Each week, our mayor writes a brief diary about his previous week. This is available for you to view here in PDF format
Diary Notes (4.5Kb)
Welcome to Boroughbridge
Boroughbridge is an historic town at the heart of Yorkshire, surrounded by pretty
villages and within easy driving distance of the Dales, the North Yorkshire Moors,
the Wolds, and the coast.
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© Presence Photography, Boroughbridge
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The ancient cities of York and Ripon, floral Harrogate, Knaresborough,
Northallerton, Easingwold and Herriot’s Thirsk, are all within a radius of 18
miles. And, because the town is situated just off the A1M, Leeds and Newcastle
are easily reached by car.
Explore the castle and abbey ruins that abound in the county and visit the many
habitable castles and stately homes with their glorious gardens and their landscaped
parks. Keen gardeners should also be sure to visit Harlow Carr Gardens, northern
outpost of the Royal Horticultural Society, Valley Gardens, Constable Burton,
Helmsley Walled Garden and the Thorpe Perrow Arboretum. From spring to autumn
scores more gardens are open to the public in support of various charities.
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© Presence Photography, Boroughbridge |
York Railway Museum, Yorvik Centre, Eden Camp Museum, The Bird of Prey and Conservation
Centre at Kirby Wiske, Brimham Rocks and Stump Cross Caverns will delight young
and old alike. For livelier family entertainment there is Flamingo Land, the adventurous
Forbidden Corner and the rides of Lightwater Valley. Enjoy theatre and concert
performances at Harrogate, York and Leeds, the Ripon Festival and Aldborough of
the North Festival (dates from the Tourist Information Point).
Until 1963 the Great North Road ran through Boroughbridge — halfway on the journey
from London to Edinburgh. Today the A1M bypasses the town but is only a few minutes
away. Other good roads provide access to Teesside, Ryedale, and West Yorkshire.
Leeds-Bradford and Teesside Airports are within forty miles.
The town offers a wide range of holiday accommodation from well-appointed hotels
to inns, guest houses, caravan and camping sites, and self-catering holiday cottages.
In addition to a supermarket there are specialist shops, pubs, restaraunts, take-aways,
a leisure centre, library, banks, garages, solicitors, estate agents, a modern
health centre, and a tourist information centre. Bustling open air markets are
held weekly in nearby Ripon, Thirsk and Northallerton and daily in the centre
of York.
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© Presence Photography, Boroughbridge |
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© Presence Photography, Boroughbridge |
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© Presence Photography, Boroughbridge |
The River Ure flows through the town and provides excellent navigation for pleasure
craft, capable of taking boats up to 54ft with a 14ft beam and a draught of 4ft
6ins. A marina provides moorings for private craft and there are boat trips available
for the otherwise land-bound traveller.
The Ure is a renowned coarse fishery offering particularly good sport for roach,
perch, dace, pike and chub plus some trout and grayling. Those wishing to fish
must obtain an environment agency rod licence rod licence and a permit for the
water concerned.
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© freefoto.com |
For racing enthusiasts Ripon, Thirsk, Catterick, Wetherby and York courses are
all within a 40-minute drive.
The town site is thought to have been occupied as far back as the Bronze Age
when the rough-hewn millstone grit pillars known as “The Devil’s Arrows” were
placed in a row on a north-south axis in a field immediately on the western edge
of the present town. They are 18ft, 22ft and 22ft 6in tall, the last of these
being taller than anything at Stonehenge.
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© Presence Photography, Boroughbridge |
The smallest of the stones is rectangular – about 8ft 6in by 4ft 6in. The 22ft
stone is 5ft by 4ft and the third and tallest 4ft 6in by 4ft. This last stands
by the roadside among trees immediately to the west of Roecliffe Lane, the other
two are across the road in a field which is flanked by a lane which leads to the
marina and the famous Riverside Sawmills.
In about AD72 the Romans built Isurium Brigantium (Aldborough) where they could
ford the Ure, about a mile south east of the present town centre. There is a small
museum on the site of the fort and sections of mosaic pavements can be seen.
The Normans moved the crossing to the site of the present bridge in the late
11th century and a community began to grow up around the wooden bridge which was
rebuilt in stone in the 16th century. At the Battle of Boroughbridge 1322 Sir
Andrew Harclay defeated the Earl of Lancaster who sought refuge in the church
(then on St James’s Square) but Harclay’s men broke sanctuary to take Lancaster
prisoner. He was sent to York, given a mock trial and beheaded as a traitor.
The Ure was made navigable to Ripon (Act of Parliament 1767) by means of cuts,
dams and six locks. The weir at Boroughbridge is thought to have been built between
1767 and 1769 and the canal in 1770.
The medieval church which stood on St. James Square was demolished in 1851 and
the present church was built in Church Lane the following year.
In 1852 the Battle Cross commemorating the Battle of Boroughbridge was removed
from the town and re-erected in front of the church in the nearby village of
Aldborough.
The fountain in St. James Square was built over an artesian well in 1875 and
was for many years the principal source of water for the town.
In its heyday the town boasted 22 inns which served not only the drovers (in
the busy season two thousand cattle a day were driven across the bridge on their
way from Scotland to markets in the south) but the crews of the river boats with
their cargoes of lead, linen, wines, spices, etcetera; the horse traders who came
to do business on Horsefair; the gipsies who flocked to the Barnaby Fair and,
of course, the tradesmen and workers who provided the services and goods all these
people required.
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© Presence Photography, Boroughbridge |
Various trades came and went: smiths, farriers, candlemakers, thread and ropemakers,
millers, boatbuilders, saddlers, fishermen, farmers and much more. A guillotine
to cut iron can be seen in Horsefair where the blacksmith’s forge was situated.
There is also a wheelplate in the pavement.
In essence the town was built on three squares with linking streets. Market Square
was built close to the river with St. James’s Square at the opposite end of the
High Street and the small square of St. Helena across the River Tutt off Horsefair.
One of the Devil’s Arrows was broken up and incorporated in the Peggy Bridge which
links St. Helena and St. James’s Square. Eel traps can be seen on the upstream
side of the bridge. The white cottages on Market Square back on to the River Tutt
and were originally fishermen’s cottages.
With the coming of the stagecoach the town, with its many inns, became one of
the busiest staging posts on the Great North Road. The town was by-passed in 1963
and lost the Great North Road traffic for the first time in 800 years.
While some inns disappeared, others found new roles: The Three Greyhounds (next
to the post office) originally the home of the Mauleverer family, has been converted
into flats but still sports the three greyhounds of the Mauleverers’ crest. Another
inn (by the bridge) became a home for the elderly. One High Street inn became
a newsagent’s and another a greengrocer’s. The former Griffin Inn (in St. Helena)
is now a private house.
Ronald Walker – Boroughbridge Historical Society
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© Presence Photography, Boroughbridge |
© Presence Photography, Boroughbridge |
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© Presence Photography, Boroughbridge |