The Great North Road, the Old Mail Road to Scotland: York to EdinburghHarper, Charles G. (Charles George)
History
The Great North Road, the Old Mail Road to Scotland: York to Edinburgh
Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
A1 Road (England and Scotland); England -- Social life and customs; Great Britain -- Description and travel
Thoresby, in his _Diary_, under date of May 1703, describes one of his
journeys with his usual inaccuracy as to the incidence of places, and
mentions Sunderland Bridge, together with another, close by. This would
be Browney Bridge, to which we come in a quarter of a mile nearer Durham;
only Thoresby places it the other way, where, on the hillside, such a
bridge would be impossible. He mentions seeing the legend, “Sockeld’s
Leap, 1692,” inscribed on one of the coping-stones, and tells how two
horsemen, racing on this road, jumped on the bridge together with such
force that one of them, breaking down the battlements of the bridge, fell
into the stream below, neither he nor his horse having any injury.
Ascending the steep rise beyond Browney Bridge, Farewell Hall on the left
is passed, the place taking its name, according to the commonly received
story, from the Earl of Derwentwater bidding farewell to his friends here
when on his way, a captured rebel, to London and the scaffold, in 1715.
Climbing one more ridge, the first view of Durham Cathedral is gained on
coming down the corresponding descent, a long straight run into the
outskirts of the city. Durham Cathedral appears, majestic against the
sky, long before any sign of the city itself is noted; a huge bulk
dominating the scene and dwarfing the church of St. Oswald at the foot of
the hill, itself no inconsiderable building. To the right hand rises
Nine Tree Hill, with the nine trees that stand sponsors to it still
weirdly conspicuous on its crest, and down beneath it spread the grimy
and unkempt works of the Old Elvet Colliery.
[Picture: Entrance to Durham]
XXI
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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