Disused rail-lines as public rights of way 6.

Incidentally, on crossing the minor road to Goodmanham (s.p.b.) the Hudson Way and the Yorkshire Wolds Way (long distance footpath) cross, the latter going broadly south-north.

On passing a post-war housing estate on the north side of Market Weighton the end of the Hudson Way is a large, grassed open area with playground, this once the marshalling yards of Market Weighton station. During the Railway Age Market Weighton was a rail-hub where rail-lines from York, Pocklington and Selby from the west having crossed the Vale of York and Beverley and Driffield from the east having crossed the Yorkshire Wolds met, these shown, for example on the O.S. sheet 44/84-A, 1:25000, 1947 (pre-Beeching). The station-master’s house survives as a private residence beside the Londesborough Road. Sections of these ex-rail-lines survive as footpaths (e.g. the Bubwith Rail Trail) but they are few and far between, except for the Hudson Way.

Market Weighton was a highways intersection long before the coming of the railways lying as it does just north of the course of a principal Roman road linking Brough (Petuaria) with York (Eboracum), the route of the A1079 following the line of the Roman road west of Shiptonthorpe, and just west of the Roman road from Brough to Malton.

The photo. above (taken from Wikipedia) shows part of the now quiet (since the southern bypass was opened in 1991) Main Street just east of All Saints church. The fine three-storey Georgian building with the columned porch is the Londesborough Arms, built in the late 18th century as a coaching inn (the Beverley to York road was turnpiked in1764), Beverley being the county town of East Yorkshire and York the county town of all the Ridings. Like Barton on Humber, Market Weighton has a dense concentration of Georgian and Victorian buildings, mostly residences.

Having written about the Hudson Way I am leaving rail-lines for one blog to describe a walk I did recently.