Roads and travel

Many interesting features can be found, especially in rural areas, which reflect the history of our highways: this section contains avariety of articles which do not always fit easily anywhere else,including:
Toll-houses: because these often stuck out into the road many have been demolished. The Society also records these.
Packhorse roads, such as our newly-restored section between Marsden and Slaithwaite.
Causeys – see the article on Trods: paved tracks, some in unlikely places; for example, if you look over the pedestrian bridge leading from Bridge Street, Holmfirth to Crown Bottom car-park when the river is low you will see a paved stretch of the river-bed – for this was the main way into the village some centuries ago (pictured below).

Foiling invaders: waymarkers at war

In 1939, with war looming, an Emergency Powers (Defence) Act was passed enabling the government to make orders as the need arose for the defence of the realm.

One such was the Removal of Direction Signs Order of 30th May 1940.  This was in the middle of the Dunkirk evacuation, when fears of a German invasion were at their peak.  To prevent direction signs being used by an invading army (albeit no doubt armed with maps), all such signs that were visible from a road were to be taken down or otherwise rendered useless.

Daily Express, Friday 31 May 1940

This was reported in the Daily Express of the following day under the headline Signposts to be removed: Sir John Reith, Minister of Transport, announced last night that highways authorities have been instructed to remove signposts and direction indications which would be of value to the enemy in case of invasion. The work was put in hand on Wednesday.

Wooden sign-posts were dug up (or had their arms removed), enamel village signs were unscrewed, and all were put into storage – hopefully to be replaced at the end of the war.  Milestones and boundary stones suffered varying fates: some were removed for safety to council depots, etc; some were covered over with earth, or buried.  A council workman in Norfolk said that his instructions were simply to “dig a trench, push the stones into it and cover them up”.

Others, however, had the ignominious fate of being defaced, their legends chiselled away.  This latter act was contrary to the government’s intentions, as the instructions said clearly that “a chisel should not be used to cut out lettering on milestones”.

Not everyone was happy.   It was reported from the West Riding that milestones were being “chipped with a chisel … and now they are dumb.”  This was clearly seen as an act of vandalism.  “Never since milestones were first put up on the rolling English road have the milestones lost face – except when old age has made them speechless. Their gashed faces now have brought the war to the quietest of country lanes.”

Similar sentiments were evident in Derbyshire, their concern being that “Many of these stones represented an interesting link with the past and one wonders whether it will ever be possible to restore them in their original condition.”  What was of particular concern was that the “old-time spellings and the quaint abbreviations” were not lost forever.

Such fears were not entirely misplaced.  From 1944 the government permitted the re-instatement of signs in inland areas, though labour shortages did not make this a top priority for local authorities.  Many milestones and signposts were replaced after the war, but some buried stones remained buried for many years (and some possibly still are). 

Conversely, some stones still stand in their original locations showing the brutal treatment they have received.  A few examples are pictured below.  Some have had their legends restored, as far as possible, but current thinking is that they should remain as they are: the war is part of our history, and the defacement of milestones is part of their history.

Sources: articles in Milestones and Waymarkers: Keith Lawrence: Emergency powers and the milestones (2014, vol 7, pp 3-6) and David Viner: Emergency powers and the milestones – further examples come to light (2016, vol 9, pp 49-50).

RWH / August 2021

The same, “restored” recently.
Guidestoop in Ripponden at junction
of A58 and B6113 – as defaced.
One of half-a-dozen stones erected by the Borough of Mossley after incorporation at all its boundaries and all similarly defaced. This is on the A635 at the Yorkshire – Lancashire county boundary. It would have read, on the left: County of / West Riding / of Yorkshire [no mention of Saddleworth]; and on the right: County of / Lancashire / Salford / Hundred / Borough of /Mossley.
One of the 1860 Bradfield guide-stoops
Boundary stone on the A643 between Cleckheaton and Gomersal.
Boundary stone on the A62 marking the boundary between Linthwaite and Slaithwaite.

Foiling invaders: waymarkers at war Read More »

Highways Acts: a brief summary

The first Act of Parliament relating to roads was in 1555, and they have followed thick and fast ever since.  This is a brief list of the main ones and what they contained.

1555.  This first act, “for amending of Highways, being now both every noisom and tedious to travel in, and dangerous to all Passengers and Carriages” was passed during the reign of Queen Mary.  It laid responsibility for the upkeep of highways throughout the country on the parish (interpreted as the township in those parts of the north of England with large parishes).  Each highway authority was to elect a surveyor every year whose job it was to maintain the roads in good repair, using the local peasantry who gave their labour unremuneratedly (and no doubt unwillingly).

1663: The Wadesmill to Stilton Turnpike Act.  This was the first ever turnpike act, to improve the road from Wadesmill in Hertfordshire to Stilton (of cheese fame) in Cambridgeshire, along the line of the old Great North Road.  It established the principle that road users should pay for road improvements, although it was over 30 years before the next turnpike act.

