On the last episode, we told you all about the Bolton Strid, which is a fairly short section of the River Wharfe in Northern England near Yorkshire that is legendary as a drowning machine. The Strid has had a reputation for literally CENTURIES as being a place where there is a 100% fatality rate - CERTAIN DEATH - for those who fall in. The reasons for that, as we discussed last time, have to do with the geomorphology of the river. In the Strid portion, it’s as if the River Wharfe turns on its sides and becomes very narrow but also very deep and rushing. Kind of like a river flowing rapidly through a canyon. 

And often, when people fall in, they are either immediately pulled under water or pulled underwater and under the rock shelves on the sides of the Strid, where rescue is impossible, and it is impossible to surface. It’s like you are all of the sudden cave diving without any sort of scuba gear.  All around the river are signs warning of danger, as well as something I’ve never seen around rivers before - boxes where you dial a code, and out comes a rescue rig and to throw into the water for people who are drowning. 

 

But is the river that dangerous? Is the Strid really 100 percent lethal? Or, as a travel writer Daniel Piggott wrote, is the Strid simply a legend, a myth that hasn’t actually verifiably claimed ANY lives?? 

 

Time to go to the archives and do some grunt work research.  I’ll add a few dilithium crystals to our time machine, and we will keep going back, back back. Here’s where we put on our historian’s robe and cowl.

The oldest newspaper record I can find that covers the Strid comes from Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, the February 20, 1819 edition. That article doesn’t talk much about the Strid itself, but favorably reviews Samuel Rogers’ epic poem, the Boy of Egremond, which is all about William De Romilly falling into the Strid. 

 

The next oldest easily accessible newspaper reference I can find to the Strid is from the Manchester Guardian, June 26, 1839, and it gives a colorfol description of the Strid: 

 

 

 

I found several non-detailed mentions of the Strid in books from the mid 1700s, but the earliest detailed record I can find of the Strid dates to 1780, with one likely exception from the 1500s…I’m sure there are older references out there, but alas, the brand new podcast budget doesn’t allow me a visit to Yorkshire and a few weeks going through the Abbey and local library records. So, we will have to settle for 1780’s Viator, a poem: or, a journey from London to Scarborough, by the way of York  by Thomas Maude. Maude was a bit of a dabbler in everything - a doctor, poet, essayist, estate manager and author. Maude and his wife were married at St Mary Magdalen Old Fish Street church, and I only mention that because I’ll bet some of you pastors listening might want to consider changing your church’s name to Saint Mary Magdalen Old Fish Street too! In his Viator book, Maude writes, “The Strid or Stride, falls here likewise under the traveller’s inspection. It is the cleft of a rock in the bed of the river through which chasm the Wharfe in Summer, entirely passes. In was in stepping this gulph that the last male hier of the family of Romelius lost is life.” Maude goes on to mention that there was a 1670 painting of the boy and his dog, but I do believe that painting is lost to history. It’s lost to me, at least. I couldn’t find it. The next oldest comes from an 1805 book that I do actually have a copy of Dr. Thomas Whitaker’s The History and Antiquities of the Deanery of Craven in the County of York. Which is a book written in 1805. If you don’t know Whitaker, he’s a pretty fascinating guy. He originally planned to be a lawyer, and got his doctoral degree in law even after getting called into ministry.  He started out at a smaller chapel and paid for the restoration of that chapel out of his own pocket in 1788. He wasn’t just a pastor/vicar/lawyer either - he was a peacemaker in the various villages of his parish and a scientist, studying and writing about topography and forestry. He wrote nine books, mostly on history, edited some others, and published multiple academic articles. He instituted a literary club, and had a vast library, and an impressive array of knowledge. He’s a legit historian, and a highly educated one. True, his doctoral degree wasn’t in history, but PhDs in history didn’t come along until after Whitaker. So when this guy writes about history, we should take notice. He’s not infallible, but he’s solid, and in 1805, writing about the Strid, he mentions the legend - or true story - behind Wordsworth’s poem. 

