Tadcaster

Tadcaster is a market town and civil parish in the Selby district of North Yorkshire, England, east of the Great North Road, north-east of Leeds, and south-west of York. Its historical importance from Roman times onward was largely as the lowest road crossing-point on the River Wharfe until the construction of the A64 Tadcaster by-pass some to the south, in 1978. There are two rail crossings downstream of the town before the Wharfe joins the River Ouse near Cawood.

Tadcaster is twinned with Saint-Chély-d'Apcher in France.

The town was part of the West Riding of Yorkshire until 1974, but is now part of North Yorkshire.
Thanks to its position on the banks of the River Wharfe parts of the town adjacent to the bridge are prone to flooding.

History

Roman

The Romans built a settlement and named it ''Calcaria'' from the Latin word for ''lime'', reflecting the importance of the area's limestone geology as a natural resource for quarrying, an industry which continues and has contributed to many notable buildings including York Minster. Calcaria was an important staging post that grew at the crossing of the River Wharfe on the road to Eboracum (York).

Anglo-Saxon and medieval

The suffix of the Anglo-Saxon name Tadcaster is derived from the borrowed Latin word ''castra'' meaning 'fort', although the Angles and Saxons used the term for any walled Roman settlement. Tadcaster is first mentioned in the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', where it appears as ''Táda'', referring to the place where King Harald assembled his army and fleet before entering York and proceeding onwards to the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. The place-name probably means 'Tata's fort' after an unknown Anglo-Saxon landowner.

The town is mentioned in the 1086 ''Domesday Book'' as "Tatecastre". The record reads:

Two Manors. In Tatecastre, Dunstan and Turchil had eight carucates of land for geld, where four ploughs may be. Now, William de Parci has three ploughs and 19 villanes and 11 bordars having four ploughs, and two mills of ten shillings (annual value). Sixteen acres of meadow are there. The whole manors, five quaranteens in length, and five in breadth. In King Edward's time they were worth forty shillings; now one hundred shillings.

In the 11th century William de Percy established a motte-and-bailey fortress re-using Roman stone. The earthwork remains of this castle, including the motte (known as Castle Hill) can still be seen adjacent to the parish church and bridge. The castle was abandoned in the early-12th century and was briefly re-fortified with cannon emplacements during the Civil War. The street plan south of the site reflects the shape of the former bailey.

The original river-crossing was probably a ford near the current bridge, followed by a wooden bridge . Around 1240, the first stone bridge was constructed, possibly from stone reclaimed from the castle. The current bridge was constructed on the foundations of the original c. 1700, although it has been substantially modified at least twice since. Historically, the Wharfe marked the boundary between the West Riding and the Ainsty of York.

Civil War

During the English Civil War, on the morning of Tuesday 7 December 1642 the Battle of Tadcaster, a skirmish, between Sir Thomas Fairfax's Parliamentarian forces and Sir Thomas Glemham's Royalist army took place on and around Tadcaster Bridge.

Market

A market has been held since 1270, when Henry de Percy obtained a royal charter from King Henry III to hold "a market and fair at his manor of Tadcaster" each Tuesday. The ancient market place is at the junction of Kirkgate and Bridge Street. A stone base, believed to have been part of the original market cross, stood on Westgate where the Tadcaster War Memorial now stands The present-day market is held on Thursdays in the car park of Tadcaster Social Club on St Josephs Street.

Governance

For local government purposes, the River Wharfe divides the town into eastern and western electoral wards. The combined population of Tadcaster East and Tadcaster West in 2004 was 7,280, 3,800 in Tadcaster East and 3,480 in Tadcaster West (source: Office for National Statistics). The local authority is Selby District Council.

Tadcaster gave its name to a much larger rural district council, Tadcaster Rural District and other administrative areas. This may lead to confusion when comparing the size and extent of the current town with information for earlier periods. For example, the population in 1911 of the Tadcaster sub-district was 6831 compared with that of the Tadcaster Registration District, 32052 (source: A Vision of Britain through time).

Tadcaster also elects a mayor on an annual basis.

Economy

Tadcaster has a long association with the brewing industry because of the quality and accessibility of the local water, which is rich in lime sulphate after filtering through Permian limestone. In the right conditions freshwater springs, known locally as ''popple-wells'', still bubble up near St Mary's church in the town. Tax registers from 1341 record the presence of two breweries or brewhouses in the town, one paying 8d in tax and the other 4d. Today Tadcaster is second in importance only to Burton-upon-Trent as an English brewing centre.

Currently there are three breweries in the town: The Tower Brewery (Coors, formerly Bass), John Smith's and Samuel Smith's Old Brewery, which is the oldest brewery in Yorkshire and only remaining independent brewery in Tadcaster. A fourth brewery stood by the river on the site of the present central car park.

Despite these large commercial enterprises, Tadcaster exhibits many signs of urban decline, with a large number of empty and derelict properties in the town centre. In part this can be attributed to disputes between the owner of the Samuel Smith's brewery, Humphrey Smith, who is a major landowner in the town, and Selby District Council. There are no major tourist attractions in the town, which has one supermarket and no bank. The closure of the railway station (1964), the reduction of the market and the construction of the A64 Tadcaster bypass (1978), whilst substantially reducing traffic using the Tadcaster Bridge, have all contributed to the decline of footfall and therefore of retailing in the town.

Culture and community

Local newspapers covering Tadcaster include ''The Press'' and the ''Wetherby News''. The major regional newspaper in the area is ''The Yorkshire Post''. The local BBC
...