To Holyhead

The last day!

Anglesey has a south-west to north-east trend of geology, ridges and valleys. Travelling to the north-west, as I was, necessarily involves crossing this pattern, so although Anglesey is lower lying than the mainland, it's still up and down. The road of course alleviates these by embanking all the valley bottoms and cutting into the hilltops, evening out the gradients.

It was another day of spotting depots, milestones and tollhouses, and also more of the linear villages which in Anglesey grew up along the road - Llanfairpwll and Gaerwen yesterday, and today  Gwalchmai, Bryngwran and Caergeiliog (Valley is more around a crossroads).   This all having been a new road, I have been thinking that the roadside buildings along it would date after the road was built, because generally the Anglesey road was built through open countryside. This theory was slightly disproved at Caergeiliog, the Calvinistic chapel dating from 1786 (not the present building, it's been rebuilt since), followed by a row of cottages (appropriately, Tan-y-Ffordd) below street level by enough to suggest they were there first  - pictured.

I was hoping to examine more of field boundaries crossing the road. As near Cerrigydrudion, I think these happen in rural Anglesey because the road was built after land was enclosed. I've seen it on maps, old and new, but wanted to see if it was obvious on the ground, ruling out boundaries which are that way because they follow natural features. However, this really was not a success, partly because the height of roadside hedges prevented me seeing the pattern, and maybe also that I just wasn't being observant enough.

At the Valley Hotel, I met up with Andrew Hudson and Bob Daimond for the rest of my walk. Andrew is the author of This Ancient Road: London to Holyhead, a Journey Through Time and we have been corresponding about our shared interest in this road. Bob is a former colleague of mine from local government, a trustee of the Menai Bridge Community Heritage Trust and a member of the Institute of Civil Engineering's panel for Historical Engineering Works - so we had a lot to talk about. After crossing the Stanley Embankment and seeing the relocated tollhouse at the Country Park there, we found the old course of the road from before the building of the Anglesey Aluminium works and managed to follow it until we came to a fence. Along the Telford road, before this I had only seen two spots where private land has (legitimately) encroached over the old road, but here at the former aluminium works, there is a massive plant straddling and obliterating a good section of the old road. It is also where the two miles to Holyhead milestone once stood, and it hasn't obviously been moved to the new road, nor had a modern reproduction put there in its place. This is one issue I will follow up, with Bob's help.


I had arranged with Alan Williams, harbourmaster at Stena's Holyhead Port, to gain admission to the port area so we could walk to the George IV Arch (also known as the Admiralty Arch), and we met him at the bridge to Salt Island with John Cave and Richard Burnell, stalwarts of the Holyhead Maritime Museum. The arch in Holyhead is the counterpart to Marble Arch where I started, and this truly was a fitting end to the walk.

Depots:41

This blog was about today's walk. More will follow about themes and conclusions from Phase 2, and maybe the walk as a whole.

To Mona

The course of the road across Anglesey was completely new, all the way, starting of course at the Menai Suspension Bridge.

Was there anything new to walking over the bridge today? It is something I have done many times, and yet it's always a bit thrilling, especially on the central deck whee you're essentially hanging off the chains. It's something I like to bring visitors to do, both the marvel at the Menai Strait below and at the bridge.


Yes, there was something I noticed (although no doubt this is not something recent, just what I happened to notice today); the 'except bicycles by bicycles' plate, under the no overtaking sign, has gone. This was something which has been there on the bridge ever since I remember, stating the totally obvious in a way which made it idiosyncratic to this bridge, and therefore charming. The approaches up to the central deck on either side are very narrow separate carriageways with a raised kerb in the centre, so it's not physically possible for a car to overtake even if anybody wanted to try it, but within the carriageway space it's just possible for one cycle to overtake another, and this statement of the obvious has always been underlined in the sign. Along the short central deck there is a dotted white line, where it's a complete free-for-all as far as overtaking is concerned - although the looming limestone arches concentrate the mind so as to limit its popularity. We do still have the signs 'No overtaking/except bicycles by bicycles/End' on entering the central deck, but somehow the ending of the exception to the prohibition has less force when you hadn't been told about it first.

