A History of Inland Transport and Communication in England

by Edwin A. Pratt

Another most important group of rivers, from the point of view of inland navigation, was the series which have their outlet in the Humber. This group includes the Yorkshire Ouse and the Trent, both naturally navigable.

The Ouse (York) is formed by the confluence of the Ure and the Swale sixty miles above the Trent Falls, where, after passing through York, Selby, and Goole, it joins the Trent and forms the Humber estuary. Under a charter granted by Edward IV., in the year 1462, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of York were to "oversee and be conservators" of this river, as well as of the Aire, the Wharfe, the Derwent, the Don, and the Humber, all of which are connected with it. Of the city of York, as he found it in or about the year 1723, Defoe says:—

"No City in England is better furnished with Provision of every Kind, nor any so cheap, in proportion to the goodness of Things; the River being so navigable and so near the Sea, the Merchants here trade directly to what port of the world they will; for Ships of any Burthen come up within thirty Mile of the City, and small Craft from sixty or eighty Ton, and under, come up to the very City."

The navigable Trent was for many centuries the chief means of communication between south and north, and Nottingham, as the capital of the Trent district, became a place of great importance. It was along the Trent that the King's messengers passed on their way to York, in preference to braving the dangers of the road through Sherwood Forest. The burgesses of Nottingham were required to take charge of them as soon as they came to the river and conduct them safely to Torksey, whose burgesses, in turn, had to take them to the Humber, and so on up the tidal Ouse to York.

To the town of Burton-on-Trent by packhorse or waggon, down the Trent by barge to Hull, and thence by sailing vessel along the east coast and up the Thames, was once a favoured route for the consignment of cheese from Cheshire to the London market. In Defoe's time the quantity of Cheshire cheese thus passing along the Trent, either for London or for east coast towns, was 4000 tons a year. Owing to the state of the roads the Trent route was the only practicable alternative the Cheshire cheese makers had to what they called the "Long sea" route to London, "a terribly long, and sometimes dangerous Voyage" (says Defoe) by way of the Mersey, Land's End, the English Channel and the Thames. In describing the conditions of navigation on the Trent he tells us that, "The Trent is Navigable by Ships of good Burthen as high as Gainsbrough, which is near forty Miles from the Humber by the River. The Barges without the Help of Locks or Stops go as high as Nottingham, and further by the Help of Art to Burton-upon-Trent in Staffordshire. The Stream is full, the Channel deep and safe, and the Tide flows up a great Way between Gainsborough and Newark. This, and the Navigation lately, reaching up to Burton and up the Derwent to Derby, is a great Support to and Encrease of the Trade of those counties which border upon it."

In speaking more fully of Nottingham Defoe says: "The Trent is Navigable here for Vessels or Barges of great Burthen, by which all their heavy and bulky Goods are brought from the Humber and even from Hull; such as Iron, Block-tin, Salt, Hops, Grocery, Dyers Wares, Wine, Oyl, Tar, Hemp, Flax, &c., and the same vessels carry down Coal, Wood, Corn; as also Cheese in great Quantities from Warwickshire and Staffordshire."

From an article "On Inland Navigations and Public Roads," by William Jessop, published in the Georgical Essays, Vol. IV. (1804), I gather that merchandise was carried on the Trent at a cost of eight shillings a ton for a distance of seventy miles, and that "in point of expedition" vessels frequently made the journey of seventy miles and back in a week, including the time for loading and unloading—a degree of despatch which Jessop evidently regarded as very creditable, since he adds, "This has been done by the same vessel for ten weeks successively, and would often be done if they were not obliged to wait for their lading."

One of the affluents of the Trent, the little river known as the Idle, joins it at Stockwith, 21 miles from the junction of the Trent with the Humber; and seven miles up the Idle is the once-famous "port" of Bawtry.

This particular place fulfilled all the conditions of what I have already described as the ideal port of olden days. Not only was it far inland, bringing a considerable district into communication with the sea, but it was situated—eight miles south-east of Doncaster—on the Great North Road, at the point where this road enters the county of York. Until the navigation of the Don was improved, under an Act passed in 1727, the Hull, Trent, Idle and Bawtry route was preferred to the Hull, Ouse, Aire, Don, and Doncaster route alike for foreign imports into Yorkshire and for Yorkshire products consigned to London or to places abroad; and Bawtry, known to-day, to those who know it at all, as only a small market town in Yorkshire, was at one time of considerable importance.

In the reigns of Edward III. and Edward IV., as told by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, in "The History and Topography of the Deanery of Doncaster" (1828), the lords of the manor of Bawtry were "of the prime of English nobility," while the market established there dated from the beginning of the thirteenth century. When the sovereign or any members of the Royal Family travelled in state to the north, they were usually met at Bawtry by the sheriff of the county and a train of attendants.