1697: An Act for enlargeing Common Highways.  This act permitted the compulsory acquisition of land where the road was too narrow.  More significantly for our interests it made provision for the establishment of guide-stones or posts “where Two or more Crosse High-ways meet”. 

1706: The Fornhill [Bedfordshire] to Stony Stratford [Buckinghamshire] Turnpike Act, covering part of the old Roman Road to Chester, Watling Street.  The half-dozen turnpikes set up after the first were all under the control of the County Justices.  This, however, was the first where the road was effectively privatised, and a board of local worthies, businessmen, etc took it over, and it set the pattern for all future turnpikes

The Wakefield Austerland Act of 1759

1735: The Rochdale to Halifax etc Turnpike Act, the first in Yorkshire.  In the same year there was an act for a turnpike from Manchester to Austerlands, on the Lancashire-Yorkshire boundary, though it was not until 1759 that the continuation to Huddersfield and Wakefield was authorised.

1766: The General Turnpike Act.  A consolidation act repealing all earlier legislation and replacing it with one supposedly simple law.  This was the first general act to require that milestones be set up on all turnpikes, although many individual turnpike acts had already made this stipulation, particularly from the 1740s onwards.

1822: General Turnpike Road Act: another consolidation act.  Among other things this had reference to extra horses being taken on up hills at no extra charge, leading to the small number of “take-on” and “take-off” stones that survive.  It also had a requirement for marker posts at parish boundaries.

1858: Local Government Act.  This act gave parishes and townships the option of becoming Urban Sanitary Districts or combining with others to become Rural Sanitary Districts.  Urban Sanitary Districts were to retain responsibility for their roads.

1862: Highways Act.  This established Highway Districts as the norm for areas where parishes had not become Urban Sanitary Districts.  This applied to most of the rural parts of Yorkshire.  Highway Districts were also to take over the roads operated by failing Turnpike Trusts in the same areas.

1888: Local Government Act.  This created the local government system that prevailed until the reforms of 1974.  It established County Boroughs, responsible for all services (including roads) within their area, and County Councils, which had responsibility for main roads in the rest of the county. 

1894: Local Government Act.  Sanitary Districts became simply Urban and Rural District Councils, UDCs retaining responsibility for minor roads, and RDCs acquiring it with the abolition of Highway Districts.

Sources: W Albert: The turnpike road system in England 1663-1840 (Cambridge U P, 1972); Sidney and Beatrice Webb: The story of the King’s highway (Longmans Green, 1920); vlex.co.uk

RWH / August 2021

Highways Acts: a brief summary Read More »

More road history websites

The Internet has huge numbers of websites, or sections of websites, devoted to the history of roads – often created by local enthusiasts.

Here are links to a few of them (all opening in a new tab):

Huddersfield: https://huddersfield.exposed/wiki/Category:Turnpike_roads: this site has articles on nearly all the turnpike roads in the district, as well as items on related topics

Rastrick (Brighouse): Turnpike roads in Rastrick: https://myrastrick.com/turnpike-road-in-rastrick/

Scarcroft (north-east of Leeds): The three milestones of Scarcroft: http://www.thornerhistory.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ms-scarcroft-Ver4.pdf

Wikipedia can also be also a mine of useful information. There are, for example, extensive articles on the Richmond and Lancaster Turnpike, and the Keighley and Kendal Turnpike.

Another interesting site covering all roads in differing amounts of detail is https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk

More road history websites Read More »

Mastiles Lane and wayside crosses around Malham

Mastiles Lane was a mediaeval track forming part of a road system connecting Fountains Abbey with its lands in the Dales and the Lake District. 

It commenced at Kilnsey where many tracks converged on a monastic grange built in the twelfth century.  This served all the Fountains Abbey estates in Upper Wharfedale, Littondale and upper Airedale.  From here it crossed the open moorland of Kilnsey Moor and Mastiles, past Street Gate.

This name has also been given to the road itself, and is an indication that the route has actually been used in Roman times, and possibly even before that.  Aerial photography and archaeology has revealed a Roman marching camp on it, just north of Low Stony Bank.

After Street Gate it crosses Malham Water, the short stretch of a stream that issues from the Tarn before disappearing underground to re-emerge not below the Cove as originally thought, but south of Malham village at a place known as Aire Head.

The name Mastiles Lane applies only to the stretch from Kilnsey to Malham, but the monastic route continued over to Stainforth and then north-west towards the Fountains Abbey lands in the Lake District.  The origin of the name is not known, but it is not inconceivably related, albeit distantly, to the old Cumberland dialect word mastel, meaning a patch of an arable field never ploughed.

Wayside crosses were erected at prominent places along this stretch of the route: somewhere for a quick prayer to help you on your way, and to guide travellers over the somewhat featureless landscape. 

These were generally square shafts inserted into hollowed sockets cut into a stone base.  Five of these bases survive, though the crosses themselves have disappeared, re-used in later stone walls no doubt.  A good example is near the point where Cow Gill crosses Mastiles Lane and the oddly named Smearbottoms Lane meets it (SD 9299 6548) – pictured right.