Llanfairpwll and Garwen developed as ribbon villages after the road was built, so there's nothing along these roadsides that is older than the road. I located the sites of a few former inns in Gaerwen: the site of the Half Moon on a prominent brow of a hill coming into the village, the Cross Keys, now a hairdressers, and a cottage Jeru, once the Jerusalem Inn.

There is nothing to see of a tollhouse at the turning to Llangefni, now complicated by also being a  grade separated junction of the new A55, the old A5 and the road to Llangefni. Yet the tollhouse survives in another way - the junction, in popular parlance, if not on any sign, is known as 'Turnpike Nant'.

Just before coming to Mona is a house with the sign facing the road, Ystumwerddon A5.  I used to think this a witty Welsh name derived from the bends in the road here as it climbs the hill, ystum meaning a twist or meander, together withe a shorteneing of Iwerddon, for Ireland - i.e. the meanders on the road to Ireland. The A5 on the nameplate seemed to confirm the intention.  But it's not so: the placename predates the road (and would have been nowhere near the older road to Ireland), and probably refers to a refers to a curved gwerddon, a piece of wet land.

This, my shortest walk, ended up at the Mona Inn.  In general, Telford's road joined up with pre-existing coaching stops, but here, his road took such a new course, and the distance between Bangor and Holyhead too long to be undertaken without a change of horses, a new inn was required, so the road building programme also included a completely new coaching inn, opened in 1822. Telford called the inn 'Mona', following the Latin version of the Welsh name for the island, and the name seems to have transferred itself to the surrounding neighbourhood, although not quite developing in to a village. The Mona Inn became a farm, and is no longer operating as even that. Thanks to the present owners, Mr & Mrs Doran, I was treated to a rare visit inside the property which includes the inn itself, a yard, coachhouse and stables, all in a remarkable state of preservation - and currently on the market.

Depots:25

      

To Bangor

This was going to be the best preserved section of the A5 road, and by far the most scenic. This is my local area, so I know the road well, and, because I'm now staying at home, I have less to carry on my back. However, I was worried about the weather forecast not being so good and having three sets of people to meet along the way was potentially challenging to the timetable. In the event, the weather turned out much better than expected and I made good time.

The scenic part was the walk through Snowdonia, passing Llyn Ogwen, as the road reaches its summit before descending to Bangor. Many of the peaks were lost in cloud as I went past; Pen yr Helgi Du to my right kept out of cloud, while Y Garn ahead popped in and out of view. The autumn colours have come.

It was a day for tollhouses. Although I had just walked past the toll house at Capel Curig yesterday, I went back today for some better pictures. It has been much adapted and modernised, but still has that essential octagonal heart which has been a feature of other tollhouses I've seen on the road. The next house was on the way down, 'Turnpike Cottage' coming into Bethesda. It has the same octagonal pattern, but a protrusion on the side facing the road, almost as if it had been built too far away and had to be extended. A similar pattern is seen at Lon Isaf tollhouse; this one, like at Llangollen, retains the weighbridge house opposite, and is the best preserved of all the tollhouses and listed at Grade II*.

I had also thought that the octagonal bay window which protrudes onto the pavement at Ogwen Cottage, at the bottom of Llyn Ogwen, was also the remains of an earlier tollhouse, incorporated into a larger building. Looking at it today, I realised that it could not have been, because it's just too big - and there would have been little need of one here as just about all the traffic passing here would also pass Turnpike Cottage.

Another bit of rethinking was on coming into Bangor. At the eastern end, where the road turns into the City, there's a cutting, mostly walled on ether side and with a bridge over to the portico, all that remains of the Penrhyn Arms Hotel. The modern road goes round this, through where the hotel once stood on onwards to Beach Road, where the older road went on through the cutting to become the High Street.  I had always been told, and long thought, that this cutting was Telford's work.  In the light of this walk and the research for it, I've realised that the cutting doesn't fit Telford's style. It's just a bit too narrow, the bridge is too low over the road (Harper said hay wagons had to divert round the bridge), the arch isn't as circular as other bridges and, perhaps most of all, the turning into the cutting is too sharp. The background reading confirms this: Coflein says it's probably eighteenth century work and Gwynedd Archaeological Trust (report 861) concludes this is the work of Wyatt, who did so much for the Penrhyn estate. When Telford came along, this was already built and he had little alternative but to incorporate it into the road. This all goes to show that even in relation to my home town, there is still more to learn from a project such as this.

