Part 2

The first of English makers of road-books, John Ogilby, mentioned this discrepancy, so early as 1675, when he published his great work, _Britannia_. Ogilby who had been commissioned by Charles II. to survey the roads and measure them, did his work thoroughly. He claims to have travelled 40,000 miles in compiling his book, a folio volume of great typographical beauty and exquisitely engraved plans of the roads. In making his survey, he used what he calls a “wheel dimensurator.” Exactly what this was is shown in the beautifully etched title-page by Hollar, to his first edition, where Ogilby himself is seen on horseback, directing the course of two men; one wheeling the instrument, the other checking its measurements. It apparently was a wheel fitted with a handle and wound with a ten-mile length of tape. Trundled along, it unwound the tape, the intermediate distances being noted down by the assistant. Ogilby very soon discovered that although the Post Office gave the mileage to Birmingham and Holyhead respectively as 89 and 208 miles, it was then really 116 and 269 miles. The Post Office mile, which he calls the “vulgar computation,” was therefore practically a third larger than our so-called Statute Mile, dating from 1593 and constituted by a statute of the 35th year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, not so much for the purpose of creating a standard of measurement for the kingdom, as for defining certain limits. That Statute was passed by a Legislature dismayed by the rapid growth of London, and was an enactment forbidding persons to build within three miles of the capital. When it came to the point of defining a mile, it was found that no such measure had ever been officially fixed, and that English, Irish, Scottish, and local miles were of variable lengths. The mile was then taken to be eight “forty-longs,” or furlongs, of forty perches each; a perch to consist of 5½ yards.

That this extraordinary difference between actual distances and those computed by the Post Office should have arisen on all roads is inexplicable, and that it should have remained after Ogilby’s official measurements had proved the “computed” miles utterly wrong is an astonishing proof of the vitality of error. But the real trouble arose with the appearance of milestones along the turnpike roads. They were the cause of much bitterness and contention between postmasters and the Post Office, and between keepers of posting-houses and travellers.

Those who did business for the Post Office claimed extra mileage, and travellers posting to or from Birmingham and Holyhead found themselves charged in the aggregate for 27 or 62 miles extra, as the case might be; which, say at 1_s._ 3_d._ a mile for chaise and four horses, was a consideration. Travellers resented this difference and pointed out that, if posting establishments could always have afforded to do certain stages at certain prices, they could continue so to do; to which those men of horses and carriages replied by pointing out that the milestones were official and that they themselves paid more carriage duty on the extra mileage; a generally conclusive retort.

III

The earliest coaches made no pretence of taking the traveller to Holyhead. Chester was the _ultima thule_ of wheeled conveyance when Sir William Dugdale and Pennant kept diaries, or when Swift wrote. We have already seen that the Chester stage took six days, and therefore the horrors of the journey described by Swift about the year 1700, were protracted as well as acute. Whether or not he ever really made the journey by coach is uncertain, but if so, he certainly for ever after rode horseback. But here is his picture of such an experience:—

Resolv’d to visit a far-distant-friend, A Porter to the Bull and Gate I send, And bid the man, at all events, engage _Some_ place or other in the Chester stage. The man returns—“’Tis done as soon as said; Your Honour’s sure when once the money’s paid. My brother whip, impatient of delay, Puts to at three and swears he cannot stay.” (Four dismal hours before the break of day.) Rous’d from sound sleep—thrice call’d—at length I rise, Yawning, stretch out my arm, half-closed my eyes; By steps and lanthorn enter the machine, And take my place—how cordially!—between Two aged matrons of excessive bulk, To mend the matter, too, of meaner folk; While in like mood, jamm’d in on t’other side, A bullying captain and a fair one ride, Foolish as fair, and in whose lap a boy— _Our_ plague eternal, but _her_ only joy. At last, the glorious number to complete, Steps in my landlord for that bodkin seat; When soon, by ev’ry hillock, rut, and stone, Into each other’s face by turns we’re thrown. _This_ grandam scolds, _that_ coughs, the captain swears, The fair one screams and has a thousand fears; While our plump landlord, train’d in other lore, Slumbers at ease, nor yet asham’d to snore; And Master Dicky, in his mother’s lap, Squalling, at once brings up three meals of pap. Sweet company! Next time, I do protest, Sir, I’d walk to Dublin, ere I’d ride to Chester!