Two crosses that appear intact can be found in the vicinity of Malham: Nappa Cross and Weets Cross.

Nappa Cross is by Kirkby Fell, 3 km west of Malham village, just north of an old track to Settle (SD 8751 6416).  Sadly, this is not entirely authentic: it has been moved, possibly from the junction of this path with the Settle track, and re-erected incongruously on the top of a dry-stone wall.  And the shaft was replaced in 1965 according to the National Park.

Weets Cross is 2 km east of Malham, on Weets Top (SD 9252 6323).  It is at a high point on a track from Mastiles Lane to the Fountains lands south of Malham, and a logical place for a wayside cross.  Especially as it is at an important point of great antiquity where five townships meet: Bordley, Hetton, Calton, Hanlith and Malham.

Sources: article by David Garside in the Dalesman, August 2021; Geoffrey N Wright: Roads and trackways in the Yorkshire Dales (1985); websites: historicengland.org.uk, outofoblivion.org.uk, yorkshiredales.org.uk.  Photos by David Garside and Milestone Society.

RWH / August 2021

Nappa Cross
Weets Cross

Mastiles Lane and wayside crosses around Malham Read More »

Roads heritage of the East Riding

The East Riding of Yorkshire is the smallest of the three Ridings and, unless you live there, a bit off the beaten track.  It is, however, packed with interest

While people had travelled from place to place since prehistoric times, and it is possible that some of their tracks became, via later travellers in mediaeval times, the roads of today, it was the Romans who built the first roads.  These were, of course, for military purposes and took no notice of the local population.  One road started in Brough (Petuaria) – a continuation of the road from London via Lincoln (Ermine Street) to the Humber crossing.  South of Market Weighton one branch of this road led via Warter to York and another through the Wolds to Malton.  Another road extended eastward from York via Stamford Bridge across the central Wolds to the North Sea coast at Bridlington.  

While the Roman roads formed the basis of Britain’s main road system (the King’s Highways) they were not necessarily the roads needed by the local population.  Local journeys made by merchants with their packhorses or farmers moving livestock relied on drove roads, some of which had existed since prehistoric times.  They were originally ‘green’ earth roads which avoided most settlements and were largely independent of other road systems.  Many still remain on the Wolds, although most now have a narrow strip of tarmac for motor vehicles.

Later, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, another type of road developed, the enclosure road.  The enclosure movement transformed farming practices and the landscape, but it also affected the road system.  New roads were created to provide access to the newly-created fields.  These roads were often straight, and built to a standard width of 30 to 40 feet, with wide grass verges and bounded by hedges.  Examples of enclosure roads can be found all over the county, including around Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, Swanland and Walkington.  More information can be found on the East Riding Museums website mentioned below. The illustration below is taken from a photograph by D S Pugh on Geograph (reference cc-by-sa/2.0 – © DS Pugh – geograph.org.uk/p/3764552) showing an enclosure road leading from Warter to Huggate in SE8750.

The turnpike movement took off in the 1720s, but the first in the East Riding was the Hull to Beverley road in 1744.  Two other trusts were formed in the mid-1740s, for roads from Hull to Kirk Ella (which had become a location of choice for merchants of Hull wishing to live outside the city) and Hedon. 

A second flurry of turnpike acts took place two decades later, when Beverley was the focus of roads to Leven (1761), Kexby Bridge (1764 – and thence to York the following year), Molescroft (1766 – a very short distance) and Hessle (1769).  There was a plan to continue the Leven (White Cross) road to Bridlington in 1767 but this did not materialise. 

Much later (1825) another road linked Hull with North Ferriby.  Here (as the name implies) a ferry ran across the Humber to South Ferriby in Lincolnshire, probably from before the Norman conquest until the opening of the Humber Bridge in 1981.

Turnpikes required toll-houses, but following the demise of the turnpike system in the late 19th century sadly few have survived to the present day.  As elsewhere they have succumbed from being too close to the carriageway.  Toll-houses can still be found, however, at Cottingham, Leven (White Cross) and Woodmansey (near Beverley).

For more information see this very interesting East Riding Museums website on which much of the above is based. Other sources include W Albert: The turnpike road system in England 1663-1840 (Cambridge U P, 1972) and Wikipedia.

RWH / May 2021

Roads heritage of the East Riding Read More »

Some Yorkshire toll-houses

On the A669 at Greenfield
At a private bridge at Copley, Halifax
Stump Cross, Halifax: junction of A6036 and A58
At Scarcroft on the Leeds to Wetherby road, A58
On Rowley Lane, Lepton, once part of the Wakefield Austerlands Turnpike
On the county boundary at Sharneyford, A681 between Todmorden and Bacup
Replica table of tolls on the A616 at Brockholes, New Mill District Roads
In Sussex (sorry!): original toll-keeper’s cottage at the Weald and Dowland Open Air Museum

Some Yorkshire toll-houses Read More »

Bridge chapels: our first toll-houses?