Depots: 44

To Capel Curig

Today I was to walk the Padog Bends, now probably the most uncomfortable part for the walker. There's no footway, the road winding around the sides of a gorge with the river Conwy below. I was well-prepared, with my hi-viz tabard and colourful hat, and always ready to stop and lean back if anything too big came close. Despite all that, the walk itself was a delight: just as the bends above Glyn Diffwys were awkward because the terrain was so rugged, so here there were lovely views down into the rushing waters below.

Descending down into Betws-y-Coed was also awkward in places, and without the compensations. I found I was having to plan ahead which side of the road to walk: it's no good being on the blind side of a sharp bend, then not being able to see to cross.

There are more views down into Cyfyng Falls, and another little viewing platform which I hadn't known about, built out from a former stretch of the road, now a layby. It's a little bigger than the pair at Glyn Diffwys but, I suspect, a later addition.

As I was walking parts of the road either newly built or extensively renovated by Telford, this meant I was also seeing many of his original bridges. The elegance of the design means you hardly notice them when passing over but mean to look from the side and/or underneath to appreciate the construction. The topography - the reason why a bridge was required in the first place - means this is not always possible but at least the walker can have a go. 

However, my main issue today was the principal camera stopped working; it takes pictures alright, but just won't save them, and as I couldn't access anything else, I was faced with the prospect of having lost all I had recorded since Saturday. Fortunately, I'm staying at home tonight and I have been able to recover nearly everything, and back it up. I was able to continue today with the phone camera, already being used for the tweets, although it doesn't manage as well in the rain. Update here.

Depots: 53!

To Cernioge

Today I was looking forward to seeing, early on the journey, the Ty Nant bends and Glyn Diffwys. The bends were replaced by a new cutting in 1999, getting rid of what used to be the worst stretch of the whole A5 for the driver. They had to be reopened to traffic a few years later, when problems required more work on the new road, a telling comment on the long-term utility of the Telford design. The old road is still open to walkers.

I had driven this way many times on the old road, but the nature of the road meant  I was totally focussed on navigating the winding road before me and avoiding anything coming towards me; I didn't look at the view. Only in doing the background research for this walk did I learn that the original road design incorporated 'viewing platforms', so that travellers could stop off and take in the scenery. That scenery is the gorge and waterfall of Glyn Diffwys, far below under the massive retaining wall. And, yes, they're still there: two apsidal protrusions, hardly big enough for more than two people, but built into the retaining wall, all the way down. Here I enjoyed the view seen by George Borrow in 1854, Charles Harper in 1904, and nameless others, while also marvelling at the civil engineering achievement.

I was looking at the tops of trees below me. It did occour to me that to build all this, they might have

needed to fell some trees to get access. When Borrow and Harper came along, the vegetation would have regrown quite nicely and now, 200 years later, I'm standing over a mature forest. I could hear the falls below, but couldn't really see much; possibly the views of early travellers had been artificially enhanced by less tree cover.

Cerrigydrudion has very straight stretches of road on each side, both lining up into the village centre. The A5 skirts the village, very much in the style of a modern bypass, with the roads into the village joining at junctions. This possibly the first bypass ever, the gradients on the lines into the village being too severe for Telford, and a coaching in stop wasn't essential here. The bypass is shown on the oldest OS maps and includes a standard Holyhead road milestone (57 now to go): it's the prototype for all subsequent bypasses.

Quartermaine et al. reckon that those two straight stretches, mostly embanked over wet ground, weren't Telford's work but predate it. Whether built then or earlier, I wanted to test a theory that the road here was built after fields were enclosed, and so cut across pre-existing field boundaries. It seems that way, passing through by car, but on today's walk I had a chance for a closer look. I'm afraid the outcome is not conclusive one way or the other: in places it looks a wall has been cut by the road; in others there's no match between left and right.

Cernioge Mawr, once the coaching stop named on the milestones, didn't last long as an inn, soon supplanted by the Voelas Arms.    It had become a farm by the time Harper visited, as it still is today. I had Harper's sketch with me, and it's mostly still there, just trees having grown. I took some pictures and had a chat with Dafydd Evans, the present farmer.

Not being able to stay at the coaching inn this time, tonight I'm at the Giler Arms, Rhydlydan, a little further on from Cernioge.

