Part 1
# The Holyhead Road: The Mail-coach Road to Dublin. Vol. 1 ### By Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
---
Produced by Richard Tonsing, Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
THE HOLYHEAD ROAD
[Illustration: THE “WONDER,” LONDON AND SHREWSBURY COACH. _From a Print after J. Pollard._]
THE HOLYHEAD ROAD:/ THE MAIL-COACH ROAD TO DUBLIN
By CHARLES G. HARPER
Author of “_The Brighton Road_,” “_The Portsmouth Road_,” “_The Dover Road_,” “_The Bath Road_,” “_The Exeter Road_,” “_The Great North Road_,” and “_The Norwich Road_”
[Illustration]
_Illustrated by the Author, and from Old-Time Prints and Pictures_
_Vol. I. LONDON TO BIRMINGHAM_
LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL LTD. 1902
[_All rights reserved_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: PREFACE]
_“The olden days of travelling, now to return no more, in which distance could not be vanquished without toil_”—_those are the days mourned by Ruskin, who had little better acquaintance with them than afforded by his childish journeys, when his father, a prosperous wine-merchant, travelled the country in a carriage with a certain degree of style. Regrets are, under such circumstances, easily to be understood, just as were those of the old coach-proprietors, innkeepers, coachmen, postboys, and all who depended upon road-travel for their existence; but few among travellers who lived in the days when the change was made from road to rail had feelings of that kind, else railways would not have proved so immediately successful. It has been left for a later era to discover the charm and rosy glamour of old road-faring days, a charm not greatly insisted upon in the literature of those times, which, instead of being rich in praise of the road, is fruitful in accounts of the miseries of travel. Pepys, on the Portsmouth Road in 1668, fearful of losing his way at night, as had often happened to him before; Thoresby, in 1714 and later years, on the Great North Road, thanking God that he had reached home safely; Horace Walpole, on the Brighton Road in 1749, finding the roads almost impassable, therefore, and reasonably enough, “a great damper of curiosity”; Arthur Young for years exhausting the vocabulary of abuse on roads in general; and Jeffrey in 1831, at Grantham, looking dismally forward to being snowed up at Alconbury Hill—these are a few instances, among many, which go to prove, if proof were necessary, that travelling was regarded then as a wholly unmitigated evil._
_But, quite apart from such considerations, there is a charm clinging about the bygone and the out-of-date wholly lacking in things contemporary. The Romans who constructed and travelled along their roads could not find in them the interest we discover, and the old posting-houses and inns frequented by our grandfathers must have seemed to them as matter-of-fact as we now think our own railway hotels. It is, indeed, just_ BECAUSE _the old roads and the wayside inns are superseded by the rail and the modern hotel, and because they are altogether removed from the everyday vulgarity of use and competition, that they have assumed their romantic aspect, together with that which now surrounds the slow and inconvenient coaches and the harmful unnecessary highwayman, long since become genuine antiques and puppets for the historical novelist to play with._
_The_ HOLYHEAD ROAD, _in its long course towards the Irish Sea, holds much of this old romance, and not a little of a newer sort. Cities whose history goes back to the era of the Saxons who first gave this highway the name of “Watling Street,” lie along these many miles; and other cities and towns there are whose fame and fortunes are of entirely modern growth. Some have decayed, more have sprung into vigorous life, and, in answer to the demand that arose, a hundred years ago, for improved roads, the old highway itself was remodelled, in the days that are already become distant._
_But better than the cities and towns and villages along these two hundred and sixty miles is the scenery, ranging from the quiet pastoral beauties of the Home Counties to the rocks and torrents, the mountains and valleys of North Wales. This road and its story are a very epitome of our island’s scenery and history. History of the larger sort—that tells of the setting up and the putting down of Kings and Princes—has marched in footprints of blood down the road, and left a trail of fire and ashes; but it may well be thought, with one who has written the history of the English people, that the doings of such are not all the story: that the village church, the mill by the riverside, the drowsy old town, “the tolls of the market-place, the brasses of its burghers in the church, the names of its streets, the lingering memory of its guilds, the mace of its mayor, tell us more of the past of England than the spire of Sarum or the martyrdom of Canterbury.”_
CHARLES G. HARPER.
PETERSHAM, SURREY, _April 1902_.