In mediæval times, bridge chapels served an important function as wayside chapels for pilgrims.  Mediæval bridges were often the only way of leaving a town or city to venture into the countryside across the farthest bank and, as many towns were established across rivers, they must have been plentiful.  But did they also serve another purpose?

The authors of a guidebook to the bridge chapel at Derby* clearly think so.  They state ‘Bridge chapels served a number of purposes.  They were places where travellers leaving the relative safety of a town would call to pray and receive a blessing before setting out on a possibly dangerous journey through the countryside beyond.  Others, about to enter a town, might have paused to offer thanks for a safe arrival.  Tolls, for the upkeep of the associated bridges, would have been levied on incoming goods and animals.’  They go on to state ‘It was customary in those days for the daily upkeep of the chapel to be the responsibility of a so-called hermit, appointed by the bishop.  The hermit, who lived in the chapel, was also responsible for the collection of tolls.’  

So there we have it.  As tolls were extracted for the upkeep of the bridge, perhaps the bridge itself belonged to the church?  But why are there so few bridge chapels left in England?  With the coming of the Reformation, such chapels fell out of favour and by 1547 all had been closed.  The subsequent arrival of industrialization and the turnpike era rendered mediæval bridges too narrow for traffic so many chapels, now redundant, would have been demolished.  

It is fortunate that a few bridge chapels still exist, and two of them are in Yorkshire, at Wakefield and Rotherham.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_7438-3-1024x695.jpg
Wakefield’s old bridge and chapel

Wakefield was an important town in mediæval times.  The lovely little bridge chapel built around 1350 sits on the old bridge over the River Calder.  It is the best bridge chapel we have despite its west front having been faithfully rebuilt by George Gilbert Scott in 1847.  Another reference to toll collecting comes from 1342 when toll rights were granted to the bridge, eight years before the chapel was erected and 15 years before the chapel licence was granted.

The bridge chapel at Rotherham, although similar in style to the one at Wakefield, is well over a hundred years younger.  It was heavily restored in 1924.  The bridge itself, although mediæval, was widened in the 18th century and narrowed back to its original width in the 20th.  It is a miracle that the chapel survived the original widening.  Both Wakefield and Rotherham chapels are rectangular with typical ecclesiastical features.

Other bridge chapels are at Cromford (Derbyshire), Derby, St Ives (Cambridgeshire – pictured at top), Bradford-on-Avon (Wiltshire) and Rochester (Kent).  Spare a thought for those early pilgrims, having to pay tolls to fulfil their religious desires.

* Robert Innes-Smith: The Chapel of St. Mary on the Bridge, Derby (Derbyshire Countryside, 1987)

A longer version of this article by John Higgins appeared in Milestone Society Newsletter, August 2016, no 31, pp 21-22.

RWH / August 2020

Bridge chapels: our first toll-houses? Read More »

A toll-house at Lepton

This house, called Bar Cottage, stands on Rowley Lane in Lepton, just east of Huddersfield. It is readily recognisable as a toll-house: it stands further out into the road than neighbouring buildings, and it has windows enabling traffic approaching from both directions to be seen.

Though not on any main road now Rowley Lane was once part of the Wakefield-Austerlands Turnpike. This road was constructed around 1759 from Wakefield through Huddersfield to the county boundary at Austerlands (on the present A62) where it connected with the turnpike from Manchester through Oldham. While the three routes over Standedge are well-documented, it is less widely-known that the first of the three Austerlands turnpikes did not follow the present direct route down from Grange Moor. It actually turned down through Lepton, over the Fenay Beck and up to Almondbury, from where it descended into Huddersfield.

The route was changed with the second turnpike of 1777, but the toll-house, deprived of its purpose, has survived externally unaltered for over 200 years.

RWH / June 2020

A toll-house at Lepton Read More »

Travelling around Huddersfield 1880-1920


The coming of the railways from the 1840s changed the shape of long distance travel; stage coaches and wagons were slow and cumbersome. However, in the West Riding, the close proximity of the prosperous commercial centres meant that road transport continued to be a viable option for goods – the double handling necessitated by rail journeys made those less economic: the goods had to be taken by wagon to the rail head,unloaded onto the train, shipped, then unloaded off the train onto a wagon for delivery. Haulage businesses and carriers such as the Hansons of Milnsbridge thrived. Rail passengers also required road transport to take them to the train station, either personal or public; the major London termini are all situated in built up locations and the congestion around them was notorious.

For those who did not keep at least a pony and trap or a riding horse, local public transport was provided by four‐wheeled hackney coaches and later by two‐wheeled cabs (from ʹcabrioletʹ – with a folding hood) drawn by a single horse. The lighter four‐wheeled ʹgrowlerʹ was introduced shortly after the Hansom cab (completely remodelled by John Chapman) came into use in the mid 1830s. By 1840, there were around a dozen hackneymen in Leeds, for example; one John Germaine operated cabs, hackney coaches and omnibuses as well as running a beerhouse. The growlers were used for heavier work, transporting station luggage and as coachbuilder G N Hooper wrote in the 1880s, ʹTommy Atkins and his friends from Aldershot or Mary Jane and her boxes to her new place in a distant suburbʹ (1).

