“The most desolate, wild and abandoned country in all of England”

The creation of a radically new transport system was to be one of the great achievements of the Georgian period. West Yorkshire was to witness dramatic changes to its road and canal systems in this era. Naturally, this involved significant construction of not just the roads themselves, but also a whole range of associated buildings. Many of these buildings and structures are still with us and despite their utilitarian nature are of considerable architectural value.

Packhorse Trails

The Pennines were traversed by several packhorse routes, many of which were still in use well into the Georgian era. In the early years of the Georgian era, the famous writer Daniel Defoe (Fig 1) recorded his first-hand experience of crossing the Pennines by packhorse. These Pennine trails were difficult and arduous at the best of times, but in 1724, the unfortunate Defoe found himself fearing for his life whilst crossing the inhospitable Blackstone Edge, “the Andes of the North”, in a snow storm. He pragmatically attributed the local’s resilience to the most “desolate, wild and abandoned country in all of England” to a plentiful supply of “good ale”!

Packhorse routes by definition were little more than rough trails (Fig 2) that wound their way up the steep sided Pennine hills often following the course of “cloughs” (steep sided wooded valleys) and crossing narrow packhorse bridges. Many of these routes, such as the famous Magna Via (from Halifax to Wakefield), had been in use for several centuries and many, such as that Defoe traversed over Blackstone, were thought to date back to Roman times and beyond.

Magna Via

A medieval way, but in a sense a highway, the Magna Via was the main road between Halifax and Wakefield until the mid-18th century. The trail, along which Thomas Fairfax, the Yorkshire Parliamentarian general, retreated with his troops after defeat at the battle of Adwalton in 1642, was still a vital communication and trade route in the early Georgian period. So important was the Magna Via, that it was recobbled and strengthened in the early-eighteenth century with stone setts. By this time, trains of packhorses were carrying woollen textiles from Halifax to the Cloth Halls in Leeds and Wakefield.

This striking packhorse trail (Fig 3) climbs the steep hills over Halifax on its journey eastwards, a route the ever-nervous Defoe described as ‘exceedingly troublesome and dangerous’, before descending steeply along the aptly named Dark Lane, a well-preserved medieval holloway, through Wakefield Gate.

Despite the improvements, it was still impassable for wheeled vehicles and, in 1741, it was bypassed when a Turnpike Trust was formed to build a road along which wheeled vehicles could pass. The resulting Halifax Old Road was itself replaced at the end of the Georgian era when, in 1824 a turnpike road was created that is now the modern A58.

By Packhorse from Marsden

An excellent example of a packhorse trail that can still be enjoyed is that which climbs the Pennines from the Yorkshire textile town of Marsden in the Colne valley. This historic packhorse trail reaches Marsden from the east then crosses the River Colne over the historic Mellor Bridge (Fig 4) by St Bartholomew’s Church. Mellor Bridge is a slender, single arched packhorse bridge built of local rough coursed millstone grit with rounded coping stones. The stone setts of this narrow walkway have been worn by centuries of use.

The River Colne was formed by the confluence of brooks that flowed down the Pennine hills through narrow cloughs. The junction of two of these brooks, Redbrook Clough and Haigh Clough at Eastergate, is said to be the source of the river (Fig 5). 

Form the surrounding hills, the setting of Close Gate Bridge at Eastergate is a picturesque reminder of the days when packhorses crossed the Pennines via zigzag trails. The bridge sits at the junction of these two cloughs from which trails rise to the Pennine backbone of England.

Close Gate Bridge (Fig 6), a Scheduled Ancient Monument, is a typical 18th century single span arched packhorse bridge over Haigh Clough. Similar in style to Mellor Bridge, it is of coursed stone rubble and built of local millstone grit with a surface of rough stone setts. The bridge has splayed parapets which have semi-circular copings and lies along the main pack-horse route from Wakefield, along the Colne Valley and then over Close Moor to Buckstones and into Lancashire.

The Jaggers

In Yorkshire, the men who led the trains of packhorses were referred to as ‘Jaggers’. In the North of England, Jagger was a common name dating back to the 14th century and several ancient routes still bear evidence of this evocative surname, such as several Jagger Lanes that can be still followed. The Milestone Society – Yorkshire Group website is a treasure trove of information about these historic routes and provides details of walks that follow several West Yorkshire trails, including The Magna Via. The website also has a link to ‘The Jagger’s Refrain’, a folk song celebrating the arduous life of the Jagger and how they stuck to “our old ways” to avoid the “galling” tolls of Blind Jack’s turnpikes: “It’s thruppence for each pony! We think it very dear.”