[Illustration: YARD OF THE “BULL AND MOUTH,” ST. MARTIN’S-LE-GRAND. _From an old Print._]

This engine of torture was, however, well patronised.

The first stage-coach to ply between London and Holyhead was the conveyance promoted chiefly by that enterprising Shrewsbury innkeeper, Robert Lawrence. It started in 1780, and went through Coventry, Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, Llangollen, Corwen, and Conway, thus keeping pretty closely to the course taken by the modern Holyhead Road. It lay the first night at Castle Bromwich, the second at Oswestry, and the third (if God permitted) at Holyhead. Five years later (in the summer of 1785) the first mail-coach to Chester and Holyhead was established, going by Northampton, Welford, Lutterworth, Hinckley, Atherstone, Tamworth, Lichfield, Wolseley Bridge, Stafford, Eccleshall, Woore, Nantwich, Tarporley, Chester, and St. Asaph. This, the only mail route to Holyhead until 1808, measured 278 miles 7 furlongs, and was the longest of all ways. Other roads for many years led by Oxford and Stratford-on-Avon, and were used by some of the smartest coaches to the end of the coaching age; but the shortest route, the great “Parliamentary” road to Holyhead, measures 260½ miles. In 1808 the London, Birmingham, and Shrewsbury Mail, through Oxford, was extended to Holyhead, going by Llangollen, Corwen, and Capel Curig. It ran thus until 1817, when it was transferred to the direct Coventry route. The Holyhead Road had then begun to be reformed, and the direct Mail took precedence over the old “Holyhead and Chester Mail,” still going by its old course.

The “New Holyhead Mail,” as it was officially named, then started from the “Swan with Two Necks,” in Lad Lane, every evening at 7.30, and took 38 hours about the business. In 1826, the year when the Menai Bridge was opened, the time was cut down to 32¾ hours, and in 1830 to 29 hours 17 minutes, the mail arriving at Holyhead at 1.17 on the second morning after it had left London. In 1836 and the last two years of its existence, the journey was performed in 26 hours 55 minutes; the arrival timed for 10.55 p.m.

Here is the time-bill for that last and best achievement:—

MILES. LONDON dep. 8.0 P.M. 15 South Mimms arr. 9.40 „ 25 Redbourne „ 10.44 „ 45 Little Brickhill „ 12.32 A.M. 52¼ Stony Stratford „ 1.26 „ 60¼ Towcester „ 2.12 „ 72½ Daventry „ 3.25 „ 80¼ Dunchurch „ 4.11 „ 91¼ Coventry „ 5.18 „ 100 Stonebridge „ 6.8 „ 109¼ Birmingham { arr. 7.8 „ { dep. 7.43 „ 117¼ Wednesbury arr. 8.28 „ 122¼ Wolverhampton „ 9.1 „ 137½ Shiffnal „ 10.14 „ 141½ Haygate „ 10.59 „ 152 Shrewsbury { arr. 11.59 „ { dep. 12.4 P.M. 160½ Nesscliff arr. 12.53 „ 170 Oswestry „ 1.46 „ 182½ Llangollen „ 2.58 „ 192½ Corwen { arr. 3.55 „ { dep. 4.0 „ 198¼ Tynant arr. 5.1 „ 205¾ Cernioge „ 5.39 „ 220 Capel Curig „ 7.2 „ 228 Tyn-y-Maes „ 7.46 „ 234 Bangor { arr. 8.20 „ { dep. 8.25 „ 237 Menai Bridge arr. 8.43 „ 247½ Mona Inn „ 9.43 „ 260½ HOLYHEAD „ 10.55 „

The man who made that achievement possible was Thomas Telford. Long before his aid was sought, the question of improving the communications between the two countries had become a burning one. The Irish members, meeting no longer on St. Stephen’s Green, had a grievance in the circumstance of their journeys to the Imperial Parliament at Westminster being both tedious and hazardous, and this question of road-reform was the first raised by them. The Government, in reply, appointed a Commission; Rennie, the foremost engineer of his day, was called in to advise upon the harbours of Holyhead and Howth, and Telford in 1810 to plan the road improvements.