Initially the trade was unregulated; indoor servants were obliged to leave their employment on marriage and one of the Metropolitan Commissioners commented ʹa gentlemanʹs servant saves up two or £300 and fancies he can do better with a coach than any other man: the workhouses are filled with hackney coachmenʹs wives and children at this momentʹ (2).

By 1880, Manchester had 100 hansoms and 361 four‐wheelers; in May 1868, the Minutes of the Huddersfield Hackney Coach and Lodging House Committee record that the Committee had made the annual inspection of Hackney Carriages and had granted 30 renewed licences. In May 1890, the Huddersfield Watch Hackney Coach Sub‐Committee and Chief Constable carried out the annual inspection, now covering 48 Cabs, 33 Hansoms, 42 Waggonettes and one Omnibus, finding that generally the 121 vehicles ʹwere in satisfactory condition with a few exceptionsʹ (3). In 1891, the Committee observed that ʹIt is against the practice (rules) of the Committee to grant licences for wagonettes to persons resident outside the borough (Meltham and Linthwaite)ʹ.

The cab fares were measured from the Market Cross, although in March 1890 the Fartown, Deighton and Bradley Sub‐Committee proposed that cab distances should be measured from the station instead of the Market Cross. The same Sub Committee had reported ʹthe necessity of revising the table of distances in connection with the hire of cabs in the Borough, more especially with reference to the Fartown Districtʹ. The Committee resolved that ʹthe Borough Surveyor should revise the cab distances for the whole Boroughʹ and this was duly carried out, as reflected in the little red pocket Borough of Huddersfield Year Book. The Cab Fares page showed charges were levelled on distances for a minimum 1 mile and for every succeeding half mile (or by quarter hours).

Huddersfield is unique in having triangular stone markers at half mile intervals on the roads within the borough, stating the distances to and from the Market Cross – these were the cab fare stages, although in the 1890 Year Book, all the datum points mentioned are chapels, toll bars, houses or junctions which suggests that the ʹTo & Fromʹ stones were not in situ in 1890. On the Bradford Road, the fare stage at ʹa mark on the wall 11 yards N of Mr Dewhirstʹs entrance gatesʹ was reviewed by the Borough Surveyor and moved a few yards northwards, against the shoeing forge (on the corner of modern Ashbrow Road – the bus fare stage is still known as The Smithy today); the distance from the Market Cross was 1½ miles and the fare was 1s 3d for a two‐wheeled cab, 1/6 for a four wheeler. The furthest distance recorded in the Year Book was to Thongsbridge Toll Bar, 5 miles 396 yards; no fare was specified.

Around the same time, there was a request for additional cabs on the stands at the railway station; such work was often ʹprivilegedʹ ie the cabmen paid a fee to the station. By 1894, the Light and Watch Committee was considering the Regulation of Traffic by the Railway Station; it was resolved that ʹarc electric lights should replace the two gas lamps by the Peel statueʹ and that horses were to face east.

A glance at the census returns for 1871 and 1881 reveals that many men were employed as coachmen or cab drivers with the occasional teamer; someone has pencilled ʹgroomʹ alongside many of these entries, perhaps an attempt at a generic enumeration. However, there is no indication whether the coachmen were in domestic, commercial or public service. Ostlers (also ʹgroomsʹ) would have been required at all the inns, theatres and other meeting places to take care of visitorsʹ horses or stagecoach horses.

One local family that became closely connected with the coaching, cab and livery trades in the 1880s was the Darwins. Thomas Darwin was born in Holmfirth in 1853, one of the six sons of James, a weaver who moved to Huddersfield around 1855 and was working as a Woollen Sorter. Most of the Fartown neighbours were employed in the woollen trades, including Thomasʹ older brother George H, although brother Frederick was a ʹlabourer on roadsʹ. Aged 18 at 1871 census, Thomas was employed as a butcher, living with his parents in Bradford Road. By 1881, Thomas was listed as a Master Butcher, living with the Bowtrey family at 121 Halifax Old Road; in October that year he married Elizabeth Ann Roberts of South Crosland at the Parish Church, Holmfirth.

With the granting of the operational licence in 1882, Huddersfield became the first municipality in Great Britain to construct and operate their own tramway system – such systems as existed elsewhere were privately run.

The first ten miles of Huddersfield Tramways track were laid down in 1882 and a steam engine drawing a car was given the first trial run on Chapel Hill in November that year; it was planned that the Paddock route would be operated by cable but this was abandoned. The first regular service was between the Red Lion Hotel, Lockwood and the Royal Hotel at Fartown (Toll) Bar, commencing in January 1883. In the first year of operation, the Corporation had six steam locomotives and the revenue was £1,277.