 

Whitaker writes, “In the deep solitude of the woods betwixt Bolton and Barden, the [River] Wharfe suddenly contracts itself to a rocky channel little more than four feet wide, and pours through the tremendous fissure with a rapidity proportioned to its confinement.  This place was then, as it is yet, called the Strid, from a feat often exercised by persons of more agility than prudence, who stride from brink to brink, regardless of the destruction which awaits a faltering step. (Great sentence!) Such, according to tradition, was the fate of young Romille, who inconsiderately bounding over the chasm with a greyhound in his leash, the animal hung back, and drew his unfortunate master into the torrent. The forester who accompanied Romille, and beheld his fate, returned to the Lady Aaliza, and, with despair in his countenance, inquired, "What is good for a bootless Bene?" To which the mother, apprehending that some great calamity had befallen her son, instantly replied, " Endless sorrow." The language of this question, almost unintelligible at present, proves the antiquity of the story, which nearly amounts to proving its truth. But bootless bene means unavailing prayer; and the meaning, though imperfectly expressed, seems to have been, "What remains when prayer is useless? "

 

BACK TO ME: This misfortune is said to have occasioned the translation of the priory from Embsay to Bolton [around 1152], which was the nearest eligible site to the place where it happened.  Whitaker goes on to note that, even though history records young Romilly as signing documents in his adult life, that QUOTE “Yet I have little doubt that the story is true in the main; but that it refers to one of the sons of Cecilia de Romille, the first foundress, both of whom are known to have died young.” In other words, Whitaker believes that the a young Romille son died - just not the eldest one. 

 

Whitaker also describes the Strid colorfully later in his book writing,“This chasm, being incapable of receiving the winter floods, has formed on either side a broad strand of naked gritstone, full of rock basins which bear witness to the restless impetuosity of so many northern torrents. But, if the Wharf is here lost to the eye, it amply repays another sense by its deep and solemn roar, like the voice “of the angry spirit of the waters,” heard far above and beneath, amidst the silence of the surrounding woods.

 

Coming shortly after Whitaker’s work, we have Ms. Barbara Hofland’s “A Season at Harrogate” which describes the Strid in spiritual terms: 

 

 

"Chid" is the past tense and past participle of the verb "chide," meaning to scold or rebuke someone, typically in a mild or constructive manner. 

 

One more find of note. W. Wheater edited an obscure book on Old Yorkshire in 1885, and that book contains a mixture of very old documents, and his reflections. I have a copy of that book, and in his discussion of the Arthington Priory, which was dissolved in Reformation fervor around 1540, Wheater includes a poem. The poem at least dates to the 1800s, but it very possibly, even likely dates to the 1500s. He simply does not say in the book for some reason. That poem discusses the Strid, and I believe it is one of the oldest extant references to the river (barring searching old, old books in monasteries and paper archives and such). I inadvertently took the name of this episode from that poem. By that, I named this episode, and it’s accompanying song by the Bolton Bardeaters, “The Merciless Strid,” and then decided to search and see if that name had been used. Turns out it has. One time in history, and it was in this poem that I think is from the 1500s, but could be from the 1800s.  it goes like this: 

 

Has the Wharfe*s limpid stream borne a curse down the dale 

From yon shavelings whom Romelli's bride 

Set to pray for the lad whom the merciless Strid 

Swept away with their o'er-weening pride?

 

(A shaveling is a derogatory name for a Catholic monk/priest, wih a tonsured (monk haircut) shaved head) 

 

Alright, let’s Smash some myths. Generally speaking, the Bolton Strid is genuinely dangerous, and many, many people have drowned there. Buuuuttt. 

 

1. Have 100 percent of the people who have fallen into the Strid died? So many websites - even newspapers trumpet the supposed fact that the Strid has a 100 percent case fatality rate for all who enter into its waters. For instance, a 2024 Metro.co.uk article claims, “None who have entered the Strid have ever come out alive” A slightly older Ranker article contends, “Bolton Strid: The Stream That Swallows Anyone Who Falls In” Many other sites say the same, but is it TRUE?    Actually, and happily, no, it is not true. In the same way that Rabies is not 100 percent fatal - but ALMOST - there have been people who have survived a plunge into the Strid. 

