Lucy Cross was at the northern end of an eight mile privatised road that ran from Richmond through Gilling West, Melsonby and Aldbrough St John.

The road terminated at the Lucy Cross junction with the old Roman road of Dere Street along which the traveller could continue northwards to Piercebridge and Durham.

The road was run by a turnpike trust – a group of local businessmen which had to invest in improving the road and could then charge people for using it. Richmond to Lucy Cross once had eight metal mileposts along its route of which, we reckon, three remain: one in hedge near the gate to Aske Hall, one splendidly restored in Gilling West as we saw a fortnight ago, and another on the southern approach to Melsonby.

 

The milepost pointing to Lucy Cross at Gilling WestIt seems to have been the quality of the road surface that in October 1846 attracted a pedestrian race meeting to Lucy Cross. We said that two men, Teddy “the Little Wonder” Ross of Newcastle took on I Ruddock of Staindrop over a 130 yard course on the “level turnpike road” for ten sovereigns.

A “great concourse of spectators” turned out to watch the two walkers, with many of them gambling recklessly on the outcome – Mr Miscamble, of the Zetland Arms in Richmond was supposed to be in charge of the stakes and the bets.

“Ross sported a dial, in honour of both the Whigs and Tories of Richmond,” reported a couple of national sporting newspapers, “and Ruddock the popular blue and birdseye.”

Tom Banfield in Thornton-le-Beans has worked out that the race was done and dusted pretty quickly. “If we guess at a speed of six miles-an-hour then the whole thing would have been over in about 45 seconds!” he says.

Lucy Cross, formerly a pub at the junction where the turnpike road from Richmond, on the left, met the old Roman road of Dere Street running north to Piercebridge. Picture: Google StreetViewThis, though, was the preferred distance of “the Little Wonder” who was quite a big name in the world of walking. A couple of weeks later, he was due to take on “the Whitewall Giant” of Malton, over 150 yards, with Mr Hayward of the Buck Inn, Richmond, collecting the stakes and the bets.

A weekly sporting newspaper called Bell’s Life in London & Sporting Chronicle, for which Charles Dickens once worked, reported of the Lucy Cross race: “After a little dodging, Ross got the start of nearly a yard and kept it for about half the distance, when Ruddock got up to him, but Ross, in the latter part of the race, rather crept away and won cleverly by a yard and a half.”

“I enjoyed reading about Lucy Cross,” says John Gill. “I used to live in Manor Farm a mile down the old turnpike road from Lucy Cross on the edge of Aldbrough St John.

“My grandfather bought it in 1923, when it was called Lucy Cross Farm, from the Duke of Northumberland.

“Lucy Cross pub on the junction was bought by John Hunter whose wife did not want to live in a pub so he gave up the licence and called it Lucy Cross Farm, leading us to become Manor Farm.

“This was because back in 1821, Algernon Percy, Lord Prudhoe, who lived at Stanwick Hall and who became the 4th Duke of Northumberland, bought the Manor House at Aldbrough from Isabella Lady Byron, who was a Milbank and had been married to Lord Byron.

“It was in a ‘ruinous condition’ and in 1832 was pulled down and replaced by a new model farmstead, with two others following in 1846 and 1847.”

The Manor Farm, Aldbrough St John, complete with dovecote

Manor Farm last came to our attention a couple of years ago when we were fascinated by dovecotes. Manor Farm’s dovecote, as John suggests, was built in 1832 and has the initials “TR” on it.

THE 4th Duke of Northumberland who built Manor Farm was a fascinating fellow. He joined the navy when he was 12, fought in the Napoleonic Wars, and finished, aged 23, as a captain in 1815, so he could take up his seat as Lord Prudhoe in the House of Lords.

Using his family fortune, he travelled abroad extensively, sending hundreds of treasures back to the family seat of Alnwick Castle. He also used his money to promote astronomy and exploration – Prudhoe Bay in Alaska is named after him.

Algernon Percy, the 4th Duke of NorthumberlandHe became Duke of Northumberland in 1847, but preferred to live with his wife, Lady Eleanor, at Stanwick Hall, a now demolished stately home between Richmond and Darlington.

Stanwick Hall. The orangery on the right remainsFor 10 months, he rose to become 1st Lord of the Admiralty but played a major part in bringing his own government down when he tried to overspend the Admiralty budget by £800,000 – that’s a mere £93.5m in today’s values which, as Rachel Reeves would say, is a “black hole”.

Back to being a country landowner, he dedicated much time to improving his estates at Alnwick and Stanwick until he died in 1865, apparently of gout of the right hand.

His widow, Lady Eleanor, who was 30 years his junior, remained at Stanwick until her death in 1911 and her influence, in terms of building estate houses, can still be felt in the villages around.