Exactly what the road was like before it was improved under Telford, let the Report of the Commissioners on Holyhead Roads and Harbours tell:—“Many parts are extremely dangerous for a coach to travel upon. From Llangollen to Corwen the road is very narrow, long, and steep; has no side fence, except about a foot and a half of mould or dirt, thrown up to prevent carriages falling down three or four hundred feet into the river Dee. Stage-coaches have been frequently overturned and broken down from the badness of the road, and the mails have been overturned. Between Maerdy, Pont-y-Glyn, and Dinas Hill, there are a number of dangerous precipices, steep hills, and difficult narrow turnings. At Dinas Hill the width of the road is not more than twelve feet at the steepest part of the hill, and with a deep precipice on one side; two carriages cannot pass without the greatest danger. At Ogwen Pool there is a very dangerous place, where the water runs over the road; extremely difficult to pass at flooded times.” Arrived at Bangor there were the dangers of the ferry to be braved, and, after these, 26 miles of the perilous old road across Anglesey, even now to be traced by those curious in these things. What travelling to Holyhead and Dublin was like in those old times may best be shown by quoting an old diary of 1787, of an expedition from Grosvenor Square, London. The party consisted of a coach and four, a post-chaise and pair, and five outriders. They reached Holyhead in four days (expenses, so far, £77 1_s._ 3_d._), and crossed St. George’s Channel at a further cost of £37 2_s._ 1_d._; and cheap, too, as times then were.

The first idea of the Government towards improving the road was to indict twenty-one townships between Shrewsbury and Holyhead. It would have been an excellent notion, only for the fact that those places were quite unable to find the penalties actually recoverable at law, much less to reconstruct the road. A larger view of the necessities of the case had to be taken. The nation was already pledged to the construction of two harbours, and to the nation now fell the duty of making access to Holyhead Harbour moderately safe. The first practical result was the selection of Telford as engineer, to survey and report upon the 109 miles between Shrewsbury and Holyhead. Telford had already carried out many improvements for the Government in the Highlands, and had, years before, as Surveyor to the County of Salop and Engineer of the Ellesmere Canal, acquired a thorough knowledge of the road through North Wales. He made a survey in 1811, but it was not until 1815 that the Government finally adopted his report and that of the Commissioners, and the Treasury found the money for the work. It was then decided that improvements should be made along the whole length of road between London and Holyhead, but that the Shrewsbury to Holyhead portion being incomparably the worst, it should have the first attention. In the course of five years this first part of the work was completed. The general line of the old road was followed, along the valley of the Dee, and thence from Corwen, across the watershed to the Vale of Conway and to the summit-level at Ogwen Pool; descending from that point by the valley of Nant Ffrancon to Bangor and the Menai Straits. There a quarter of a mile of stormy water still separated the Isle of Anglesey from the mainland, and it was not until the January of 1826 that it was bridged. From the Anglesey side of the Straits an entirely new and direct road was made across the island to Holyhead, saving three miles, and giving a level route, instead of the precipitous old way.

In the result, the Holyhead Road through North Wales may, without hesitation, be pronounced the finest in the land. Passing though it does through the wildest scenery, nowhere is the gradient steeper than 1 in 20, while its width, from 28 to 34 feet, and its splendid surface render it safe and convenient. The old road, frequently as steep as 1 in 6½, and with its sides unprotected from the cliffs and torrents that terrified bygone generations, has almost wholly vanished under the new; but in those places where Telford did not merely remodel it, and took an entirely new line, its character may still be seen.

In 1820 the London to Shrewsbury portion of the work was begun, and the greater part completed by 1828. Minor improvements were made on it from time to time in after years, but it does not nearly compare with the more thorough work undertaken through North Wales. Parts remain rich in very steep hills, and powerful interests situated in the larger towns vetoed the cutting of new routes through crooked and awkward approaches, and so have left much to be desired. Telford himself died, in his seventy-seventh year, in 1834, but the Holyhead Road Commissioners were in existence for years afterwards, and continued to send forth Reports until 1851. For a long period, however, before that time those documents, containing as they do only the surveyors’ reports as to the condition of the road and bridges, have nothing of interest. The last paper of importance is the Parliamentary Return of 1839, giving the sum of the expenses incurred on the whole length of road, including improvement of the road from Bangor to Chester, and cost of building the Menai and Conway bridges. The total amount was £697,963 14_s._ 9_d._, of that sum £164,489 7_s._ 9_d._ was granted by Parliament towards the work as a national undertaking: the remaining £533,474 7_s._ 0_d._ lent by the Treasury, to be repaid by the Commissioners out of the tolls. In 1839, according to a return made to Parliament by the Office of Woods and Forests, £250,880 5_s._ 9¼_d._ had been thus repaid. That very little of the balance found its way back to the Treasury may confidently be asserted. But, however that matter stands, certainly the work was done with rigid economy and, considering its nature and extent, at a very small cost.