The fare from Lockwood to Fartown Bar was 2d inside, 1d on the top deck; the inside fare to the interim fare stage at Hebble Bridge (near the junction of Hillhouse Road with Bradford Road) was 1d. However, it was deemed too dangerous to operate steam trams in King Street, so from 1885 – 1888, the Moldgreen trams were pulled by horse traction (4). Similar consideration must have been given to the Fartown section because in the Huddersfield Town Council Minutes of 22 August 1885, the sub‐committee had decided that the Fartown Tram was to be run with horses; although they would undertake to confer with Mr Longbottom about his proposal in future, they accepted the tender of Mr Thomas Darwin of Fartown to work the route with horses. It was further decided that as soon as practicable the cars should be every quarter of an hour on that route.

That this actually operated is corroborated by a letter in an undated newspaper cutting (5) from Mr James H Earnshaw of 18 Springwood Street, stating ʹThe first horse tram to run in Huddersfield began to run to Moldgreen from September 1885 to March 1888. A few months after, two horse trams were run on the Fartown section, horsed by Mr Thomas Darwin and continued to November 1886. I was the tram driver on the Fartown section for the last three months of their running and William Cromack was the other driverʹ.

By 1897, the Corporation had a rolling stock of 26 steam locomotives and 26 double deck bogey cars; the revenue was £30,193. Conversion to an electric track system was begun in 1899 and completed in 1902.

Was it marriage that caused the young entrepreneur to branch out from butchery? Slaterʹs 1887 Huddersfield Directory lists him as a coach proprietor and cab owner, working from 158 Bradford Road North, the Miners Arms Beerhouse (now the Railway Inn) near Fartown Bar, then run by his mother Ann. Two dozen cab owners are listed, including older brother George H, who is also a postmaster at 27 Wasps Nest Road, and William Cromack.

By the 1891 edition of Slaterʹs, Thomas is building a successful business as a Livery Stable Keeper and coach/cab proprietor; his brothers are in associated roles, George H is a jobmaster (hiring out livery) as well as a postmaster, Frederick is a cab driver (though the census listed him as a Corporation yardman), John is a cab driver in Cross Grove Street, William is a teamer (a driver of a team of horses used for hauling) at 18A Upper Aspley and Thomas F (son of George H) is a cab driver living at Norman Road, Birkby.

Thomasʹ livery stables continue to prosper, in extensive premises on Flint Street called Fartown Mews, proudly engraved on his letterhead. He is often mentioned in the Chronicle, including for winning a four‐wheel competition or taking groups of ladies or children on pleasant outings – the children taken to Sunny Vale Gardens in 1893 were each presented with five tickets including for the boats, swings and automata. In the same year, the Chronicle notes, he provided stabling for the June Exhibition, the Grandest Programme of the Season: ʹAll the horses for this Night will be specially selected from the most WILD AND VICIOUS HORSES in this vicinity.ʹ

In 1894, he treated the yard stablemen and coachbuilders in his employ to a capital dinner at the Miners Arms, then run by his (less reputable) brother James. Note the reference to ʹcoachbuildersʹ rather than ʹcoachmenʹ so presumably he had an in‐house maintenance team.

Around this time, another revolution in transport was noisily beginning. The Germans (Daimler and Benz) had been producing motor cars since the 1880s although the French dominated the production of cars in Europe until 1933, when Britain took over (6). British‐built Daimlers (under licence) began in 1896, the same year that the Locomotives on Highways Act removed the strict rules on UK speed limits. The RAC was founded in 1897 and the Yorkshire Automobile Club in 1900, one of the strongest in the provinces by 1905, with 600 members (7).

The Rippon Brothers of Viaduct Street were coachbuilders; they did not actually claim descent from the eponymous coach builder to Elizabeth 1st, nor did they deny it. However, they did adhere to the very highest standards and they began coachbuilding bodies on various Continental automobile chassis, including Spyker; in 1906 they began a partnership with Rolls Royce, building bespoke bodywork to customersʹ orders. The early horseless carriages often resembled their antecedents, with the driver exposed at the front, as the coachman had been on the box.

Tram in Viaduct Street by Rippon Bros (kirkleesimages.org.uk)

The early adopters were often wealthy young men with an engineering bent, essential because the vehicles were most unreliable, needing repairs by the roadside and frequent changes of tyres or wheels as a result of punctures. However, as the vehicles became more reliable in the early 1900s and tyre technology improved, they were bought by private families to supplement the carriage. The driving skills required were not those of the horseman, more of the ʹstokerʹ, some vehicles being propelled by steam, hence the term ʹChauffeurʹ. The wealthy often imported a French or German driver with their cars. Older coachmen found it difficult to adapt and ʹHome, Jamesʹ by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu contains some amusing and insightful anecdotes. A young groom or male house‐servant might be delegated to learn how to operate and maintain the thing; there was no standard layout of the controls. A provider such as Rippons might give elementary instruction but after that, they were on their own, or at the mercy of one of the repair ʹgaragesʹ that sprang up, providing servicing as well as storage. Domestic accommodations for cars were known as ʹcar housesʹ (8).

