their sudden bursts of drama and romance, but the plain makes steady history through the ages.

Top

Tithe Farm Bed & Breakfast

B & B Lincolnshire B&B