Ferrybridge Coaching Inns and the Great North Road
There was a thriving cluster of coaching inns at Ferrybridge in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
The 1771 Jefferys’ Map of Yorkshire shows the buildings of the town tightly concentrated by the old bridge over the River Aire and the crossroads just to the south.

The Angel Inn (see sketch by Tom Bradley at top of page)
The Angel Inn, on the west side of The Square, once rivalled the George at Stamford as one of the largest inns along the Great North Road. At its peak it handled 50 pairs of horses a day.
The Parish Registers for 1781 record the unfortunate death of Gervaise Thompson, a man employed by the Angel. He had been sent to catch up with a gentleman who had left an empty purse in a room at the inn. On approaching his post chaise Thompson called out “Stop. Your Purse. Your purse!” The gentleman feared he was being attacked by a highway man and shot him dead.
The Angel was extended over time and by the early 19th century comprised several scattered buildings and a large yard. In the 1820s its landlord was Dr George Alderson, son of a local clergyman, who was described by Bradley as:
“a dapper little gentleman of the old school, and in his threefold capacity of doctor of medicine, for he had a good practice in the locality, coach proprietor, and mine host of the Angel, he must have been a man of no ordinary attainments.”
The last post horses departed the Angel in 1848.
The Swan Inn

The Swan was at the north end of the bridge, close to the river. In the late 18th century it was owned by John Hall then his son, Thomas; the 1771 map identified it as “Hall’s Inn”.
According to Sir Walter Scott in “Heart of Midlothian”, set in the 1730s, the Swan was one of the finest inns:
A painful day’s journey brought her [Jeanie] to Ferrybridge, the best inn, then and since, upon the great northern road; and an introduction from Mrs. Bickerton, added to her own simple and quiet manners, so propitiated the landlady of the Swan in her favour, that the good dame procured her the convenient accommodation of a pillion and post-horse then returning to Tuxford, so that she accomplished, upon the second day after leaving York, the longest journey she had yet made.
Scott held regular meetings with his literary agent at the Swan. It was a convenient halfway house for the two since Scott disliked London and his agent disliked Edinburgh.
Of course, when the new bridge was built slightly to the east, the location of the inn was less advantageous and its fortunes soon declined in the 19th century. In 1817 The Swan was acquired by the Ramsdens of Byram Hall. By the 1840s the land adjoining the property was adopted as the site of a significant glassworks. Local coal mining, the Aire & Calder Canal, and booming demand for glass bottles would have made this site attractive.
The Golden Lion Inn
The Golden Lion was close to the south end of the original bridge.

This early Ordnance Survey map locates The Golden Lion and also shows the glass works by the Swan
Houlder believes that The Golden Lion was never a coaching inn but provided accommodation and stabling for the huge stage wagons which transported parcels around the country at much slower speeds than the coaches. He also suggests that it handled transfers to and from the packet boats which called at the back and provided an excellent service along the waterways.
Harper deems it more a drovers’ house than a coaching inn; a stopping off point for the drovers who were generally considered an unmitigated nuisance by other travellers.
The Greyhound Inn

Tom Bradley
The Greyhound fronted onto the Pontefract Road close to the cross roads at the south end of Ferrybridge.
Charles Dickens was a regular visitor in the early 19th century, writing parts of Nicholas Nickleby there.
The Old Fox Inn

Tom Bradley
Another drovers’ favourite was the Old Fox which stood on the north side of the river at Brotherton, at the fork of the road branching to York via Tadcaster. There was ample room for the great herds of cattle which were periodically marched south.

A postcard of about 1920 showing the Fox Inn between Ferrybridge and Brotherton