The career of the live‐in young coachman employed in his declining years by Henry Dewhurst at Fartown Lodge provides an example. The 1901 census lists 26 year old Arthur Cockayne, who hailed from Swanwick, Belper, on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire borders. Live‐in domestic staff were not permitted to be married, but this did not apply to outdoor staff such as coachmen, for whom separate accommodation could be provided. Recruitment was either by recommendation or through advertisements in magazines or newspapers, both local and national; by the 1890s, most large towns had one or more servant registries (9) ‐ the Huddersfield Chronicle carried advertisements by the Lincoln Registry at Springwood Street, for ʹServants for Town and Countryʹ.
Servants frequently travelled long distances for work – employers often preferred staff with no local connections and therefore less likelihood of gossip in the neighbourhood.

After Henry Dewhurst died ʹof senile decayʹ in 1902, Arthur Cockayne married Margaret Allen from Durham at Huddersfield in December 1904 and went on to take advantage of that new development, the automobile. He moved to Middleton in Leeds where his daughter Beatrice Rosetta was born, then to York; by the 1911 census, aged 35, he was employed as a chauffeur, living in Walton Road, Wetherby. The chauffeur was a professional, falling outside the customary servant hierarchy, as had the governess; he was often in close contact with the mistress of the house and scandalous indiscretions occasionally resulted.

Little formal instruction was available and driving licences were not implemented until 1910. In that year, doctorʹs son Stanley Roberts realised that motoring was going to be big business and set up his own driving school, naming it The British School of Motoring, now known simply as BSM. Previously an engineerʹs apprentice with Thomas Sopwith, Roberts was a motoring fanatic and persuaded his parents to rent out their garage at 65 Peckham Rye to his fledgling business and to house his prized possession, a Dutch‐built Spyker. Offering a ʹPopular Course of Mechanism and Drivingʹ, Robertsʹ first pupil was a former coachman, whom he trained to become a chauffeur; the business expanded nationwide.

Thomas Darwin also kept abreast of the new developments in the twentieth century as owner‐drivers enthusiastically embraced the automobile, catering for both those who drove and those who did not. He is generally listed as a cab proprietor in the trades directories, but also as a funeral director; his 1906 letter‐head notes that he offers the ʹNew Silent Tyred Funeral Carsʹ. The history of hauliers Joseph Hanson & Sons of Milnsbridge records that ʹIn 1920, Thomas Darwens, wedding and funeral car hire, was acquired. Some 8 years later the old cars were replaced with Rolls Royces and the limousine service continued for 50 years.ʹ Thomas became a major shareholder in the Yorkshire Motor Car Co, of Elland Road, Brighouse, calling in his debenture in 1922 and later was appointed a receiver for the business.

His own operations were now managed by his nephews James Henry Heaton Darwin and Norman Darwin, sons of George H, the jobmaster and postmaster; Norman ran the site at Flint Street trading as Fartown Garage, also funeral directors, supplying motor hearses, landaulettes, horse carriages &c, while James H H, his family and his younger brother John Edward were operating out of Fartown Lodge Mews, the former home of Arthur Cockayne the coachman, described as Fartown Lodge Garage in the Halifax & Huddersfield District Trades Directory (10).

Thomasʹ draft will in 1926 bequeathed ʹall stock in trade, horses, carriages, harness and other effects … as a Carriage Proprietorʹ to his nephew James H H, and ʹthe motor hearse and cars as a Garage Proprietor in Flint Streetʹ to his nephew Norman. Thomas died in 1938, the year that Norman is listed as a Director of the newly incorporated Silver Wheels (Hire) Ltd. James H H had an ironic end at the age of 57; in 1930 his daughter wrote to Thomas in great distress from Vancouver, reporting that he had been knocked down by a car and killed (11).

The Darwinsʹ connection with the coachmanʹs house continued until the 1950s; in the early 1930s, it was bought by another cab proprietor, Walter Vosper Holder Halstead, whose sister Beatrice then married James HHʹs son Stanley; they all lived together in the coachmanʹs house and continued to run old‐fashioned cars as taxis, perhaps those sold off by Hansons. After Walterʹs death in 1953, Beatrice and Stanley moved out, and the property was bought by another member of the motor trade, Olaf Olsen the Volvo dealer. He had completed his coachwork apprenticeship at Rippon Bros and apparently had painted the coachlines on two of the Rolls Royces supplied to Beaulieu, presumably to be driven by Lord Montagueʹs chauffeurs, although the Volvo was fast gaining a reputation for outstanding reliability, too!

Jan Scrine, © The Milestone Society, 2020

References
1,2 Trevor May: Victorian and Edwardian Horse Cabs; Shire Publications, Oxford, 2009
3 Huddersfield Corporation Light and Watch Committee Minutes, May 1890
4 The Huddersfield Examiner, 26/7/1952, 70th Anniversary Supplement
5 Huddersfield Local History Reference Library, ʹTramsʹ file
6,8 Kathryn A Morrison and John Minnis: Carscapes: the Motor Car, Architecture and Landscape in England; English Heritage, 2012
7 Motoring Annual 1907, quoted in Jonathan Wood: Rippon Brothers, a Coachbuilder of Renown; 2012
9 Trevor May: The Victorian Domestic Servant; Shire Publications, Oxford, 2009
10 Halifax & Huddersfield District Trades Directory 1925 – 1926, p 121
11 West Yorkshire Archives, Darwin files.