Today's depot count: 24

To Corwen

Now that I'm in north Wales, my bible for the trip is Thomas Telford's Holyhead Road: The A5 in north Wales by Jamie Quartermaine, Barrie Trinder and Rick Turner. This book documented the archaeology of the road in considerable detail, and I can't hope to improve on it. It's my guide for things to look out for.

Yesterday, approaching Chirk, I was struggling to find Telford's roadside depots. Today, between Chirk and Corwen, I found (I think) 83 of them, with another 3 possibles. As I was stopping to take a picture of each, needing to wait for traffic to pass, then noting down details, this slowed down my progress along the road. (I also had rain some of the time.)

I have also been looking at where the Telford road laid out a new route, avoiding gradients to speed up the coach journey. First at Froncysyllte, the older road can be seen as Alma Road going up the side of the Dee valley, becoming Cwmalis Road, where the new road ignores all that to plot a smooth gradient round the valley side. Inevitably, this meant cutting into the hillside on the left and a retaining wall on the right.

Then, coming into Llangollen, the earlier road was Maesmawr Road, becoming Birch Hill into the town; this has a number of 18th century buildings along it. Driving along the alternative today, lined with tree branches on either side, it's a comfortable enough ride: you don't realise it's basically a ledge hewn into a cliff. Even in Llangollen itself, Telford's obsession cut a new course. What is now Hall Street was the old road, and has older buildings along it, one, convieniently for me, datestoned 1799. Berwyn Street, the newer road parallel to it was more evenly graded and bypassed Hall Street; it's only been built on since.

At Glyndyfrdwy, I was keen to find the 'whale' described by George Borrow in Wild Wales. Travelling in 1854, he too was following Telford's road. Just upstream of the bridge known as Pont y Pandy, he described a huge rock, which he likened to a whale on its side. The bridge has had work done to it since, but not so much as to let the whale through. Allowing for Borrow's poetic licence, I was able to fit his description to my observation: yes, the whale is still there.

I could hardly miss two tollhouses, one with its weighbridge house opposite. Most of the milestones in this section have reproduction iron plates in the original limestone.

Now I'm at another old coaching inn, Owain Glyndwr in Corwen. I was pleased to see their food menu quoting Borrow on his having stopped here for a pint.

To Chirk

Today's walk was made a little longer by my having stayed in Ruyton XI Towns, and so having to walk back to Shotatton before I could really get going. Although starting on part of the road which is still A5, for most of the day I was away from the busy modern road.

I had brought with me copies of some of Harper's sketches from his 1904 book in the hope I could still recognise the scene. Wyle Kop in Shrewsbury yesterday was well-enough preserved, but not so today at Queen's Head (village named after an inn). The inn is there and much the same, but what had been a round-arched canal bridge has been rebuilt in a different style, and a house in the background has gone altogether in the course of recent road improvements.

Before the present main road was built in the 1980s, I remember the A5 going from Queen's Head via Whittington to Gobowen, bypassing Oswestry. That's now the B5009, and when I first thought of this walk, I expected to pass that way. But I've decided to follow Telford's original route for the whole of this phase, and his milestones took me into Oswestry.

There I met with John Higgs, author of the Watling Street book published earlier this year. We obviously have much in common, although I reckon our interests are complementary, not competing. I spoke with him about my walk while being recorded for a podcast. Why am I helping him promote his book? It must be about reflected glory.

My main aim in these last two days has been to find out how much the characteristics of the road in North Wales are shared in Shropshire. The milestones here (today I missed 95 and 92 miles, but had an unexpected bonus in a reproduction at 90 miles), from Shrewsbury to Gledrid, share a common design with each other. It's similar to those from Chirk to Holyhead, but not quite the same. The tollhouse at Montford Bridge had looked like Telford's pattern, albeit two-storey as in Anglesey, but the one at Wolf's Head was totally different.

The distinctive 'look' of the road through Wales primarily comes from low stone walls either side, frequently punctuated by the 'depots': roadside alcoves where repair materials were stored. I was searching for these, but the Shropshire road is generally bounded by hedge or fence. A bit of stone wall here and there wouldn't be enough, as it could have been added by roadside property owners, or later road improvements: it has to have the depots to be persuasively the same. I found nothing of this for most of both days. I had more hope after Gobowen, because here Telford built a new route rather than improving a pre-existing road, but this too it was mostly fenced. Going down the hill from Gledrid to Chirk Bridge, some retaining walls are essential - and here I found, finally, one likely-looking depot and a possible part of another. Here perhaps is where the style first appears.