Some part of the cost of the improved road fell upon the letter writers of that day. The postage of a letter to Ireland was sixteen pence, made up of the following items:—

_s._ _d._ Inland postage to Holyhead 1 0 Conway Bridge 0 1 Menai Bridge 0 1 Sea postage 0 2 — — 1 4 == ==

It made no difference that the direct Holyhead Mail went nowhere near the Conway Bridge: letters for Ireland were still charged that penny, until Penny Postage came in 1841 and treated all places in the United Kingdom alike.

IV

Meanwhile, stage-coaching had also been revolutionised. The growth of Birmingham and the great commercial industries of the Midlands had rendered the old methods too slow and cumbrous; and the ancient coaches, supported on leather straps, and with curtained windows, starting once, twice or thrice a week, according to distance travelled, performing their slow and toilsome pilgrimages by daylight and resting at sundown, gave place to the well-appointed vehicles, hung on steel springs, and with glazed windows, that ran from either end, every day, and continued their journeys throughout the night. No longer was it possible to drive the same wretched animals the whole length of the weary day, but changes at every ten or twelve miles came into vogue, and speed consequently increased. The greatest period of coaching on the Holyhead Road dawned in 1823, when the London and Birmingham “Tally-Ho” began to run. This was often called “Mountain’s Tally-Ho,” being horsed out of London by Mrs. Sarah Ann Mountain, of the “Saracen’s Head,” Snow Hill. It was a day coach, and one of the first to run “double,” that is to say, with up and down coaches every day. It left London at 7.45 a.m. and Birmingham at 7 a.m. Its popularity was very soon challenged by eager competitors, for in the following year the “Independent Tally-Ho” was put on the road by Horne, of the “Golden Cross,” Charing Cross, starting an hour and a quarter earlier from London, and a quarter of an hour earlier from Birmingham, with the idea of securing the “Tally-Ho’s” custom. From this time, coaches of this popular name multiplied until their number was quite bewildering. In 1830, the “Original Tally-Ho” was started, and in 1832, the “Real” and the “Patent Tally-Hoes.” A picture by J. Pollard of the “Tally-Ho” and “Independent” nearing London on a summer afternoon, about 1828, shows that if one did actually start before the other, they both reached London together. The scene is the “Crown,” Holloway Road, a house now numbered 622 in that thoroughfare, and rebuilt about 1865, but still bearing the same name, situated at the corner of Landseer Road.

[Illustration:

“TALLY-HO” AND “INDEPENDENT TALLY-HO,” LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM COACHES, NEARING LONDON, 1828.

_From a Print after J. Pollard._ ]

In 1825 all previous efforts were eclipsed by the “Wonder” coach, between London and Shrewsbury, established in that year. It was the first to perform much over a hundred miles a day, and, starting from the “Bull and Mouth,” St. Martin’s-le-Grand, at 6.30 a.m., was in Shrewsbury, 154 miles distant, at 10.30 the same night. It aroused extraordinary competition. A “No Wonder,” running three days a week from Birmingham lasted a season, and is heard of no more; but a more thoroughgoing rival was the “Nimrod,” from Shrewsbury, put on the road in 1834. How the proprietors of the “Wonder” started the “Stag,” and successfully “nursed” the “Nimrod,” will be found recorded under Shrewsbury. There were at this competitive time more coaches on the Holyhead Road than on any other. So far as Barnet, there were eighteen mails and one hundred and seventy-six other coaches, besides road-waggons, post-chaises, and other vehicles. Some of them turned off at Hockliffe for Manchester and Liverpool, but the greater number continued to Birmingham. The London and Birmingham “Greyhound” was started in 1829, and ran light, with an imperial on the roof, to prevent luggage being placed there. Passengers’ luggage must be sent to the office in time to be forwarded by the “Economist.” So ran the notice. Both the “Greyhound” and the “Economist” were night coaches: the latter, the luggage-carrier, starting an hour earlier. It was at one time proposed to light the “Greyhound” with gas, but when it was found that the gas-tank would take up the space in the fore-boot wanted for parcels, the idea was relinquished. The down “Greyhound” was ingeniously robbed in March 1835 by a gang who set to work very cleverly. Two inside places were booked by the thieves at the “Swan with Two Necks,” and the two remaining places at the “Angel,” Islington. When the coach reached Hockliffe, two of the confederates alighted, and the other two left at Stony Stratford. Nothing was discovered until Coventry was reached, when the guard, feeling about inside, found that one of the parcels gave way. On his leaning against it, away it went into the boot, which had been cut open, and a bank parcel, containing 300 sovereigns and a bill of exchange for £120 extracted. There is no record of the thieves ever having been discovered. They disappeared, just as did those who walked with bank-notes to the value of £4002 from the Birmingham “Balloon Post Coach,” when standing in the yard of the “Swan with Two Necks,” December 12th, 1822. £1000 was offered for the discovery of the thieves, and the notes were stopped, but the results do not appear.