This article was originally published in MILESTONES & WAYMARKERS, 2020, vol 12.

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B6265: the road to nowhere

Anyone attending the Society’s Northern Spring Meetings from south of Hebden will probably have travelled on the B6265.  It starts outside the church at the top of the High Street in Skipton and heads northwards, through Grassington, to Hebden.  But how many travelling this way have noticed what it does next?  Read on to discover its peculiar 45-mile semi-circular route through some lovely countryside and interesting towns and cities to end up nowhere in particular.

It started life (in its modern incarnation) as the Skipton and Pateley Bridge Turnpike.  On the first milestone out of Skipton, however, a West Riding CC Brayshaw and Booth replacement of the 1890s, the road is described as the Skipton and Cracoe Road.  There are three of these – numbers 4 and 5 have not been found – after which one would not expect any more if the County Council thought the road stopped at Cracoe – though why they did not erect more will remain a mystery.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is m_1-ESHD.jpgThere are several boundary stones and guide-stoops on this first stretch. One stone, marking the boundary between Rylstone and Stirton with Thorlby, has the initials ESHD: the East Staincliffe Highway District erected a number of boundary stones in their area. 

The guide-stoops, undated but probably from the early 18th century, are all in a similar style, usually with a pointing finger.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is m_2-Near-None-go-by-on-B6265-to-Cracoe-Threshfield-IMG_0081-2.jpgAbout 2 km beyond Cracoe a branch of the road forks off to the right to Linton, where it loses its B-road designation but continues to rejoin the main line just before the bridge at Grassington – the main section having carried on to Threshfield and around to Grassington.  There are three more guide-stoops in and around Linton.

There are also two earlier milestones, one marking seven miles from Skipton, just beyond the junction with the branch road to Linton, and one marking eight miles on the branch road in Linton itself.  It is presumed that they are the original turnpike milestones, although it is not until the 1894 edition that they are shown on the Ordnance Survey maps, and there is one in an identical style further up the dale beyond Threshfield and not on the actual turnpike.

And so to Hebden.  There are two bridges in Hebden, the old mediaeval one with a WR county bridge stone (pictured below, left), and the nineteenth-century one when the road was widened; this has a large 1827 carved on the parapet (pictured below, centre).  Just off the road is a rather weathered guide-stoop, and just as you enter the village an interesting old stone on the right bears a simple cross (pictured below, right).  This is actually a county bridge stone, denoting the point 300 feet from the bridge, where the parish responsibility for the road ended, and the county’s responsibility, for the bridge, began.  There is a similar stone at Skirfare Bridge higher up Wharfedale.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is m_4-WR-Hebden-IMG_4720.jpgThis image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is m_5-1827-Hebden-IMG_4906.jpgThis image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is m_6-X-Hebden-IMG_4907.jpg

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is m_7-B6265-nr-Greenhow-IMG_6020.jpgBeyond Hebden there are more guide-stoops, including, after Stump Cross Caverns, near Greenhow one in a different style with fingers pointing to Hardcastle, a now deserted but once bustling mining area (pictured left).  And it’s also worth a look at Toft Gate Lime Kiln, just beyond.

The road now enters Pateley Bridge, where it turns right and for a mile joins the B6165. While that heads for Knaresborough our B6265 turns off and meanders north-east, passing the entrance to Studley Royal and Fountains Abbey, to Ripon. This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Pateley-Bridge-Ingram-ms.jpgThis, according to the 1854 Ordnance Survey map, is the province of the Ripon and Pateley Bridge Turnpike Trust.  Along the road is a series of milestones, some in need of some TLC, with iron plates cast by Ingram, ironfounders of Ripon, many more of whose milestones can be found on other roads from Ripon.  The last (or first from our direction) of these is in Pateley Bridge itself, on Ripon Road.  The one illustrated here is the first one encountered on the B6265 as it turns off the B6165.

Finally, beyond Ripon, the road heads east (on part of the Harrogate and Hewick Turnpike) and then back south towards Boroughbridge: now on the line of the former A1, the Great North Road before it was widened, earlier the Boroughbridge and Piercebridge Turnpike, and long before that the Roman Dere Street.

The milestones on the stretch from Ripon are of the Ingram variety, but on the old Great North Road there is a different style with directions to Piercebridge.  After Boroughbridge the Great North Road continues south to Wetherby while Dere Street, now the B6265, heads for York, part of the Boroughbridge and York Turnpike.  A few milestones survive, but after about ten miles the road finally comes to an end at its junction with the A59 near Green Hammerton.

Curiously there is a bit more of the B6265.  With the development of the A650/A629 Aire Valley Trunk Road, two old sections of the road have been re-designated as the B6265: one from Crosshills through Steeton into Keighley; the other from Keighley through Bingley to Cottingley.  Perhaps some misty-eyed planner once thought of joining them all up.

RWH / rev July 2020

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