The Coming of the Turnpike Roads

Turnpike Trusts

By the Georgian period, the inadequacy of England’s roads had long been recognised, as had the apparent solution: turnpikes. Turnpike trusts were a way of financing road improvements through locally financed schemes that built better roads. The name turnpike comes from the gate lowered across the road that ensured travellers using it paid their toll.  Turnpikes also ensured a degree of governmental control as an Act of Parliament had to be petitioned, usually on the grounds of improving transportation of raw and finished goods. The Act approved the need for the works and also the permission to erect toll barriers and collect tolls to pay for and maintain the roads and bridges. Although turnpike trusts originated in the 17th century, momentum quickened significantly in the Georgian period and road building gathered pace in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, with industrial growth hand-in-glove with the rising number of trusts. It has to be remembered that in this period ‘improvement’ was still using old methods of breaking rocks, laying stones and using gravel as had been the method for a long time. However, the turnpike roads could successfully accommodate broad-wheeled wagons drawn by eight horses enabling much greater loads.

The roads thus created were not only a significant factor in growth of the textile industry of West Yorkshire, but were to be the basis for our current A-roads, the main system of road travel before the advent of the modern motorways.

Blind Jack of Knaresborough

In the building of West Yorkshire’s turnpike roads, one name stands out: that of John Metcalf, the first professional English road building engineer. John Metcalfe, ‘Blind Jack’ of Knaresborough (Fig 7), was a remarkable polymath whose loss of eyesight from the age of six due to smallpox does not appear to have inhibited his energy and ambition. Blind Jack reputedly went on to become a diver, swimmer and card player whilst earning a living as an expert fiddle player. He also served with the army in Scotland during the 1745 Jacobite uprising. If that wasn’t enough, he became the first professional road builder to emerge during the Industrial Revolution. It was Blind Jack who, in around 1760, built the turnpike from Wakefield to Austerlands nr Lees in Lancashire. Built as a direct response to the need for a turnpike road to facilitate wheeled horse drawn vehicles for trade, Blind Jack ingeniously built his highways on rafts across the peat moorland.

Nearer to the Pennine summit, high on Marsden Moor, lies what appears to be another packhorse bridge with an intriguing name. Thieves Clough Bridge (Fig 8) is an 18th century, Grade II, listed bridge situated in the National Trust Marsden Moor Estate. It has a semi-circular single span and is of roughly coursed dry rubble. It has a more rustic appeal than Close Gate or Eastergate and straddles Thieves Clough as the trail crosses Standedge on the way to Lancashire.

The earliest turnpike roads at first followed and upgraded the packhorse trails. This section of the Wakefield to Austerlands Turnpike Road was virtually all improved packhorse routes and it is possible that Thieves Clough Bridge replaced an earlier packhorse bridge. There is still evidence of ‘causeys’, which were rough stone flags laid over boggy ground that allowed travellers to negotiate the Pennine moorland. The involvement of ‘Blind Jack’ saw the creation of a stable but ‘floating’ surface to the west of the bridge.

A later, more substantial turnpike of the 1820s, now the current A62, crosses Blind Jack’s route.

Sowerby Bridge and goodbye to Old Cawsey

Visitors to Sowerby Bridge can see parts of the old packhorse route and its turnpike replacement as they travel through the town. The original packhorse route bears the name ‘Old Cawsey’ (Fig 9), a reminder of the stone flags used to form this meandering trail, and, despite bring cleaved in two by the later Rochdale Canal, it still bears witness to Sowerby Bridge’s packhorse past. Alongside it stretches its turnpike successor, now the A58, and main artery of the town. This was the one of the earliest turnpike routes in West Yorkshire in the 1730s, a decade that also witnessed the Rochdale, Halifax and Ealand (Elland) Road Act of 1734 over Defoe’s dreaded Blackstone Edge.  Increased use of wheeled carts and waggons created pressure for a more easily graded route and further Acts of Parliament followed to improve both roads and bridges.

Bridges

The development of bridge engineering and architecture during the Georgian era is nothing short of remarkable. From basic packhorse bridges that were wide enough to accommodate a single horse with load, by 1800, bridges were being constructed that are still in use today carrying modern traffic.