So now I am back in Wales, at the Hand Hotel, a coaching inn. The road is now badged as Llwybr Hanesyddol - Historic Route, and Chirk has really gone to town with this, using the same coach and horses symbol on their street signs and street furniture.

To Shotatton

Today I restarted with Phase 2, starting at the Horeshoe Inn, Uckington, where the turnpike road parted company with the Roman road to Wroxeter. From now on, I'll be following Thomas Telford's road to Holyhead.

First, though, we had stayed overnight at Wroxeter. I resumed acquaintance with Robert at English Heritage's Wroxeter Roman City. I also visited, again, the church, under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust - and which has multiple periods of churchbuilding history on display. We also visited Wroxeter Roman Vineyard to sample and buy some local produce. Best of all was the chat from the proprietor (I must get his name), as a local person talking about the Roman connections. His mother remembers seeing the structure of the Roman ford over the Severn.

Back to today, of which the highlight was my visit to Lord Hill's column in Shrewsbury. I've seen this as something of a twin to the Marquis of Anglesey's column in Llanfairpwll, both from the same period as Telford's road and almost bookending it. I had arranged to meet Richard Hayes, one of the Friends of the column, who let me in and was the perfect guide. Particularly impressive was the cast-iron handrail, with its legend cast into it all the way up. We went to the top and the weather was such that I was blessed with views of my route, all the way to Berwyn.

Now, about the milestones. On the way to Wroxeter, there really were not that many of the turnpike (or earlier) stones to be seen. I tweeted and blogged all that I saw, and one or two more. I always knew that I would see more on Telford's road, where they are better preserved.

Once I'm in Wales, Quartermaine's book (of which more in later posts) has documented all of them, and the Institute of Civil Engineers have arranged for reproductions of the few that were missing. Once I'm in Wales, I fully expect to see a milestone every mile, so I won't be tweeting every one. In Shropshire, however, they're not all there, and not so well preserved, so every one I see is a bonus.

Of the Telford milestones, they start at 106 miles to Holyhead; that and a few others were prominent enough. 104 miles was almost covered by ivy, and 101 present but almost buried; I walked past it once without seeing it. 103, 102, 98 and 99 ought to have been there but I didn't see them. I can't say they weren't there: had I come along with a strimmer, or better still a team of strimmer operators, I might have found them.

Earlier, I had failed to find two others before Shrewsbury. Just after my start, near the junction of B4394 and B4380, there should be a milestone: it's not listed, but it's on the current OS map. It probably ought to say LONDON 146 SHIFNAL 13 SALOP 4M 6F. Here vegetation wasn't a problem, but despite searching hard for it, no success. There should be another one a mile further on, just after Atcham Bridge, and this time it's listed - again, no luck.

This why I'm tweeting so many milestones. They're more frequent now, but not quite enough so.

This was a long walk today - 17 miles on the road and another 3 to get to my B&B, probably longer than any day of Phase 1. They will get shorter, and fortunately the weather was good all day.

Phase 2: Thomas Telford's road to Holyhead

Phase 2 of my walk starts on Saturday.

I'll be following the road built by Thomas Telford, mostly in 1815-19 but completed with the opening of the Menai Suspension Bridge in 1826. According to his recent biographer, Julian Glover, "Nothing like it had been proposed in Britain since the Romans and there was to be nothing like it again until the building of the first motorways in the 1950s".

In a sense, he was continuing the Roman tradition of roadbuilding to get to a distant destination. This is more literally so in terms of my own mission, because he continued the Roman Watling Street in what was to become (give or take a few miles here and there) the A5 in 1923.

However, I also see Thomas Telford's road as the precursor of the motorways. Like the motorways, his road though North Wales cut across swathes of open land, avoided villages that would have got in the way, built brand new bridges, cuttings and embankments; all in order to speed up the journey time.

Andrew Hudson's book is about This Ancient Road. On my walk along Watling Street I was certainly seeking out traces of something ancient. Telford's road, in comparison, is only two hundred years old, and it's not going to be hard to find. I suspect that my Phase 2 walk will be more about the beginning of modern roads.