Mr.Wetherby had been an old man in those days 1870.
Wetherby is a market town and civil parish within the City of Leeds metropolitan borough, in West Yorkshire, England. Close to the county's border with North Yorkshire, it stands on the River Wharfe, and for centuries has been a crossing place and staging post on the Great North Road midway between London and Edinburgh.
Historically a part of the Claro Wapentake (as part of the parish of Spofforth) within the West Riding of Yorkshire, Wetherby is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Wedrebi, thought to derive from wether- or ram-farm or else meaning "settlement on the bend of a river".
Wetherby Bridge, which spans the River Wharfe, is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Grade II listed structure.[1] The course of the Old Great North Road passes through the town and, as result of its situation on the road, a large number of coaching inns were established in Wetherby which are still used by travellers today.
The town was listed in the 2018 Sunday Times report on Best Places to Live in northern England
in the 12th and 13th centuries the Knights Templar and later the Knights Hospitallers were granted land and properties in Yorkshire. The local preceptory founded in 1217 was at Ribston Park. In 1240 the Knights Templar were granted by Royal Charter of Henry III the right to hold a market in Wetherby[3] (known then as Werreby). on Thursdays and a yearly fair was permitted lasting three days over the day of St James the Apostle.
From 1318 to 1319 the North of England suffered many raids from the Scots. After the Battle of Bannockburn Wetherby was burned and many people were taken and killed. According to the blue plaque at the entrance to the lane, Scott Lane could be named after the Scottish raiders in 1318 or the 18th-century drovers who used Wetherby as a watering place.[4]
In the English Civil War in 1644, before marching to Tadcaster and on to Marston Moor, the Parliamentarians spent two days in Wetherby joining forces with the Scots.[5]
In the heyday of the coaching era, Wetherby had up to forty inns and alehouses. The first recorded mail coach arrived in Wetherby in 1786.[1]
In 1824, William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire sold the town of Wetherby (except one house) to finance work at Chatsworth.[3] Wetherby provides the setting for the novel Oldbury (1869) by Annie Keary