Myth Smashing: Is the Bolton Strid 100% Fatal? What is the MOST Dangerous Water Body in the World?

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