TheGreat North Road was the main highway between England and Scotland from medieval times until the 20th century. It became a coaching route used bymail coaches travelling betweenLondon,York andEdinburgh. The modernA1 mainly parallels the route of the Great North Road.Coaching inns, many of which survive, were staging posts providing accommodation, stabling for horses and replacement mounts.[1] Nowadays virtually no surviving coaching inns can be seen while driving on the A1, because the modern route bypasses the towns in which the inns are found.
The traditional start point for the Great North Road wasSmithfield Market on the edge of theCity of London. The initial stretch of the road wasSt John Street which begins on the boundary of the city (the site of the formerWest Smithfield Bars), and runs throughnorth London. Less than a hundred metres up St John Street, intoClerkenwell, stoodHicks Hall, the first purpose-builtsessions house for theMiddlesex justices of the peace. The hall was built in 1612, on an island site in the middle of St John Street (where St John's Lane branches to the west); this building was used as the initial datum point for mileages on the Great North Road (despite not being located at the very start of the road). Its site continued to be used for this purpose even after the building was demolished in 1782.[2]
The Great North Road followed St John Street to the junction at theAngel Inn where the local road name changes from St John Street toIslington High Street.
When theGeneral Post Office atSt Martin's-le-Grand, in the historicAldersgate ward, was built in 1829, coaches started using an alternative route, now the modern A1 road, beginning at the Post Office and followingAldersgate Street andGoswell Road before joining the old route close to the Angel. The Angel Inn itself was an important staging post.[3] FromHighgate the original route is bypassed and is now called theA1000 road throughBarnet toHatfield. From there it largely followed the course of the current B197 road throughStevenage toBaldock.[4] Roughly taking the route of the A1, the next stages wereBiggleswade andAlconbury, again replete with traditional coaching inns.
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At Alconbury, the Great North Road joined the Old North Road, an older route which followed the RomanErmine Street. Here a milestone records mileages to London via both routes: 65 by the Old North Road and 68 by the Great North Road.[5] From Alconbury the Great North Road follows the line of Ermine Street north, throughStilton, and crossed theRiver Nene atWansford. Ermine Street crossed theRiver Welland about a mile to the west of what is now the town ofStamford. The Great North Road passed through the centre of Stamford, with two very sharp bends, re-joined the alignment of Ermine Street just beforeGreat Casterton and continued as far asColsterworth (at theA151 junction). Inns on this section included theGeorge at Stamford and the Bell Inn atStilton, the original sellers ofStilton cheese. The section of the road between Wadesmill in Hertfordshire and Stilton was the first turnpike (toll) road, by theRoad Repair (Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire) Act 1663 (15 Cha. 2. c. 1).[6]
At Colsterworth, the Great North Road diverges west of the Roman road and continues throughGrantham,Newark,Retford andBawtry toDoncaster. North of Doncaster the Great North Road again follows a short section of Ermine Street, the Roman Rigg orRoman Ridge. Further north the Great North Road crossed the RomanDere Street nearBoroughbridge from where it continued viaDishforth andTopcliffe toNorthallerton and then throughDarlington,Durham andNewcastle, on to Edinburgh. A road forked to the left at the bridge in Boroughbridge to follow Dere Street, andScotch Corner to Penrith and on to Glasgow. Part of this route was the original A1, with a local road from Scotch Corner via Barton to Darlington making the link back to the old Great North Road.
In the first era ofstage coaches York was the terminus of the Great North Road. Along the route, Doncaster–Selby–York was superseded by Doncaster–Ferrybridge–Wetherby–Boroughbridge–Northallerton–Darlington, the more direct way to Edinburgh, the final destination. The first recorded stage coach operating from London to York was in 1658 taking four days. Faster mail coaches began using the route in 1786, stimulating a quicker service from the other passenger coaches. In the "Golden Age of Coaching", between 1815 and 1835, coaches could travel from London to York in 20 hours, and from London to Edinburgh in 451⁄2 hours. In the mid-nineteenth century coach services could not compete with the new railways. The last coach from London to Newcastle left in 1842 and the last from Newcastle to Edinburgh in July 1847.[7]
ThehighwaymanDick Turpin's flight from London to York in less than 15 hours on his mare Black Bess is the most famous legend of the Great North Road. Various inns along the route claim Turpin ate a meal or stopped for respite for his horse.Harrison Ainsworth, in his 1834 romanceRookwood, immortalised the ride. Historians[who?] argue that Turpin never made the journey, claiming that the ride took place 50 years before Turpin byJohn Nevison, "Swift Nick", a 17th-century highwayman who was born and grew up at Wortley near Sheffield. It is claimed that Nevison, in order to establish an alibi, rode from Gad's Hill, nearRochester, Kent, to York (some 190 miles (310 km)) in 15 hours.
TheWinchelsea Arms, an inn on a long straight section of the Great North Road nearStretton, Rutland, was reputed to be another haunt of Dick Turpin. It was later renamed theRam Jam Inn after a story from the coaching days. A coach passenger undertook to show the landlady the secret of drawing both mild and bitter beer from the same barrel. Two holes were made and she was left with one thumb rammed against one and the other jammed into the other; the trickster then made off.[8]
In literature,Jeanie Deans ofSir Walter Scott's novelThe Heart of Midlothian travels through several communities on the Great North Road on her way to London. The road features inThe Pickwick Papers byCharles Dickens. Part of theJ. B. Priestley novelThe Good Companions mentions the road, which represented to protagonist Jess Oakroyd (a Yorkshireman) the gateway to such 'exotic' destinations asNottingham. TheLord Peter Wimsey short story "The Fantastic Horror of the Cat in the Bag" byDorothy L. Sayers features a motorcycle chase along it. Similarly,Ruined City byNevil Shute features an all night drive from Henry Warren's house in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, along the road as far as Rowley and then to Greenhead near Hadrian's Wall, where Warren is dropped off to go walking. His chauffeur, keen to get home for a date with the maid, is killed nearRetford. InCassandra Clare'sClockwork Princess, the third volume ofThe Infernal Devices trilogy, Will Herondale takes the road after leaving London on his way to Wales to find Tessa Gray. The road also features inThe War of the Worlds byH. G. Wells, as the protagonists' brother tries to cross the Great North Road somewhere nearBarnet through a frenzied exodus of refugees from London, driven north by the approach of Martians from the south.[9]
In the oft-quoted first part of his essayEngland Your England, writerGeorge Orwell refers to the "to-and-fro of the lorries on the Great North Road" as being a characteristic fragment of English life.
The road is mentioned inMark Knopfler's song, "5:15 AM", from the albumShangri La. The High Road mentioned inLoch Lomond is also a reference to it.[10] The song "Heading South on the Great North Road" onSting's 2016 album57th & 9th refers to the Great North Road in paying tribute to artists from the North East who found success in London.[11] The character of Lord Grantham references the Great Northern Road in the television seriesDownton Abbey.