One example is Tom Barrett, an eight year old who got pulled into the Strid from the Wharfe in 1996. He says: “it was a moment that’s forever etched in his memory. One second I was laughing with friends and the next moment I couldn’t even shout for help because my head was going under the water and was getting into my lungs. I can picture it like it was yesterday and it still gives me shivers.” A nearby group of men were alerted to the trouble by Tom’s mother’s scream, and one of them dove in, and, as Tom says, ““He managed to get to me and carried me to the side of the river. I was gasping for breath when he put me down. If he hadn’t saved me, I would have died. No question about it. I was a goner.” “Nearly drowning at The Strid is something that I’ve never been able to get out of my head. What happened to that man? He risked his own life to save me.” At the end of the interview in the Telegraph and Argus, Tom solemnly warned parents, “Do not ever let your children swim in that river, I was very lucky.”  So Tom survived. Was he in the worst part of the Strid? Is his story true? We don’t know…but it seems pretty plausible and was reported by a decent newspaper. Another example is two scuba divers from Yorkshire who claim to have dived the Strid in the mid 1970s before such practices were completely banned. I’ve tried to confirm that story, but was unable to. I’m skeptical. Further, a man named barryfox2711 says, “My father jumped it when he was a lad and said it was probably the most stupid thing he ever did, given that he knew the consequences of falling in. Though I live in the US now I grew up alongside the Wharfe which, at another part a little downstream, claimed the life of a grammar school friend. The Wharfe is a treacherous river, full stop.” Again - unverified. 

 

But we do have at least two stories, highly reliable, that convincingly debunk the myth that the Strid is 100 percent deadly to those who fall in. First, the 1857 Leicester (“Lester”) Chronicle reports on a miraculous rescue of a Strid jumper who made it across on his leap, but lost his balance, and fell “headlong into the foaming abyss.” The paper reports that the “shrieks of his wife and friends were heartrending in the extreme.” With no Superman to be found,the Reverend John Mather of Rochdale near Manchester lept to action. He sprinted 30 yards downstream, and waited for the drowning man to come by…grabbing the man as soon as he could. Helpers assisted Mather in pulling the man in, and he recovered, leading the Leeds Mercury to note that this was the “First instance of a person who had fallen into the Strid being saved.” Conclusive proof, I think…but wait, there’s more! 

 

A similar incident happend in 1898 at the Strid, and another “Super pastor” was involved. On July 1, 1898, there was a Sunday school party at the Strid with members and pastors from several churches. A young lady from St. Peter’s church, spurred on by a previous conversation about leaping the Strid, made her own attempt, and like so many others, hit the opposite side well enough, but fell backwards into the Strid. Curate W.A. Challis immediately and heroically jumped in and rescued the young lady, helping her exit the Strid further down river. 

 

 

The June 10, 1898 edition of the Craven Herald and Pioneer also reports on the rescue of a lady who fell into the Strid AND WAS RESCUED, however, and heartwrenchingly, the four year old who was with her, and also fell in, was not rescued. 

 

 

Much later, In July of 1956, the Craven Herald and Pioneer reported on the rescue of young French daredevil Georges Quiter, Kee-tay from Normandy. Quieter was warned about the Strid by a local on a walk to the river, but nevertheless attempted a jump shortly after arrival, even though somebody shouted, “Don’t jump, Georges!”  He hit the other side, stumbled backwards and fell in. However, he was decent at swimming, and he started to swim downstream, where a group of quick-thinking men formed a human chain and rescued him. Shortly after rescue, Georges said, “The jump is rather deceptive, isn’t it?” The Craven Herald, the local paper to the area, pronounced Quieter the first man to be rescued from the Strid, which we know - thanks to our Leicester paper - isn’t true. 

