Great North Road (UK)

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Course of the Great North Road with some of the stations mentioned in the text

The Great North Road ( German  Great North Road ) is a historical, no longer used as such remote road in the UK . For a long time it was the main connection between London and Scotland , on which numerous stagecoaches ran between London, York and Edinburgh . Today the A1 trunk road largely follows the same route, but has been developed as a bypass road and avoids passing through towns. Occasionally - somewhat blurred - today's A1 is referred to as the Great North Road.

Many of the sections of the Great North Road, which were suspended by expansion measures, are still in use as country or local roads, but are no longer a continuous long-distance route. However, quite a few still bear the historical name.

Hostels have emerged along the road which, in addition to their function as a post office, also provided staff and travelers with food and accommodation as well as supplies for horses and vehicles. Many of these restaurants are still in operation today, but are no longer affected by the A1 that goes around the area, as they are mostly located within the built-up towns.

course

At the south end of St John Street, a traffic island marks Hicks Hall's stand. Smithfield Market can be seen in the background.

Smithfield Market in Clerkenwell , London is traditionally considered the southern end of the Great North Road . A traffic island now commemorates the site where Hicks Hall once stood, a courthouse demolished in 1778. The front of this building set, even after the demolition yet, the zero point for distances on the road. As in 1829 the post office at St Martin's-le-Grand was opened, the stagecoach drove from there and only met a little later at the station The Angel , now a London intersection, on the original route.

The Alconbury Junction milestone was in the middle of the historic street.

At Alconbury, south of Peterborough , the Great North Road met the Old North Road , an older road that followed the course of the Roman Ermine Street . At this point, a milestone shows the respective distances to London: 64 miles on the Old North Road and 68 miles on the Great North Road. From Alconbury, the Great North Road followed Ermine Street north through the village of Stilton , west past Peterborough to the village of Colsterworth. She left Ermine Street only briefly to cross the town of Stamford , which the Roman Road passed to the west. There are still significant inns along this stretch, such as the Bell Inn in Stilton, where Blue Stilton was first made and sold, and the George Hotel in Stamford.

At Colsterworth the Great North Road moved west again from the Roman Road and ran through Grantham , Newark-on-Trent , Retford and Bawtry to Doncaster . North of Doncaster, she briefly followed Ermine Street (this section is called Roman Ridge ). To the west of Boroughbridge , the Roman road Dere Street was crossed and the River Ure bridged (what the A1 does there today). From there, the Great North Road ran north-northeast via Dishforth and Topcliffe to Northallerton , using the flat Vale of Mowbray between the mountainous areas of the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors .

From Northallerton it went north via Darlington , Durham and Newcastle and through Northumberland . At Berwick-upon-Tweed just before the Scottish border, the North Sea coast was reached, which the road then followed roughly to Edinburgh.

A branch at the bridge in Boroughbridge led down Dere Street to Scotch Corner and then northwest to Penrith and Glasgow ; this road was later upgraded to the A1 as far as Scotch Corner. From Scotch Corner a small road ran northeast via Barton to Darlington and led back onto the Great North Road.

Stagecoach traffic

York was initially the destination of stagecoach traffic on the Great North Road. Because this road did not touch York at all, but ran northwards from Doncaster via Wetherby and Northallerton to Edinburgh, the road from Doncaster was taken via Selby to York.

The first recorded stagecoach trip from London to York took place in 1658 and took four days to cover  the 196 3 ⁄ 4 mile (316 km) route. From 1786, faster carriages were used for handling mail, which also shortened travel times for passenger traffic. In the “golden era of the stagecoach” from 1815 to 1835, carriages took 20 hours from London to York and 45 1 ⁄ 2  hours from London to Edinburgh .

The stagecoaches could no longer compete against the railroad traffic that was emerging in the middle of the 19th century . The last stagecoach from London to Newcastle left in 1842, the last from Newcastle to London in July 1847.

References in culture

The best-known legend of the Great North Road is the escape of the highwayman Dick Turpin from London to York in less than 15 hours. Several inns along the way claim that Turpin dined there or at least looked after his horse. William Harrison Ainsworth commemorated this event in his 1834 novel Rookwood . According to some historians, Turpin did not take this ride at all, but another highwayman named Swift Nick rode to York in 15 hours 50 years before Turpin's birth from Gad's Hill near Rochester (Kent) to get an alibi . Other Turpin ripoffs are also rumored along the way.

Literary works in which the Great North Road plays a significant role:

The road is mentioned in the text of Mark Knopfler's song 5:15 AM from the album Shangri-La ( The bandit man / Came up the Great North Road / Up to Geordieland ).

The High Road in the text of the Scottish traditional Loch Lomond probably means the Great North Road.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Norman W. Webster (1974) The Great North Road
  2. ^ Norman Webster (1974) The Great North Road . Bath, Adams and Dart: 15-16
  3. ^ Norman W. Webster (1974) The Great North Road : 22-23
  4. ^ Norman W. Webster (1974) The Great North Road : 56-7
  5. ^ Norman W. Webster (1974) The Great North Road: 6-9
  6. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.explorelochlomond.co.uk