There is also a small bridge called Kettleman’s Bridge, near Tadcaster, at the confluence of the rivers Cock and Wharf. It is not very long since an attempt was made, to show that it was a Roman bridge. I examined it carefully in August 1853, and, so far from considering it Roman, I do not even believe it to be a very old one. Similar bridges are not uncommon in some parts of Yorkshire. There is one which I have often seen, over the brook called Hock Beck, on the right side of and very near the road leading from Harrogate to Fewstone, which, though considerably narrower, resembles it very much. There was also another, very recently, which is now destroyed, over the same brook, at a place called Knox Mill, near Harrogate, on the right side of the road leading from Harrogate to Killingwell and Ripley; and I am informed that there is now another of the same kind at Fewstone.
[90a] John Lord Clifford, son of Thomas Lord Clifford, slain at the first battle of St. Alban’s in 1455. John Lord Clifford fought at the battle of Wakefield.—See Chap. IV.
[90b] Holinshed, Hall, Grafton, and J. Habington.
[90c] Shakespeare’s Third Part of Henry VI., act ii. scene 6.
[91] Before arriving at the depression, and close to it, on the right or eastward side of the road, some small quantities of stone, have been also dug in another place: but that quarry has never been of any large extent, and remained a considerable time without being worked, although the working of it on a small scale has been recently resumed.
[92a] It is scarcely possible to understand why it is stated, in a short paper, by the Rev. George Fyler Townsend, professing to give some account of the battle, and communicated at the meeting of the Archæological Institute, held at York, in July 1846 (see report of the proceedings, pages 12 to 16), that the Lancastrians were drawn up at “Dartingdale,” or “Tartingdale,” between Towton and Saxton. I was informed, in reply to my inquiries made in the neighbourhood, that no person living near there, ever heard of such names. The rev. writer seems to have confused those names with Towton Dale. He also erroneously states, that the Lords Clifford, Northumberland, and Dacre, drew up their men, and that those “three Lancastrian leaders all met their deaths in this battle.” It apparently escaped his recollection, that Lord Clifford was slain on the previous day.
[92b] Mr. Kendall, of Towton Hall, informed me that he has seen, in clearing out the drains there, many large pieces of oak dug out, black with age, and with lying in peaty soil.
[93] Dr. Whitaker’s Loidis and Elmete (History of Leeds), vol. i. p. 157.
[94a] Modern Universal British Traveller, published by T. Cooke, 1779, p. 554. The articles respecting England by Charles Burlington, Esq. On the 31st of July, 1851, on the occasion of one of my visits to Towton Field, I was informed by the wife of a farmer named Lawn, who had formerly occupied as tenant, part of the field of battle, that a youth belonging to the family, had not long previously found there, and brought to her, the finger-bones of a man.
[94b] Whitaker’s Loidis and Elmete (History of Leeds) vol. i. p. 157.