AS traffic sweeps along the A19 dual carriageway from the metropolis of Middlesbrough into the flatlands at the foot of the Cleveland Hills, drivers don’t realise they are travelling on an historic turnpike road which has a story attached to every milepost and junction.
Following our recent tales about mileposts, David Thompson has kindly pointed out that in Teesside Architectural Salvage, in Robert Street, Thornaby, there’s a cast iron post from the A19: Yarm 5 Thirsk 15, it says on its side, with London 232 on the top.
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The A19 was originally the Thirsk and Yarm turnpike. A turnpike was a group of local businessmen that the government allowed to take over the road. The businessmen had to repair and maintain it but were allowed to collect fees from travellers that were usually based on their mileage – hence the need for mile markers.
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When the Thirsk and Yarm road opened in early 1804, it was probably lined with milestones. In 1888, when the newly formed North Riding County Council took over the private turnpike companies, it added the metal mileposts as if to advertise its presence.
Lee Skelton, the proprietor of the salvage yard, acquired the metal milepost several decades ago when the A19 was being widened. It was among a Highways Agency job lot of ironwork from the road.
But trading in mileposts – most of them, in situ, are Grade II listed buildings – is frowned upon, so Lee keeps it as one of quirks of his yard.
“I have a collection of local things, many of which are not for sale,” he says. “One day, if I can find a home for it where it is on display, it will go there.”
Lee has ensured a piece of local history has not been lost – we have not heard of any other survivors from this stretch of road.
At the same time as we were working out where Yarm 5 Thirsk 15 originally stood, The Northern Echo last week carried an article on National Highways’ attempts to make the A19 safer by closing some of the junctions that are leftovers from the days of the turnpike. Names like Tontine and Black Swan were mentioned, along with the campaign to close Jeater Houses.
So let’s watch the mileposts flash by on a journey south on the A19 looking at the junctions…
Yarm 5 Thirsk 15
Our salvaged milepost once stood to the south of Crathorne and slightly to the north of Trenholme Bar station, which opened in 1857 on the North Yorkshire & Cleveland Railway’s Picton to Stokesley line.
The station’s name, of course, had nothing to do with railways but everything to do with the turnpike road: the bar across the road was where travellers had to stop and pay their tolls.
The station closed to passengers in 1954 and the widened A19 was built through it.
Trenholme, the name of a wide area of flattish land that the A19 passes through, means “crane island”, apparently.
Yarm 6 Thirsk 14
This milepost was slightly to the north of the Black Swan junction, where, since 2004, the road from East Rounton to Hutton Rudby has gone over the A19 rather than across it.
There’s still Swan House on the roadside here which, of course, was a pub for travellers – it even had a smithy in one of its outbuildings.
Yarm 7 Thirsk 13
South of this milepost was where the road to Ingelby Arncliffe branched off, and this junction was graced by another pub, the Waggon & Horses. It was acquired around 1970, when the A19 was dualled, by Rob Exelby who developed the old pub’s northbound site into Exelby Services – so although the road opened in 1804, nothing has changed for this bit of land: it is still refreshing travellers.
Yarm 8 Thirsk 12
About half-a-mile south of this milepost is the important junction with the A172 Stokesley road, which is graced by the Cleveland Tontine.
The turnpike road was already open when, on February 1, 1804, investors gathered in Stockton to discuss raising £2,500 to build a hotel on the junction.
Their investment vehicle was a “tontine” – a scheme devised by Neapolitan banker Lorenzo de Tonti to help the king of France, Louis XIV, the Sun King, raise money.
The investors would put their money in a pot and receive an annual dividend. However, as investors died off, their stake would remain in the pot and their dividends would be shared among the other investors. The last surviving member of the tontine scooped the lot.
It was, therefore, a gamble on longevity: whoever lived the longest hit the jackpot.
Unsurprisingly, tontines became associated with mysterious deaths, as investors bumped off other investors so they could get their hands on the pot. From Robert Louis Stephenson to M*A*S*H, from Agatha Christie to The Simpsons, a tontine has been used as an excuse for murder.
The Cleveland tontiners, though, included lords Crathorne and Dundas, and they’d raised enough money to lay the foundation stone for their hotel on July 13, 1804, and it opened later that year. Except for a couple of decades before the Second World War when the Punshon family had it as a private home, it has been a pub ever since.
Yarm 9 Thirsk 11
Where Staddle Bridge takes the road over Carr Beck, a tributary of the River Wiske. There’s been mention of a bridge here since 1508. A staddle is probably an ancient word for a platform.
Yarm 10 Thirsk 10
The Lane End junction where travellers would turn up the steep hill of Clack Lane to go to Osmotherley. This was obviously a popular stopping point as clustered around the junction were two pubs: the King’s Head Inn (once the Duke of Cumberland) and another Waggon & Horses. Indeed, even though it closed some decades ago, the King’s Head still looks as if it is missing its nameboard.
Yarm 11 Thirsk 9
South of the milepost is the controversial Jeater Houses junction which once had a small settlement on it, including a post office. Jeater Houses was apparently once the home of jet-workers, who sold their intricate black trinkets to travellers.
The roadside pub was The Haynes Arms, named after a family of rum traders who bought it in 1838. The pub closed in 2017, and it has never been explained why Caribbean rum traders might want a pub beside a North Yorkshire turnpike – it’s just another of the stories connected by the road and its mileposts.
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