Horrified horse-owners, and old-fashioned persons with prejudices against invention and progress, raise outcries against the pace of motor-cars, and have succeeded in reducing the legal speed on roads from the original 14 miles an hour allowed by Act of Parliament to the 12 miles permitted by an order of the Local Government Board; but the pace attained toward the close of the coaching era by some of the crack coaches was much higher. The rival “Tally-Ho” and “Independent Tally-Ho” coaches, for instance, ran certain stages up to 18¾ miles an hour, and only on one stage did they drop down to 12 miles. “Furious driving,” indeed, and vouched for by the contemporary _Coventry Chronicle_, May 8th, 1830, which well heads its report, “Extraordinary Travelling”:—

“Saturday se’night, being May-day, the usual competition took place between the London Coaches. The “Independent Tally-ho,” running between Birmingham and London, performed a feat altogether unparalleled in the annals of Coaching, having travelled the distance of one-hundred-and-nine miles in seven hours and thirty-nine minutes.

“The following is a correct account of the time it took to perform the distance, horsed by the various proprietors:—Mr. Horne, from London to Colney, seventeen-and-quarter miles, in one-hour-and-six minutes;—Mr. Bowman, from Colney to Redbourne (where the passengers, stopped six minutes for breakfast), seven-and-half miles, in twenty-six minutes;—Mr. Morris, from Redbourne to Hockliffe, twelve-and-quarter miles, in one-hour-and-four minutes;—Mr. Warden, from Hockliffe to Shenley, eleven miles, in forty-seven minutes;—Mr. May, from Shenley to Daventry, twenty-four miles, in one-hour-and-forty-nine minutes;—Mr. Garner, from Daventry to Coventry, nineteen-and-quarter miles, in one-hour-and-twelve minutes;—Mr. Radenhurst, from Coventry to Birmingham, seventeen-and-three quarter miles, in one-hour-and-fifteen minutes.

“The ‘Original Tally-ho’ performed the same distance in seven-hours-and-fifty minutes.”

The extraordinary feat of the “Independent-Tally-ho” recorded above, excelled the performances of that famous coach, the “Quicksilver” Exeter mail; but that is nothing compared with the passengers’ feat of swallowing a breakfast in the six minutes allowed for that meal at Redbourne. It is probably no great hazard to guess that those unhappy passengers had no breakfast at all on that historic occasion.

It is not to be supposed that coaching was an altogether safe method of travelling, especially when feats of this kind were indulged in; but it must be acknowledged that comparatively few of the accidents happened when racing. Among the disasters that now and again occurred, besides those recorded elsewhere in these pages, the following specimens, from October 1834 to the close of 1837, are typical:—

1834, October.—Shrewsbury “Union” overturned at Overley Hill, near Wellington. The coach was heavily laden and one of the hind wheels collapsed. One of the outsides, a Mr. Newey, of Halesowen, jumped off, but not far enough, and the coach and luggage fell on him, killing him. He died the next morning, at the Haygate inn.

1834, October.—“Nimrod.” Coachman thrown off near Haygate, and killed on the spot.

1834, October.—Lichfield and Wolverhampton coach. A jockey, named Calloway, had his leg broken by being thrown off in an upset. In August 1835 he was awarded £210 damages.