Posted: Wed 10 Oct, 2012 9:39 am
Extract from 'The Romance of Old Leeds', para "River Lore""..The river was evidently a show-place for various strange devices in the days when one could take pleasure in stolling along it's banks.Thoresby relates how in 1720 the magistrates and about five thousand of the inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood gathered to see a Scotchman named Robertson disport himself in an inflated leather boat, which, "before he expands it by a pair of bellows wherewith he fills it with wind, all except a small hole for himself to sit in, is in so small a compass as to be folded up with a handkerchief - some say put into his pocket."