Countryman's Diary: Esk bridge is the stuff of legend

This beautiful bridge is the focus of a highly romantic love story set around the time of the Spanish Armada. It involves a lovely girl from Claisdale who waited very patiently for her suitor to return from an adventurous and, perhaps, piratical life on the high seas.

He was a suitor her father had rejected because he had no money. In spite of dad's objections, the suitor did return to claim his bride because he had grown wealthy. Later, when married to Agnes, he became very successful and was elected Lord Mayor of Hull and was three times warden of Trinity House, the city's maritime training centre.

The man was Tom Ferris, the son of a poor sheep farmer, and his bride was Agnes Richardson, daughter of a wealthy Glaisdale landowner. Tom managed to persuade Richardson to permit the wedding if he, Tom, became wealthy. Richardson agreed, perhaps thinking it would never happen.

If you visit the bridge, which is very close to Glaisdale railway station and almost hidden between a road bridge and a rail bridge, you'll see a headstone in the parapet. A careful examination of that stone will reveal the initials T F and the date 1619, the date he completed the bridge. The romance of the story tells how the youthful Tom, wary of Richardson's antagonism, visited Agnes in secret, walking from Egton to Glaisdale for their trysts.

This meant crossing the River Esk near the bottom of Limber Hill and the story says that when Tom received his orders to join the English fleet, he went to inform Agnes, but could not get across the river because it was in flood. Thus he departed without even a goodbye kiss. She waited and, so the story goes, he returned as a rich man whereupon he decided to build a bridge so that future lovers could cross in safety.

This enduring tale is a wonderful mixture of fact and fiction. Tom Ferris did exist, probably being born at Lastingham, and his name is spelt in other ways, eg Ferries, Ferres or Firris. Agnes existed too, as did her father.

Aged 14, Tom was apprenticed to a Hull ship owner and spent some off-duty time with relations at Egton, meeting Agnes at a fair, perhaps at Whitby. Tom sailed from Whitby on May 8, 1588, after which he served with Sir Francis Drake as he beat the Spanish Armada only ten days later, then sailing to the West Indies where he engaged in piracy.

On a captured vessel, he returned to London in 1592, still aged only 24, sold the ship and went to Glaisdale as a wealthy man to claim the hand of Agnes Richardson. The couple then went to Hull where Ferris established a thriving shipping business, becoming sheriff in 1614, lord mayor in 1620 and three times warden of Trinity House.

He died in 1630 aged 62 and Holy Trinity church in Hull contains a memorial to him. He gave money to Lastingharn church for a re-roofing project, and built a school there, then in his will he bequeathed money to Glaisdale church (at the time a chapel of Danby parish) together with an annual payment to the vicar.

Agnes died in 1618; it was a year later that Ferris decided to build his bridge at Glaisdale and so, instead of being a romantic gesture to enable lovers to cross the flooded Esk, the bridge may have been a memorial to her. It was completed in 1619, but, in fact, Ferris remarried in 1620.

There is just a possibility, however, that this was not the first bridge to cross the Esk at that point. There is a very similar bridge higher up the river, spanning the Esk below Danby Castle. This is now known as Duck's Bridge in honour of George Duck who restored it during the 18th century, but in earlier times it was known as castle bridge. This bridge dates to the 14th century, being built in 1345, and it bears a crest on a headstone, probably that of the Latimers of Danby Castle.

But who actually built Duck's Bridge? I wonder if it was the same person, or group of people, who built the first Beggar's Bridge? It is just possible that Tom Ferris actually rebuilt Beggar's Bridge because one authority claims that the original collapsed in the 16th century, and was re-built by Ferris. The coping stones are said to date from the 14th century and I quote from The North Riding of Yorkshire by Joseph E Morris (Methuen, 1920): "The old 14th century coping is still in its place, surviving to attest the date of the original bridge," and Morris then quotes his source as LXXII SS 401, S S being the initials of the Surtees society.

Whoever built the original Duck's Bridge and the original Beggar's Bridge did a wonderful job because both have stubbornly survived floods which have demolished other structures. As a child in Glaisdale, I was told that the cement of Beggar's Bridge had the whites of hundreds of eggs mixed with it, hence its strength but I do wonder if the same person originally built both these graceful, twin-like pack-horse bridges.

What's in a name?

Among my correspondence this week is a letter from a lady living in Hartburn, near Stockton. She refers to an earlier piece of mine in which I mentioned the Norwegian town of Voss, and the similarities between the names of some Norwegian and north-eastern English place names. During her travels around Voss, she came across a place called Fylingsdal and was surprised at its similarity to the North Yorkshire moors area known as Fylingdales which is near Robin Hood's Bay.

Fylingdales Moor is now the home of the ballistic missile early warning station which carried the Fylingdales name, while closer to Robin Hood's Bay is the village of Fylingthorpe.

My correspondent wonders if I can provide any clues about these names. The English Fylingdales is probably named after a Norseman called Fygela, the whole name meaning settlement of the people of Fygela. Perhaps, during the Viking invasion, a man called Fygela established a home in that area, marrying a Yorkshire lass and producing a family which remained in the district.

I am sure the Norwegian village name comes from the same source, but whether this is the same Fygela is something that will forever be a mystery. Such a coincidence is not impossible. The district around the little town of Voss is renowned for its waterfalls and, of course, we often use the like-sounding name "foss" for our own waterfalls.

Not far from Fylingdales is Falling Foss in the valley above Littlebeck, along with names like Foss Farm and Foss Plantations, while near Goathland there are Nelly Ayre Foss and Thomasson Foss, all very beautiful waterfalls. However, the name "foss" can vary slightly, becoming "force" in some cases.

In the Yorkshire dales near Hawes, there is the splendid Hardraw Force, while one of England's highest and most spectacular waterfalls can be seen in Teesdale - the incomparable High Force. There are other waterfalls which bear the name of foss or force, but, as a matter of record, I believe Cauldron Snout, also on the Tees, claims to be the highest waterfall in England. In a few places across the North York moors, one finds the occasional causey which has survived. I can think of one which runs through Arncliffe Wood between Glaisdale and Egton Bridge in the Esk Valley, and another which is beside the road in Claisdale Dale.

In fact, these two examples might be part of the same causey, the intermediate segments of which disappeared long ago. I've heard this causey be termed "monks' trod," being part of the route taken by monks trekking from Rosedale Abbey to Whitby Abbey, but other moorland causeys include the Panniennans' Causey which ran from Danby to Waupley, and the Quakers' Causey near Aysdale.

There were many more. A causey is a narrow, flagged footpath which is usually paved with large flat stones or sometimes with cobbles. Chiefly used by foot passengers, it might also be used by pack-horses. The name is similar to causeway, this usually being a raised paved area across a bog or other wet area.

Because ancient causeys often ran beside old tracks, many were destroyed during road-widening or improvement schemes and the wonderful flat paving stones were removed, to be lost for ever