[Illustration]
LIST _of_ ILLUSTRATIONS
SEPARATE PLATES
PAGE
THE “WONDER,” LONDON AND SHREWSBURY COACH. (_From a Print after J. Pollard_) _Frontispiece_
SKETCH-MAP OF THE HOLYHEAD ROAD AND THE WATLING STREET xix
YARD OF THE “BULL AND MOUTH,” ST. MARTIN’S-LE-GRAND. (_From an old Print_) 13
“TALLY-HO” AND “INDEPENDENT TALLY-HO,” LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM COACHES, NEARING LONDON, 1828. (_From a Print after J. Pollard_) 25
THE “ANGEL,” ISLINGTON. MAIL COACHES AND ILLUMINATIONS ON NIGHT OF THE KING’S BIRTHDAY, 1812. (_From a Print after J. Pollard_) 41
HIGHGATE ARCHWAY AND THE TURNPIKE GATE, 1823. (_From an Old Print_) 45
HIGHGATE ARCHWAY: MAIL COACH NEARING LONDON. (_From a Print after J. Pollard_) 51
THE “WOODMAN,” FINCHLEY, 1834: COVENTRY AND BIRMINGHAM COACH PASSING. (_From a Print after J. Pollard_) 55
HIGHGATE VILLAGE, 1826. (_From an Old Print_) 59
THE OLD ROAD, BARNET 67
THE OLD ROAD, RIDGE HILL 99
THE GREAT SNOWSTORM, DEC. 26TH, 1836. THE LIVERPOOL MAIL PASSING TWO LADIES SNOWED UP ON RIDGE HILL IN THEIR CHARIOT, WITHOUT HORSES, THE POSTBOY HAVING RIDDEN TO ST. ALBANS FOR FRESH ONES. (_From a Print after J. Pollard_) 103
ST. ALBANS CATHEDRAL 109
ST. PETER’S STREET AND TOWN HALL, ST. ALBANS, 1826. (_From an Old Print_) 117
DUNSTABLE DOWNS 147
THE “WHITE HORSE,” HOCKLIFFE 153
THE GREAT SNOWSTORM, DEC. 26TH, 1836. THE BIRMINGHAM MAIL FAST IN THE SNOW, WITH LITTLE CHANCE OF A SPEEDY RELEASE: THE GUARD PROCEEDING TO LONDON WITH THE LETTER-BAGS. (_From a Print after J. Pollard_) 159
STONY STRATFORD 173
DAVENTRY MARKET-PLACE 235
DUNCHURCH 255
FORD’S HOSPITAL 275
THE OLD “KING’S HEAD,” COVENTRY. (_From a Print after Rowlandson_) 295
COVENTRY, FROM WINDMILL HILL. (_After J. M. W. Turner, R.A._) 299
THE LIVERPOOL MAIL, 1836. (From a Print after J. Pollard) 309
ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT
Vignette: Ogilby’s Dimensurator _Title Page_
Preface vii
List of Illustrations xi
The Holyhead Road: Ogilby’s Survey 1
Clark’s Steam Carriage, 1832. (_From an Old Print_) 33
The New Highgate Archway 48
James Ripley, Ostler of the “Red Lion” 76
Hadley Green: Winter 80
South Minims 92
London Colney 101
Entrance to St. Albans 105
Market-place, St. Albans 114
The “George” 120
The “Fighting Cocks” 123
St. Michael’s 129
Mad Tom in Bedlam 132
Mad Tom at Liberty 133
Redbourne Church 134
Redbourne 135
Dunstable Priory Church 144
Little Brickhill 165
Yard of the “George” 166
Queen’s Oak 176
Market-place, Stony Stratford 181
The “Blue Ball” 183
Lilbourne 206
Cross-in-hand 209
High Cross Monument 210
The Watling Street, near Hammerwich 219
The “Four Crosses,” near Hatherton 222
Boscobel and the “Royal Oak” 227
Town Seal, Daventry 238
Braunston Hill 239
Braunston 240
Ashby St. Ledgers 243
The “Four Crosses,” Willoughby (Demolished 1898) 245
Lord John Scott’s Statue 257
Dunsmore Avenue 260
Knightlow Cross 264
The Three Spires 269
Peeping Tom 273
The “Old Ordinary” 285
The old “Bull’s Head,” Meriden 304
Meriden Cross 306
THE HOLYHEAD ROAD
LONDON TO BIRMINGHAM
