FORGET about Dick Turpin's famous ride from London to York – he never made it. The highwayman who did was Yorkshireman Swift Nick Nevinson in 1676.
His story is told in the fascinating Only In Yorkshire by Phil Penfold (Dalesman, £9 99), a neat little illustrated hardback packed with tales about people, places and events in the county.
Nevinson was plying his trade on a stretch of road in Kent, near where the A2 is now, and robbed a sailor. He feared the man might have recognised him and so rode north, crossed the Thames, and continued riding through Chelmsford, Cambridge and Huntingdon, until he reached York the same day. It was an incredible feat of endurance for both man and beast.
Once there, he consolidated his alibi by taking on the mayor of the city at a bowling tournament. When he was arrested for the robbery, he called the mayor as a witness.
“Who on earth, could possibly be in Kent in the morning and 200 miles north by late afternoon?” he said.
He was acquitted.
Sadly, he continued his trade as a highwayman and was hanged at York in 1684 – 21 years before Dick Turpin was born.
The book is described as a “meandering miscellany of facts, figures , folklore and legends that can be found … only in Yorkshire.”
As author Penfold says, it's only in God's own county where you could publish a book with such a title and be proud of it. “Only in Rutland, we feel, wouldn't even be a book. It would be a slim pamphlet.”
It's out in plenty of time for Christmas and is perfect for coffee tables (down south) and the smallest room in the house (in Yorkshire).
