A GRACEFUL bridge over the Esk at Glaisdale bears the date 1619, and the initials T.F., for Thomas Ferres, Mayor of Hull. Thomas amassed a fortune plying the east coast as master of a trading-ship called the Francis, which he poured into housing, education and apprenticeships for the poor.
The story goes that when he was a penniless farm-labourer, Thomas would cross on stepping-stones just here, to meet secretly with the daughter of a local Squire.
But the Squire forbade any marriage, and on the very night he was to leave for an apprenticeship in Hull, the Esk flooded, and Thomas could not bid her farewell.
After making enough money to buy his own ship - some say, by serving with Sir Francis Drake against the Spanish Armada, and plundering Spanish galleons - he returned to marry the Squire’s daughter, and build a bridge over the stepping-stones, so that no more lovers might be parted by the Esk in flood.