MILES London (General Post Office) to— Islington (the “Angel”) 1¼ Highgate Archway 4¼ East End, Finchley 5¾ Brown’s Wells, Finchley Common (“Green Man”) 7 North Finchley: “Tally-ho Corner” 7½ Whetstone 9¼ Greenhill Cross 10¼ Barnet 11¼ South Mimms 14½ Ridge Hill 16 London Colney (Cross River Colne.) 17½ St. Albans (“Peahen”) 20¾ Redbourne 25 Friar’s Wash 27½ Markyate 29 Dunstable 33½ Hockliffe 37½ Sheep Lane 41 Little Brickhill 45 Fenny Stratford (Cross River Ousel.) 48 Stony Stratford 52¼ Old Stratford (Cross River Ouse.) 52¾ Potterspury 55 Havencote Houses 59 Towcester (“Pomfret Arms”) (Cross River Towe.) 60¼ Foster’s Booth (Cross River Nen.) 64 Weedon Beck (Watling Street branches off from Holyhead Road.) 68 Dodford 68¾ Daventry 72½ Braunston 75¾ Willoughby 77 Dunchurch 80¼ Ryton-on-Dunsmore (Cross River Avon.) 84½ Willenhall (Cross River Sow.) 88¾ Coventry (“King’s Head”) 91¼ Allesley 93¾ Meriden 97 Stonebridge (Cross River Tame.) 100 Bickenhill 101½ Elmdon 102¼ Wells Green 104 Yardley 105¼ Hay Mills 106¼ Small Heath 106¾ Bordesley 108 Deritend 108½ Birmingham (General Post Office) 109¼
THE WATLING STREET, FROM WEEDON BECK TO OAKENGATES AND KETLEY
MILES Weedon Beck to— Watford Gap 5½ Crick Railway Station 9 Lilbourne 12½ Catthorpe Five Houses 12¾ Cave’s Inn 14¼ Gibbet (Cross River Swift.) 15 Cross-in-Hand 17¼ Willey Railway-crossing 18 Wibtoft 20 High Cross 21 Smockington 22 Caldecote 30 Witherley (Cross River Anker.) 31½ Mancetter 32 Atherstone 32½ Baddesley Ensor 36 Dordon 36½ Stony Delph 39 Wilnecote (Cross River Tame.) 39½ Fazeley 40¼ Hints 42¾ Weeford 44½ (Cross-road, Lichfield to Coleshill) 44¾ (Cross-road, Lichfield to Birmingham) 46¼ Wall 47¼ Muckley Corner 48¼ Hammerwich 49½ Brownhills 51 Wyrley Bank 54¾ “Four Crosses,” Hatherton 57 Gailey Railway Station (L. & N. W. R.) (Cross River Penk.) 59¾ Horsebrook and Stretton 61½ Ivetsey Bank (“Bradford Arms”) 65 Weston-under-Lizard 67 Crackley Bank 69½ St. George’s (Pain’s Lane Chapel) 72½ Oakengates 73¾ Ketley Railway Station 75¼
[Click anywhere on map for high resolution image.]
[Illustration:
SKETCH MAP OF THE HOLYHEAD ROAD, SHOWING ALSO THE ROMAN WATLING STREET FROM DOVER AND THE ROMAN STATIONS ON THE WAY.
HOLYHEAD ROAD ━━━━━━━━ WATLING STREET ──────── TELFORD’S NEW ROAD THROUGH ANGLESEY ╸╸╸╸╸╸╸╸ ]
[Illustration: THE HOLYHEAD ROAD.]
I
“Peace hath its victories, no less renowned than war;” and there is nothing more remarkable than the engineering triumphs that land the Irish Member of Parliament, fresh from the Division Lobby at Westminster, at North Wall, Dublin, spouting treason, in nine hours and a quarter, or bring the Irish peasant, with the reek of the peat-smoke still in his clothes, and the mud of his native bogs not yet dried on his boots, to Euston in the same space of time.
But a hundred years ago, when the peaceful labours of the engineer had not begun to annihilate space and time, and the Union of Great Britain and Ireland had only just been effected, no such ready transit was possible, and our great-grandfathers reckoned their journeys between the two capitals in days instead of hours. The Holyhead Road, known to our fathers and ourselves, was not in existence; and Liverpool (and even Parkgate, near Chester) was as often the point of embarkation for Ireland as Holyhead. The journey from London to Dublin was then of uncertain length, determined by such fluctuating conditions as the season of the year, the condition of the roads, and the winds of St. George’s Channel—sometimes smooth, but more often stormy.
What the road was, and what it became, shall be the business of these pages to relate.