 

 

So, I think it is fair to say with three verified rescues that we have smashed the myth of the River Strid being 100 percent fatal to all who fall in. No disrespect to the Strid, though. A recorded 30 people or so in the world have survived Rabies without shots, but it is still a terrifying disease if left untreated.  And while some have certainly fallen into the Strid and lived to tell the tale, the river is still incredibly dangerous. So this myth might not be technically true, but it is true enough.

1. Is it the most dangerous swimming place in the world for drowning? Not by numbers, and it is nowhere close, and it isn’t even the most dangerous river by numbers of drowning deaths…though it may be by fatality rate. The Kern River, the “Killer Kern” has seen around 368 drownings since 1968. We all know about the hundreds lost in the recent Guadalajara river drownings in Texas that were absolutely gut-wrenching. The Ganges river sees dozens if not hundreds of drowning deaths each year. But no river tops the Yellow river in China over the last 200 years. In 1887 the Yellow River Flood killed 1-2 million people, one of the worst natural disasters in history. In 1938, around 500,000 were killed in another round of Yellow River flooding. 

 

A 1922 article in the Craven Herald and Pioneer - one of the closest newspapers to the Strid - reveals that local officials were actually considering dynamiting the Strid to open it up somehow and make the whole area safer. The writer of that article, however, questioned if such a thing was necessary, given the death toll of the Strid and River Wharfe nearby, which had only - according to him - totalled 12 drownings in the previous 30 years or so. (It does seem, however, based on the research in this article, that he missed a small amount of Strid deaths in that period.) 

 

Nowhere near that many lives have been lost in the Strid in the last 100 years.

1. Is it even the most dangerous and risky body of water to just fall in? Almost certainly not. Given the choice between the Bolton Strid and the Boiling Lake of Dominica, I bet most of us would choose the good old Strid, though only barely. What’s the Boiling Lake? Where’s Dominica? Great questions! Dominica is a small island nation in the Caribbean, or, if you’re Billy Ocean, the Carabune. And since he was born in Trinidad, he probably knows better than I do. Dominica is about 375 miles southeast of Puerto Rico, and north of Martinique and Barbados. About 70,000 people live in Dominica, but very few of them live near Boiling Lake which is the second largest hot lake/hot spring in the world. The largest hot spring in the world is called Frying Pan lake. Now, Frying Pan Lake is in New Zealand and is almost 10 acres in size, and its water temp averages around 130 degrees, which is hot. Is it fatally hot? I don’t know. I’ve swam in 106 degree water, and that feels pretty nice…for a bit. 

But, 130°F (54.4°C) water is extremely dangerous to human health. Here’s why:

• Human skin begins to burn at just 111°F (44°C), at

• Third-degree burns can occur in:

• ~5 seconds at 140°F (60°C)

• ~30 seconds at 130°F (54°C)

• At 131°F, the core body temperature can rise dangerously fast, leading to: Heat stroke, Organ failure, Unconsciousness, And potentially death. I found that information at antiscald.com which appears to be a legit scientific website, but I am not a burnologist. 

So, swimming in Frying Pan lake would probably kill you in less than 30 seconds, and it would be a bad way to go. Boiling Lake in Dominica is far, far worse…or, far, far quicker, depending on your perspective. Boiling lake is about 200 feet wide and long, so not huge, but the water temp at the edge of the LITERALLY boiling lake is about 197 degrees. It’s almost certainly hotter in the middle, but nobody has figured out a way to measure the temp there. It’s also 200 feet deep. Boiling Lake's has grayish-blue water that is in a perpetual rolling-boil state which looks like a giant pot of water steaming on the stove. Rainfall and two streams keep it filled and that water then seeps down to the magma (from the volcano that boiling lake is on) and is heated to beyond boiling. The trail that leads to boiling lake also goes through another volcanic area called the Valley of Desolation. - remember that name! -  The air around the area is hot, steamy and moist - great word - and kind of smells like farts because of all of the sulfur and sulphide gas boiling to the surface. 

