In Yorkshire, each of the three Ridings was responsible for the maintenance of certain bridges and these were known as Riding Bridges. The term is likely to have come into use in 1530-1 when the Statute of Bridges placed that responsibility on county authorities (SAL4/199).
Formerly, a ‘bridge’ could be a causeway across marshy ground rather than a structure across a stream or river. This best explains the meaning of the popular minor name Rise Bridge, since ‘rise’ was brushwood, the material used to make the causeway.
The early spelling of ‘rush’, the grass-like plant found in marshy locations. These were traditionally strewn on the floors of dwellings and more important buildings as late as the seventeenth century.
The noun ‘road’ originally referred to the act of riding but then it became associated with the horse-riders’ route or way and eventually it took the place of ‘highway’.
Etymologically a word akin to resin, a substance which is obtained as a residue after the distillation of oil of turpentine from crude turpentine (OED).
The OED defines a rough mason as one who built only with unhewn stone, and examples of the word are given from 1444. Yorkshire references show that some men so described were dry-stone wallers.