Yorkshire Almanac 2025

Unedited excerpt

The excerpt in the book is shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

[Pedestrianism of the Greeks and Romans, Henry V, Ottoman footmen, George Gnett of Birmingham, an anonymous young woman]

But these feats, extraordinary as they may seem, are trivial compared to the same very surprising performance of Mr. Foster Powell, who went on foot from London to York, and returned to London in six days. So very astonishing a man, having attracted the notice of all Europe, we thought our readers would approve of our not only procuring a drawing from the life, by which our engraver has executed the annexed plate, but giving a circumstantial account of the affair under his own hand.

Mr. Powell is about five feet eight inches high; his body rather slim; but his legs and thighs are stout, and well calculated for performing so very uncommon a journey. He is now in the thirty-fourth year of his age, being born in Horsforth in the county of York, 1739, and is clerk to an attorney in New Inn. He has performed several expeditions with great swiftness, particularly from London to Maidenhead Bridge, and back, in seven hours; but the following authentic particulars will further convince our readers of his extraordinary agility.

What renders this exploit still more amazing is, that he set out in a very indifferent state of health, being compelled, from a pain in his side, to wear a strengthening plaster all the way. His appetite was moreover very indifferent, the accounts in the papers being extremely erroneous, and generally misrepresented; for his most frequent beverage was either small beer or water; and the refreshment he most admired was tea and toast and butter.

I set out from Hickes’s Hall, London, on the 29th of November, 1773, about twenty minutes past twelve o’clock in the morning, for a wager of one hundred guineas, which I was to perform in six days, by going to York, and returning to the above place.

I got to Stamford about nine o’clock in the evening of that day. [92 miles]

November 30, set out from Stamford about five in the morning, and got to Doncaster about twelve at night. [73 miles]

December 1, set out from Doncaster about five in the morning, and got to York at half past two in the afternoon. Departed from York about six the same afternoon, and got to Ferrybridge about ten that night. [34 + 23 miles]

December 2, set out from Ferrybridge at five in the morning, and got to Grantham about twelve at night. [70 miles]

December 3, set out from Grantham at six in the morning, and got to the Cock at Eaton [Socon] about eleven at night. [60 miles]

December 4, set out from Eaton the sixth and last day about four in the morning, and arrived at Hickes’s Hall about half an hour past six in the evening. [58 miles]

Order the book:

Subscribe to the free daily email:

To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Comment

Utah Ultras have more details.

Something to say? Get in touch

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Bedfordshire (1) W/G ·
• Beer (36) W/G ·
• Butter (3) W/G ·
• Cambridgeshire (3) W/G ·
• 📌Doncaster (34) W/G ·
• Eaton Socon (1) W/G ·
• 📌Ferrybridge (3) W/G ·
• Foster Powell (1) W/G ·
• Gambling (7) W/G ·
• Grantham (1) W/G ·
• Great North Road (Great Britain) (7) W/G ·
• Hernia (3) W/G ·
• Horsforth (3) W/G ·
• Law (4) W/G ·
• Lincolnshire (15) W/G ·
• London (84) W/G ·
• New Inn (Temple) (1) W/G ·
• Plaster (2) W/G ·
• Running (3) W/G ·
• Stamford, Lincolnshire (2) W/G ·
• Tea (7) W/G ·
• Toast (1) W/G ·
• Town and Country Magazine (1) W/G ·
• Walking (19) W/G ·
• Water (4) W/G ·
• West Riding of Yorkshire (151) W/G ·
• 📌York (164) W/G ·

All tags.

Order the book:

Subscribe to the free daily email:

To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Comment

Utah Ultras have more details.

Something to say? Get in touch

Similar

6 March 1684: The highwayman and racketeer John Nevison is captured at an alehouse near Sandal Castle, Wakefield

29 August 1570: On arriving in Yorkshire, Archbishop Grindal declares war on bloody-minded folk-Catholicism

5 February 1643: Rioting locals reïnundate Hatfield Chase in protest at flooding and a loss of fishing and fowling caused by Netherlandish colonists and Cornelius Vermuyden’s land reclamation scheme

5 August 1605: Debauched and ruined, Walter Calverley is crushed to death today at York for the murder of two sons at Calverley Hall (Bradford), but is revived by 1830s schoolboy ghost-raisers as the Rev. Samuel Redhead (age ca. 55)

20 May 1606: James I’s courtier John Lepton rides from London to York in one day, and repeats the feat on the following four

26 December 1831: The London Zoological Society accepts the Yorkshire Philosophical Society’s offer of a mischievous bear, and suggests transport south by stagecoach

23 April 1832: “Pilgrims” arrive at Leeds on Easter Monday on their way to York to hear Richard Oastler call for a 10-hour working day for mill children

23 June 1413: Walking from York to Bridlington on a hot Midsummer’s Eve, the husband of the Christian mystic Margery Kempe suggests a resumption of sexual relations

12 April 1706: The first four-day stagecoaches from York to London and vice versa depart from the Black Swan in each city

13 July 1503: On her way to marry James IV of Scotland, Margaret Tudor (13) is met between Sirowsby and Doncaster by a euphonious sheriff

Order the book:

Subscribe to the free daily email:

To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Comment

No-one knows for sure where Sirowsby was – Thoresby is possible but perhaps improbable.

Via The History of Signboards, although I haven’t found an image of any such sign:

The Bell and Horse is an old and still frequent sign; it occurs on trades tokens; as John Harcourt at the Bell and Black Horse in Finsbury, 1668, and on various others; whilst at the present day it may be seen at many a roadside alehouse. Bells were a favourite addition to the trappings of horses in the middle ages. Chaucer’s abbot is described:—

“When he rode men his bridle hear,
Gingling in a whistling wind as clere,
And eke as loud as doth a chapel bell.”

In a MS. in the Cottonian Library[238] relating the journey of Margaret of England to Scotland, there to be married to King James, we find constant mention of these bells. The horse of Sir William Ikarguil, companion of Sir William Conyars, sheriff of Yorkshire, is described as “his Hors Harnays full of campanes [bells] of silver and gylt.” Whilst the master of the horse of the Duke of Northumberland was “monted apon a gentyll horse, and campanes[175] of silver and gylt.” And a company of knights is introduced, “some of their hors harnes was full of campanes, sum of gold and sylver, and others of gold.” This led to the custom of giving a golden bell as the reward of a race. In Chester, such a bell was run for yearly on St George’s day; it was “dedicated to the kinge, being double gilt with the Kynges Armes upon it,” and was carried in the procession by a man on horseback “upon a septer in pompe, and before him a noise of trumpets in pompe.”[239] This custom of racing for a bell led to the adoption of the still common phrase, bearing off the BELL.

(Larwood 1908)

Something to say? Get in touch