Packhorse bridge at Ripponden

Typically, packhorse bridges had no or low sides as the horses were carrying laden paniers. As late as 1740, stone packhorse bridges were being erected to replace wooden ones. However, as the 18th century progressed, many were found to be too narrow or not strong enough and wider, sturdier stone bridges, often with segmental arches, became popular.

The packhorse bridge at Ripponden (Fig 10) is a good example of a mid-18th century replacement of an earlier bridge. Constructed with hammer dressed stone, it has a single wide segmental arch and low parapets to which later, for safety considerations, iron railings were added. The bridge not only carried goods but also linked the original 18th century church to its vicarage and local pub: a familiar English arrangement of worship and ale.

Ferrybridge

By 1800, bridges had become unrecognisable from the slender packhorse bridges of the early 18th century. A good example is that built by Yorkshire’s preeminent Georgian architect, John Carr, over the River Aire at Ferrybridge (Fig 11) – a bridge so substantial that to this day, locals can remember it being traversed by double decker buses before the modern A1 motorway replaced it.

Carr’s bridge is a handsome, ashlar millstone grit bridge built in monumental in style and displaying many of the Classical architectural features that were features of Georgian Palladian architecture. The bridge has eight round-headed arches of which three are larger arches over the River Aire. These river arches have volute keystones and hoodmoulds and flanking the central arch are canted cutwaters which, not only helped the flow of the water below, but created pedestrian refuges above in the parapet. It is good to see these as many have been lost from Georgian bridges due to 20th century widening. To either side of the river-arches are piers with niches in quoined surrounds. The bridge has a dentilled cornice over the river arches and a balustraded parapet.

Carr’s bridge is a work of great architectural merit by a prominent architect noted for many of West Yorkshire’s most important Georgian buildings, most notably Harewood House.

Toll Houses

Turnpikes charged tolls and could be very unpopular. In some cases, riots ensued. A notable example occurred in 1753 when rioters opposed tolls at the bridge over the River Wharfe, near Harewood. Feelings ran so strongly that fighting followed in Leeds town centre, where crowds gathered at the Old King’s Arms pub on Briggate to free arrested protesters. This caused the army to be called, resulting in ten deaths.

Steanor Bottom Tollhouse

One of the most famous surviving Georgian tollhouses is at Steanor Bottom The restored historic site is a well-known local landmark famous for its replica toll board (Fig 12). The cost of using the turnpike is clearly laid out for both beast and wheeled vehicle, with prices of several pence covering horse and carriages down to a farthing for ‘calf, sheep, swine and lambs’.

Steanor Bottom (Fig 13) is an excellent example of tollhouse architecture with its two storey stone slated roof over a canted façade enabling maximum vigilance to ensure toll dodgers were spotted. The tollhouse was built in 1824 on the historic Todmorden Turnpike (now the A6033) and is situated on the border between Yorkshire and Lancashire. An attractive Georgian cottage with symmetrical features, it is now a much-loved home and an important piece of the North of England’s transport heritage.

The Old Toll House, Ferrybridge

The Old Tollhouse at Ferrybridge (Fig 14) is contemporary with John Carr’s bridge and was built about 1804 when the bridge itself was completed. Designed to extract tolls from bridge users, the typical tollhouse features can still be seen, although sadly the building is now in a state of neglect.

The three bay, two storey centre has a canted, half octagon façade with Georgian style 16-pane sash windows and a 6-panel (replacement) door. This centre section has a low-pitched hipped roof with a five-flue chimney on its ridge. It is positioned to afford maximum visibility of traffic over this important historic location where the Great North Road (now the A1) crossed the River Aire.

Milestones or Guide Stoops

The increase in turnpikes had another impact on the physical landscape of Georgian England when from 1767, it became compulsory to erect milestones on all turnpikes.

The history of way markers dates back to the Romans, who highlighted road distances with ‘milestones’. In the centuries before the Georgians, Acts of Parliament required parishes or towns to clearly mark boundaries and erect guide posts to assist travellers.

However, in the Georgian period, it became compulsory to erect milestones on all turnpikes These were considered important not only to inform users of direction and distances, but also to help coaches keep to schedule, calculate charges for the delivery of mail and to enable charging for changes of horses at the coaching inns.

The Milestone Society is dedicated to the recording, preserving and caring of these iconic landmarks and the Milestone Society website is an important archive, as at the height of the turnpike era there were 20,000 miles of roads with milestones.