The Boiling Lake is hard to get to, and really, really deep. More than that, it is incredibly hot. You can tell by the name and by looking at it. Those bubbles coming up? That steamy humidity rolling off of the lake with sulfur smell? That isn’t just theatrics - that lake is literally BOILING. 

 

The water temp at the edge is only 197 degrees, and it clearly gets hotter towards the center, but nobody has really been able to measure it yet. Though, I kind of think you could with an industrial thermometer attached to a fishing rod. So, yeah. You swim in Boiling Lake and you’re pretty much instantly toast…or fried, or whatever. I’d rather take my chances in the Strid, and that’s saying something. 

 

Outro: And now we close with this week’s song, “The Merciless Strid.” Commissioned by the Interesting Pod, and written and performed by Yorkshire’s own Bolton Bardeaters, this Celtic/metal mashup is just fantastic. The lyrics, as mentioned earlier are by Wordsworth, with a few modern changes…but just a few. Wordsworth’s lyrics poem is actually based on a real legend. That dates all the way back to 1152, to be exact. In that year, young William de Romilly, being prepared to be the next King of Scotland was walking past the Strid with his faithful greyhound. Seeing the river, and perhaps having the impulse to do what he had done before - Romilly was overcome by one of those irresistible urges that guys get to test themselves. And so it was that he approached the creek and made a mighty leap, but his dog…far wiser than he…slammed on the brakes. Which yanked the young Crown Prince backwards just enough to prevent him from reaching the other side, plunging him into the icy rushing waters where he, like so many before him, was no match for the Strid. As the story goes, His mom, Lady Alice de Romilly, the owner of Skipton Castle and much of the surrounding lands, was so wrecked with grief and worry for her son’s soul that she gave some of her land to newly arrived Augustinian canons to build Bolton Priory. She supposedly wanted these canons to pray for her son’s soul so that he would be admitted to Heaven…which isn’t really how Christianity works at all.  These Augustinians weren’t just any canons either - they are the Black Canons, which sounds awesome and terrifying, and you’re probably expecting a ghost story, but alas, they were the "Black Canons" just because of the black habit (cassock and mantle), they wore, and they don’t appear to be well known for haunting the countryside and frightening children at night or anything cool like that. And, for my American friends picturing large metal guns that shoot bowling balls, I need to tell you that a Canon - with one ‘N’ is quite different from a two ‘N’ cannon. A canon in some Christian denominations is kind of like one step up from a Vicar or pastor or priest. You know like how a burrito supreme is still mostly a burrito, its just a fancier burrito.  A canon is a member of the clergy who is on the staff of a cathedral, or large church or something like that. The position is frequently conferred as an honorary one, so it’s like a special title. 

 

Is this story true? Well, it certainly makes for a great poem and a great song. It is true that the Black Canons took over that Priory in 1154, and they have built just a spectacular cathedral. Did William De Romilly really fall into the Bolton Strid in or around 1152?  Well, there’s obviously no way to prove or disprove this one. 

 

It is true that there is some indication that William De Romilly survived into adulthood, and the legend, copied but not invented by Wordsworth, that his mother Lady Alice De Romilly did donate lands to the Black Canons of Augustine to build their priory. I think eminent historian Charles Tyler Clay has it right in his introduction to volume 7 of the Early Yorkshire Charters, which is a massive collection of pre 13th century documents from the Yorkshire area. He says, “There is no reason, as assuredly there is no desire, to doubt the truth of the legend that the boy of Egremont - William de Romilly - was drowned in the Wharfe at the Strid at Bolton; but an examination of the charter evidence makes it impossible to believe the popular tradition that the foundation of Bolton Priory was due to his mother’s sorrow at his death.”  So, I think there is no valid historical reason to doubt that poor Lady Alice De Romilly/Rumilly lost a son to the Strid. Did it happen exactly the way Wordsworth said? God only knows. 

Well, that’s it for our coverage of the “Bloodthirsty River”: The Bolton Strid, as we go out, stick around for couple of minutes for one more performance of