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Updated: June 14, 2025
Ostler, the master surveyor, to construct three miles of the proposed road between Minskip and Fearnsby. Ostler knew the man well, and having the greatest confidence in his abilities, he let him the contract. Metcalf sold his stage-waggons and his interest in the carrying business between York and Knaresborough, and at once proceeded with his new undertaking.
The business of contractor had not yet come into existence, nor was the art of road-making much understood; and in a remote country place such as Knaresborough the surveyor had some difficulty in finding persons capable of executing the necessary work.
In the Ninth Month of 1835, John and Martha Yeardley visited Settle Monthly Meeting, and Knaresborough, under appointment of the Quarterly Meeting. On their way thither they took up at York their aged and valued friend Elizabeth Rowntree of Scarborough, who was on the appointment.
Around us are scattered the ruins of Knaresborough Castle poor and of small account if we compare them with Richmond, although the site is very similar; where before the siege in 1644 there must have been a most imposing mass of towers and curtain walls.
But they deny in Knaresborough she ever made such a prediction, and prefer to rest her claims to infallibility on her prophecy illustrated on a post card by a highly colored motor car with the legend, "Carriages without horses shall go, And accidents fill the world with woe." Altogether, Knaresborough is a town little frequented by Americans, but none the less worthy of a visit.
But the moment he committed the inquiry to the care of an active and intelligent lawyer, the case seemed to brighten up prodigiously; and Walter was shortly informed that a Colonel Elmore, who had been in India, had died in the year 17 ; that by a reference to his will it appeared that he had left to Daniel Clarke the sum of a thousand pounds, and the house in which he resided before his death, the latter being merely leasehold at a high rent, was specified in the will to be of small value: it was situated in the outskirts of Knaresborough.
It held out until after the death of the martyr king; it heard the proclamation of Charles II, but at length was compelled to surrender, and "the strongest inland garrison in the kingdom," as Oliver Cromwell termed it, was slighted and made a ruin. Its sister fortress Knaresborough shared its fate. Lord Lytton, in Eugene Aram, wrote of it:
Clarke did receive his legacy: the lease of the house at Knaresborough was also sold by his desire, and produced the sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds; which being added to the farther sum of a thousand pounds, which was bequeathed to him, amounted to seventeen hundred and fifty pounds. It so happened, that my cousin had possessed some very valuable jewels, which were bequeathed to myself.
His life seemed fair and his future bright: but a change was at hand. He had not resided long at Knaresborough before he became acquainted with three persons most unlike himself in every way. These men were Henry Terry, Richard Houseman, and Daniel Clarke. Houseman was a flax-dresser. Clarke was a travelling jeweller.
We allude to John Metcalf, commonly known as "Blind Jack of Knaresborough," to whose biography, as the constructor of nearly two hundred miles of capital roads as, indeed, the first great English road-maker we propose to devote the next chapter. John Metcalf was born at Knaresborough in 1717, the son of poor working people.
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