There are many Georgian milestones in West Yorkshire. A typical example can be found above Huddersfield and Halifax on the old turnpike road (now the A640 New Hey Road) that crossed the Pennines to Rochdale (Fig 15). Situated by the Lower Royal George Public House, this milestone is Grade II listed. Alongside the necessary information on distances to various destinations, the stone is graced by elegant hands projecting from buttoned cuffs which indicate the direction of travel. In addition, it credits Mr John Woodhead, the surveyor, along with stating 1775 as the date of its erection.

Coaching Inns

Whilst turnpikes, tolls and milestones combined to improve travel in Georgian times, there were also other needs required by travellers in 18th century West Yorkshire. These were needs that had existed through the Middle Ages when horse drawn transport required accommodation for both man and beast. As the roads became more sophisticated, so did the coaching inns at which the weary traveller could rest, whilst stabling or changing horses. Whilst there were inns for travellers during previous centuries, the Georgian period witnessed a growing number of large coaching inns with stabling.

The Harewood Arms

The needs of travellers as well as locals was such that by 1800, the village of Harewood was thought to have six public houses. The lone survivor today is the Harewood Arms (Fig 17), which was opened in 1810 and lies on the main road in at the junction of two important Georgian turnpikes, that of the Leeds Harewood and Harrogate Turnpike Trust 1751 (now the A61) and also the Tadcaster and Otley Turnpike trust of 1753 (now the A659).

This attractive early 19th century building is typically Georgian, and, despite some alterations later in the century, displays the classical features of the period. The inn is part of a model village designed for the 1st Lord Harewood by the architect John Carr and his assistant Peter Atkinson.

In keeping with the rest of the village, the Harewood Arms is built of Lower Follifoot Grit, a sandstone of the Millstone Grit variety, quarried locally, and ‘hammer dressed’ to give a rustic, textured feel rather than a smoother ashlar finish. Interestingly, it is the same stone as that used in the main house at Harewood, a fact that creates a homogeneity for the Harewood Estate. The Inn has a hipped, slate roof and the main road facade is six bays wide and two storeys high, with the right three bays projecting. All the windows have voussoirs, stone sills and multipaned sash windows with projecting sills. The rear wing to the left would have provided stabling for horses. Thankfully, the charm of the building is not spoiled by garish pub signs.

Travellers Public House

The ground floor of the building to the left of the door has larger, later windows, but the rest are original three-light mullion windows. At this time, many families existed in the ‘dual economy’ adding to their income from their main trade with spinning and weaving. Built of hammer dressed local millstone grit and under a stone slate roof, the main part of the building has pronounced corner quoins, suggesting the section to the right is a later addition, possibly a stables conversion.

Horse Power

Whatever improvements were made to West Yorkshire’s roads and bridges in the Georgian period, the primary source of power didn’t change and remained the horse. This was also true of the growing canal system.

The typical Yorkshire packhorse (Fig 19) was small, tough and sure-footed as they had to cover the rugged and slippery trails that often led up steep Pennine hills. Packhorses could only cover about three miles an hour but could keep up this steady pace for up to eight hours whilst carrying heavy panniers. They were commonly to be found in trains of twenty or more horses. Yorkshire packhorses in the 18th century were typically Scottish Galloways, Fell Ponies, or early Cleveland Bays or similar cross breeds.

The coming of turnpikes permitted greater use of far more efficient and economical wagons. There were distinctive styles throughout England and even within Yorkshire, wainwrights built regionally recognisable wagons.

Yorkshire textile wagons were heavy, horse-drawn wains (carts) that carried raw wool and finished cloth across the Pennines. This local type of box wagon (Fig 20.), typically pulled by teams of horses, featured high sides to enable large loads to be carried. Earlier in the century, oxen pulled rough two-wheel carts but, by the 1770s the numerous turnpike acts had created a road system that enabled these four-wheel wagons to be pulled by teams of strong draft horses harnessed in a “unicorn” formation (two at the rear and one in front). Heavy, strong horses like the Shire, Suffolk Punch and Clydesdale were suited to this form of transport.

For the rich, the new roads enabled safer and faster travel in family carriages or public passenger coaches across the country. For these, the horses were tall, thin, and had long legs which enabled fast travel.  The wealthy loved horses with smooth, pretty movements and popular breeds included the Cleveland Bay and the Thoroughbred.

Conclusion

The Georgian period saw a network of new roads driving the growing economy of West Yorkshire. The increase of effective transportation changed the landscape from the medieval web of packhorse trails to a system of turnpike roads largely recognisable today in the shape of the current A roads. This development was vital for the Industrial Revolution.