Greta Bridge
The water colour is called Greta Bridge and is in the Castle Museum, Norwich. Another painted later is in The British Museum.
Greta Bridge is a village on the
River Greta in the
Pennines of
England, near to
Barnard Castle. It is
traditionally located in the
North Riding of
Yorkshire but along with the rest of the former
Startforth Rural District, Greta Bridge was transferred to
County Durham for
administrative and
ceremonial purposes on
1 April 1974 pursuant to the
Local Government Act 1972.
The
Roman name for Greta Bridge was
Concangium. Greta Bridge is mentioned in
Charles Dickens' novel
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby as the site of Dotheboys School. Dickens mentions the "George and New Inn, Greta Bridge". This is thought to be a conflation of two
coaching inns in or near Greta Bridge.
The link here is the publican "George Martin" who first of all ran the inn called the "George and Dragon" to the West of the River Greta, he then moved to the original "Morritt's Arms" built on the East bank of the River Greta as a coaching inn by the Morritt family of Rokeby,in approx 1756, and he renamed it "The George" as recorded by Dickens (maybe having left his "dragon" behind at the present Morritt Arms!) Later, Martin moved to be landlord of The New Inn a mile to the east of Greta Bridge and re named that "The George and New Inn". Source; Peter Gilbertson of The Coach House, Greta Bridge.
The famous painting
The Rokeby Venus by
Diego Velázquez was originally housed at Rokeby Hall, near Greta Bridge.