* * * * *
Close upon two hundred years ago, then, when Queen Anne was just dead, and the Elector of Hanover had ascended the throne of England as George I., the way to Holyhead was, in great measure, an affair of individual taste and fancy. Some travellers went by way of Oxford and Worcester, others by Woburn, Northampton, Lutterworth, Stafford, Nantwich, and Chester; some kept the route now known as the Holyhead Road as far as Stonebridge, on the other side of Coventry, and thence by Castle Bromwich and Aldridge Heath; others followed it past Shrewsbury and turned off at Chirk for Wrexham; while others yet had their own preferences, and reached Holyhead goodness knows how—themselves, perhaps, least of all. Those were the times when, as Pennant tells us, the hardy country gentlemen rode horseback. Thickly wrapped in riding cloaks, and with jack-boots up to their hips, they splashed through mud and mire, making light of occasional falls, and so journeyed between London and Holyhead in perhaps six days, if they were both active and fortunate. Those travellers commonly rode post-horses, changing their mounts at well-known stages on the way. The system took its origin from the establishment of postmasters by the Post Office in 1635, when the charge for an able horse was 2½_d._ a mile. None but duly authorised persons were then permitted to supply horses. In 1658, according to an advertisement in the _Mercurius Politicus_, the mileage had become 3_d._ As time went on this monopoly was abolished, and most innkeepers supplied horses for those hardy riders who despised the newfangled coaches. The earliest mention of a coach on this road is found in the above-named paper, under date of April 9th, 1657: “For the convenient accommodation of passengers from and betwixt London and West Chester, there is provided several stage-coaches, which go from the George Inn, without Aldersgate, upon every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—to Coventry in two days, for twenty-five shillings; to Stone in three days, for thirty shillings; and to Chester in four days, for thirty-five shillings; and from thence do return upon the same days, which is performed with much ease to the passengers, having fresh horses once a day.”
It may shrewdly be surmised that, as the Chester coach of 1739, mentioned by Pennant, did not succeed in performing the journey under six days, the coach of 1657 did not find it possible to do it in four; and this suspicion seems warranted by an advertisement in the _Mercurius Politicus_ of March 24th, 1659, probably emanating from the same persons:—
“These are to give notice, that from the George Inn, without Aldersgate, goes every Monday and Thursday a coach and four able horses, to carry passengers to Chester in five days, likewise to Coventry, Cosell (Coleshill), Cank, Litchfield, Stone, or to Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, Newport, Whitchurch, and Holywell, at reasonable rates, by us, who have performed it two years.
“WILLIAM DUNSTAN. “HENRY EARLE. “WILLIAM FOWLER.”
It will be observed that an alternative route, through Birmingham, is announced, probably to suit the wishes of those who might chance to book seats. The travelling was by no means comfortable, and in 1663 a young gentleman is found writing to his father: “I got to London on Saturday last; my journey was noe way pleasant, being forced to ride in the boote all the way. The company that came up with me were persons of greate qualitie, as knightes and ladyes. This travell hath soe indisposed mee, that I am resolved never to ride up again in the coatch.” He probably rode post ever afterwards.
In 1681 a coach was running (or crawling) between London and Shrewsbury, by way of Newport Pagnell. Sir William Dugdale, travelling by it from London to Coleshill, says: “The first night we stopped at Woburn, the second at Hill Morton, near Rugby, and on the third we proceeded to Coleshill.” Thence it went along the old Chester Road to Aldridge Heath and Brownhills, and by the Watling Street from that point to Wellington. This Shrewsbury stage was robbed on January 30th, 1703, in the neighbourhood of Brownhills, by a gang of men and women, who, after they had plundered the passengers, met three county attorneys, whom they also robbed. One of the attorneys had what is described as a “porte mantel.” In it, among other things, was a pair of shoes, in which the owner had hidden twenty guineas. The thieves threw the shoes away, and when they had departed he happily regained this most valuable portion of his luggage. Other wayfarers were not so fortunate on encountering this hybrid gang of desperadoes; for, ten days later, when two drovers, fresh from Newcastle Fair, with bags of money in their pockets, came jogging along the road, they were set upon and robbed. One was killed and the other dangerously wounded. Two days after this exploit, growing bolder, the gang attacked the High Sheriff of Staffordshire, with his lady and servants, coming from Lichfield Fair, took sixty guineas, and cut off one of the servants’ hands. This was too impudent: the country was scoured, and these murderous ruffians seized. They numbered nine in all, and of them three were women dressed in men’s clothes.
