The Milestones of Shropshire

I've posted earlier about the milestones along the length of Watling Street to Wroxeter. They come more frequently now, and this post is about what I found  - and didn't find - along the length of the road from my restart in Uckington until crossing into Wales. This post comes with the benefit of having cross-checked after coming home what other people have said about these milestones.

On the London side of Shrewsbury, I was looking for milestones with the mileage from London. In style, these should continue the pattern of the 139, 140 and 141 mile posts I saw towards the end of Phase 1.

The first one I expected was London 146 miles, which ought to have been on the old A5, now the B5061, a little to the east of its junction with the B4380. Why did I think it was there? Because it's identified on older Ordnance Survey maps (with some of its mileage details) and the present-day OS Explorer map still has MS at this point. I had a good look for this one - unlike later on, where there was too much vegetation which might have hidden it and too much traffic to wander around searching - but didn't find it. If it was there, I should have seen it. Coming back home, after rechecking, I find that neither Historic England's listed buildings records nor the Milestone Society have it, so perhaps I was seeking something that disappeared long ago. Unless the Ordnance Survey know differently.

Next: London 147 miles. Apparently this is at the western end of the old Atcham Bridge, and is listed, so it really ought to be there.  I crossed over the old bridge and looked around but didn't find anything, although, concerned now about being late for my next appointment, I probably wasn't as thorough as a mile earlier. I have since found this photograph online which claims to show it, and I can't see it there either.

I had more luck at 148 miles. This one is where it should be and is listed although the listing text wrongly says 145 miles.

This is prominent and in a good condition, unaccountably not yet a listed building or structure.

There are meant to be two milestones at the column roundabout in Shrewsbury and I only found one of them. There is a bit of a mix-up in the listing details - this one is in the position indicated for 1246398 but has the legend described for 1255092.

The mention of County Hall makes this listed 150-mile marker more interesting.

















After passing through the centre of Shresbury, I was now looking for milestones to Holyhead. These are all of a common pattern, a shaped limestone block with a cast iron plate listing miles to Holyhead and the distance from Salop (Shrewsbury).

106 miles. A pity the stone is painted (and, compared with the others, the bolts shouldn't be painted black).










I couldn't find 105 miles, although the Milestone Society have recorded it, but with a plate which looks like a modern reproduction.

104 miles.  I very nearly missed this one, a hedge overhanging it and ivy almost hiding the plate. This begins to explain why I missed a few others along the way.
















In fact, I then failed to find both the 103 and 102 miles to Holyhead stones. I began to realise that September is must be the worst time of year for roadside vegetation growth, and that the highway authorities are probably cutting it back less these days. These stones are probably still there somewhere, but completely overgrown.

It may not be obvious, but this is 101 miles to Holyhead. It's not that the stone has been buried, more that the road level has been raised since it was put there.

This one is a bit more readable, and prominent on the side of the present-day A5.

It looks like someone has decided to take care of this one, although painting the bevel of the stone black doesn't quite match others.









I missed both the stones for 98 and 97 miles to Holyhead, once again because of roadside vegetation. I have since seen them on Google Streetview. Holyhead 96 miles is in Blists Hill Museum, and I have no complaint about that - more people will notice it there, as I have done myself.

95 miles, although listed, has been lost since 1980 according to the Milestone Society. I couldn't find it, either.

It was a step forward to spot a nicely preserved and displayed  milestone for 94 miles.

And 93.












The 92-mile was another one missing, although I wasn't sure this could have been hidden by vegetation: where it ought to have been was a shortish grass verge with not much growth behind either. I think this one might have been moved more recently, despite its listing. Apparently it turned up in a pile of earth when the main road was being upgraded and has been installed on a drive in nearby Aston Hall.

 91 miles.

This was a bit of a bonus - I hadn't expected to find a milesone for 90 miles, and it's not marked on any modern maps, but here's a recent reproduction.








I didn't see 89 miles to Holyhead and it's not included on anybody's lists, so it must have gone long ago. Neither did I see 88 miles but it's shown on the 1:50,000 OS map and the Milestone Society have a reference number for it.

Here is 87 miles, which looks original and is in fairly good condition, the main blemish being a chunk of stone missing from the right side. I made the mistake earlier of saying it isn't listed, but it is.

86 miles. It's nice to see how the owner of the privet hedge has trimmed it around the milestone.

85 miles. This one, inexplicably, is not listed.

With 84 miles to go, this is the last milestone on the old A5 in England. Located betwen parking spaces, it must be vulnerable to the odd knock, and in fact the plate has cracked horizontally below the HEAD of HOLYHEAD, and is protruding outwards. This is at risk of falling out altogether and urgently needs repair.





I've got a little more to do with all this. I intend to contact the various authorities responsible for the milestones and for recording them with these details, and more, with a view to improving their upkeep and accessibility. I wonder how I will get on with that.

Updating

Now I'm back home, I am going through my notes and pictures. As I go, I'm adding a few pictures to the blog posts I did on each day of  Phase 2. I may need to correct some typos (as did all these originally on my little phone) but otherwise I'm not planning to change the text, so that it still appears as a distilled record of my thoughts that evening. 

More thematic posts will come soon as I go through these.

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