Aldwark Bridge thought to be last private toll bridge in Yorkshire

As the D&S Times reported last week, the Aldwark Toll Bridge has just closed for the summer to allow for extensive renovations, meaning motorists will have to undertake a 25 mile detour.

It is one of just eight privately owned toll bridges in the country, most of which date back to the mid to late 18th Century when individuals were able to approach Parliament and ask for permission to build a bridge – or indeed a road – at their own expense and then charge people to use it. Because of the conditions in the Act which enabled them to be built, most of the eight bridges are, like Aldwark, free of any obligation to pay tax on the takings because in the 18th Century, the government, which didn’t have a network of councils and highways authorities, was keen to encourage private individuals to improve the national infrastructure.

The tollhouse on Aldwark Bridge, as seen on Google StreetView

In Aldwark’s case, the individual was John Thomson who operated the ferry rowboat that connected the villages of Ouseburn on the west and Aldwark on the east – the name Aldwark comes from the Anglo-Saxon meaning “old fort”, which suggests that the Romans kept guard on the river crossing which was on the road to York. The bridge is still approached on both sides by Boat Lane in a nod to the centuries of ferrymen who plied their trade across the river.

One day, bad weather prevented Mr Thomson from operating, so he rode to London to seek Parliament’s permission. It was granted in 1768 and the bridge was in operation by 1772.

Not that travellers can today see much of the original structure because there’s an undocumented story that it was once damaged when it was struck by an iceberg, and it was almost entirely rebuilt in 1880 when its central section was swept away by a flood, so the lattice iron parapets date from then.

The tollhouse on Aldwark Bridge, as seen on Google StreetView

In 1962, the bridge’s then owner, a company called Yorkshire Farmers Ltd, put it up for sale and the North Riding county council refused to buy it and so bring it into the public network. To astonishment, it was revealed that the toll collector, Mrs Wright, worked 105 hours a week for which she was paid £3 – less the £2 she paid for the rent of the tollkeeper’s cottage.

To raise the toll, the bridge’s owner, currently a private company registered in Derbyshire, has to get Parliamentary permission. In 1980, the toll for cars was doubled to 1p; in 1997, when 700,000 vehicles a year used it, it was 8p; by 2005, it had reached 15p and there was more astonishment as it rose to 40p. Last year, a planning inspector refused permission to raise it to 80p.

Now the Aldwark Bridge is closed for repairs until the end of October, so beware if you get stuck on Boat Lane on a smaller bridge over an unnamed stream to the east of the Ure. This misty, marshy spot is said to be haunted by a restless ghost which may, or may not, be connected to the Witch of Hollows Hole.

A barge collides with the Selby Toll Bridge in 1994. Picture: York Evening Press

WE think Aldwark is Yorkshire’s last remaining private toll bridge. Until 1991, it had the company of the Selby Toll Bridge which was built in 1793 over a ferry crossing, and was on the main road from Doncaster to York and Newcastle. In 1963, it cost 9d for a vehicle to cross – so much that ambulancemen were instructed to carry patients over on a stretcher to the other side where they would be transferred to another ambulance to avoid the toll.

The act of toll collecting caused constant traffic back-ups in the town, so the bridge was bought by North Yorkshire County Council in 1991 with the council leader making the last paid for crossing on September 19 that year.