The Plan

I’ve lived close to the A5 much of my life, and long had a fascination with it as a historic road. It’s a road which has both divided and united territories. It once divided England when, as Watling Street, it formed much of the boundary between Wessex and the Danelaw from the tenth century. It once united the Kingdom when, following the Act of Union between Britain and Ireland, the route was extended by Thomas Telford to Holyhead to improve the link between London and Dublin. As such, it became one of principal routes of Wales as well as of England.

There’s another historic link between these two phases. Watling Street – from London as far as Wroxeter – was one of the principal Roman Roads in Britain.  Three-quarters of that Roman Road is still in use as trunk road or A road. According to Quartermaine, Trinder and Turner, archaeologists and historians of the road to Holyhead, that extension was the first publicly-funded major road in Britain since the Romans left.  Despite the gap of 1,500 years a so, this establishes a continuity of purpose, creating a single road stretching diagonally across Britain.

My fascination with the road, and visits here and there, gradually developed into a plan to walk it. If I had to name a moment when I decided on the purpose, it was on a business trip to Atherstone, Warwickshire in 2000, when I saw both London and Holyhead together signposted in either direction, on the wall of The Old Bakery. More recently, in the year of my sixtieth birthday, I firmed up on those plans to complete the walk of 260 miles.

But exactly which route should I walk? Roads labelled ‘A5’ today include lots of bypasses of the original course, and the road number no longer covers the whole distance. Telford’s route to Holyhead diverted off the Roman route to pass through Birmingham. When the road-numbering system was first adopted in 1923, the ‘A5’ followed the old Roman Road much more closely, but even then, there were deviations from it.

I resolved to follow the historic theme and do the road in two phases, just as it was built. In the first phase, I would start at Marble Arch in London and follow, as closely as possible, the line of the Roman Road to Wroxeter, the Roman city just outside present-day Shrewsbury. The Roman soldiers had fairly evenly spaced stations along the route, and I aim to stay at or close to these: in this way, my day’s walk would approximate to the Romans’. Then, in the second phase, I will rejoin Telford’s road and continue, again as closely as possible to his original route, to Holyhead. His stopping-off points were coaching inns, and again I aim my overnight stops to be at or near the same places.

And the purpose of the walk? I have always found that walking a route allows one to see and notice so much more by way of environment, archaeology or architecture, compared with driving it. Despite the road now being a modern highway, built-up along much of its length with modern buildings, I will be looking for historic connections with the early road. Ideally, these will be Roman connections, or signs of Telford’s work. Travellers’ requirements don’t change that much – just as we have motorway service stations today, early travellers would have required places to sleep, eat and drink, stables to feed or change horses and places to maintain coaches and carts. There is also the infrastructure: the road itself, milestones and toll-gates.  I’m especially interested in anything which throws light on the continuing use of the Roman road in that huge gap between the Romans’ departure in the fourth century and its absorption into turnpike roads in the eighteenth century. Without diverting too far off the road, or digging any holes, I will be seeking these out.

I’m also interested in modern uses which celebrate the history. The Roman road is still called Watling Street along much of its length, and Telford’s road through Wales is badged with ‘historic route’ brown signs. There are houses and businesses along the way who are proud of their connection, whether in their name or otherwise, and I’m sure to notice these.