In 1702 the “Wolverhampton and Birmingham Flying Stage Coach” was announced, to go once a week to London, in three days, and set out on the return from the “Rose,” in Smithfield, every Thursday; but this enterprise seems to have been short-lived. Meanwhile, the Chester stage of 1657 and 1659 was still pursuing its steady way; proposing to go the journey in five days, but taking six. The difference between promise and performance is neatly illustrated by Pennant. “In March 1739,” he says, “I changed my Welsh school for one nearer the capital, and travelled in the Chester stage, then no despicable vehicle for country gentlemen. The first day, with much labour, we got from Chester to Whitchurch, 20 miles; the second day to the ‘Welsh Harp’; the third, to Coventry; the fourth, to Northampton; the fifth, to Dunstable; and, as a wondrous effort, on the last to London, before the commencement of night. The strain and labour of six good horses, sometimes eight, drew us through the sloughs of Mireden and other places. We were constantly out two hours before day, and as late at night; and in the depth of winter proportionally later. Families which travelled in their own carriages contracted with Benson & Co., and were dragged up in the same number of days by three sets of able horses.”
“The single gentlemen, then a hardy race, equipped in jack-boots and trousers up to their middle, rode post through thick and thin, and, guarded against the mire, defying the frequent stumble and fall, arose and pursued their journey with alacrity: while in these days their enervated posterity sleep away their rapid journeys in easy chaises, fitted for the conveyance of the soft inhabitants of Sybaris.”
The roads at this time were incredibly bad, no matter the route, and indeed these several ways had their differences originated and continually multiplied by certain lengths of road being impassable at one season, and others equally so on some other occasion. When they were _all_ impassable at one and the same time—a not unusual occurrence—the traveller was indeed in evil case, and the highwayman suffered from great depression of trade. The chief fount of information for travellers at that time was Ogilby’s _Britannia_, first printed in 1675; a work of which much more will presently be said. This was a thick folio volume containing engraved plates and descriptions of every road in England. Every considerable inn kept a copy of “Ogilby” in those days, for the information of travellers; just as in the modern hotel one finds railway time-tables and county directories as a matter of course. Ogilby was in great request as a work of reference; so greatly indeed, that the early road travellers who thumbed his pages at meal-times and upset their wine over him, or now and again stole a particularly useful map, have rendered clean and perfect copies of early editions not a little difficult to come by. He was much too bulky for carrying about, and so the careful traveller made notes and extracts for use from day to day. Such an excerpt is the yellow and tattered sheet before the present writer, giving manuscript details of how to reach Coventry. But besides copied matter there is a good deal else drawn doubtless from first-hand observation. Coming for instance, to “ffinchley Comon, att y^e galowes keep to y^e right hande” is the direction, and the whole distance is punctuated with the remarks “bad waye,” “a slowe,” and other signs indicating depths of mud and ruggedness of road. “Galowes,” too, recurs with dreadful frequency, probably not because the person who wrote this wanted (like the Fat Boy in _Pickwick_) to “make yer flesh creep,” or because he was morbidly minded, but for the commonplace reason that gallows made excellent landmarks, and were as common objects of the road then as sign-posts are now.
Dean Swift is the great classic figure on the Holyhead Road at this period; although, to be sure, a very elusive and shadowy one, so far as records of his journeys are concerned. He, too, like Pennant’s hardy single gentlemen, commonly rode horseback, and has left traces of his presence here and there along the road, generally in witty and biting epigrams, written with a diamond ring on the windows of wayside inns. There could scarce, at this time, be anything more naïvely amusing than the pleased surprise he exhibits in a letter written to Pope in 1726, at “the quick change” he made in seven days from London to Dublin “through many nations and languages unknown to the civilised world,” when he had expected the enterprise, “with moderate fortune,” to occupy ten or eleven. “I have often reflected,” he adds, “in how few hours with a swift horse or a strong gale, a man may come among a people as unknown to him as the antipodes.”
II
The question, “How far to Holyhead?” had in old days been a difficult one to answer. It was not only in the uncertainty and variety of routes that the difficulty of accurately measuring the number of miles lay, but in the wild and conflicting ideas as to what really constituted a mile. This uncertainty lasted until the middle of the eighteenth century, when the first milestones since the days of the Romans were erected. It was, in fact, not before 1750, when, as part of their statutory obligations, the numerous Turnpike Trusts began to erect their milestones, that distances began to be publicly and correctly measured. It had already long been known that the mileages computed by the Post Office, in dealing with postmasters and the mails, were very inaccurate throughout the country, and for many years previously compilers of road-books had been accustomed to print two tables of distances; one the “computed” and Post Office mile, and the other the measured mile.