Tag: British Road History

  • A History of the A5 in Wales

    A History of the A5 in Wales

    The A5 is one of many roads, too long, too old, and too loaded with history, to be contained in a single post. So, this post looks at the A5 through Wales, which has its own, particular history.

    A Beginning

    William Cecil, Baron Burghley

    In 1561, Elizabeth I’s chief minister William Cecil gave orders “for the laying of the Posts”.
    Holinshed tells us, it meant “there should be set Posts appointed between London and Ireland.”1
    Better still, the mail went to Ireland from Holyhead, not by the A5, it’s true, but from Chester.
    So, Holyhead? Yes.
    The Holyhead Road? Not yet.

    Owain Glyndŵr’s statue in Corwen

    Of course people had lived along the route of the A5 from prehistoric times, and they would have used the river valleys, just as Thomas Telford did, and the road still does.
    There were Iron Age hillforts at Dinas Bran near Llangollen, and Caer Drewyn, a mile north of Corwen, Caer Drewyn is associated with Owain Glyndŵr, whose dramatic statue stands in the square in Corwen.

    Needless to say, the Romans caused trouble. In 60 CE, Guias Suctonius Paulinus led an expedition to root out resistance from the druids of Anglesey, (Mona to the Romans). He didn’t use the A5 route, but went from Chester, round the north coast, to Bangor, where they crossed the Menai Strait. He made short, and bloody work of the Britons, before having to hurry away to help with a bit of local difficulty in England: Boudica’s uprising.

    Sites of known Roman Forts along the A5


    There was a Roman fort, perhaps two, at Rhyn Park, across the A5 from Chirk.2 From there, twenty miles of road, ran north of the Dee, to the Rhug Estate, near Corwen, which, today, boasts North Wales’s most exclusive farm shop.3
    The road may have continued, because further west, near the A5, are earthworks believed to mark a short stretch of Roman road. Another fort stood, from around 90 CE, north of the A5, near Capel Curig.4 Perhaps the first stirrings of the A5?

    Middle Years: No Real Road

    When Ogilby mapped the Road to Holyhead in the1670s, he followed the post route from Chester to Conway, where he marks a ferry over the river, in use until Thomas Telford’s Conway Suspension Bridge arrived in 1826.5 He does, however, give us an insight into the perilous nature of the Menai Strait crossing in the late seventeenth century.
    It all depended on the state of the tide. When low, the postboy might follow a narrow, steep path over the seaward edge of Penmaenmawr mountain to reach what Ogilby calls “The Sands.”

    “The Ascent being rough and steep, giving you a perpendicular Precipice or Declivity on the Right to the Sea, and a kind of over-hanging Rock of as great a height on the Left.”6

    Intrepid voyagers then went across the mud to the water’s edge, where they hoped to attract the attention of the ferryman in Beaumaris. The boat was designed to take a horse, though it must have been a hazardous business rowing across the Strait with a horse on board.
    If the tide were high, and you were not prepared to wait, you were forced to make the equally difficult trip along the Sychnant Pass. and over the top of Penmaenmawr Mountain.7 Having braved this peril, you continued to Bangor for a ferry to the town of Pothaethwy, which today is called, by the English at least, Menai Bridge.

    The two Menai Strait crossing given by Ogilby

    Ogilby’s route across Anglesey is difficult to plot on a modern map, and has nothing to do with the A5. Eventually, he marks Llanenghhennel, the modern Llanynghenedl, now on the A5025, about eight miles from Holyhead. To reach Holy Island, the options were:

    “observe the Right-hand Way to Cleveock Sands, leading to Holyhead when the Tide is out, otherwise you proceed by Way of the Bridg, unless 4 Furlongs farther you pass over the Sands and Rocks, all uniting before you come to Holyhead.”8

    Going “by Way of the Bridg” refers to the road to Trearddur Bay, over Four Mile Bridge, which has been there since, at least, 1530.9 The bridge derives its name, not from its length, which would be amazing, but because it was reckoned to be four miles from Holyhead. The Road to Holyhead Ogilby described remained, more or less, the accepted route for the next hundred years.

    Turnpikes to the Rescue?

    Eventually, about halfway through the eighteenth century, turnpike roads began to push along the road. You could ride, or drive, along a turnpike between Shrewsbury to Oswestry from 1752, and by 1777, have followed turnpikes through Llangollen, Corwen, and on another fifteen miles to Pentrefoelas.

    Turnpike routes through Central Wales in the secon half of the 18th century
    The bridge at Llanrwst, possibly designed by Inigo Jones

    At Pentrefoelas, you abandoned the A5 to go through Nebo, to Llanrwst. Here you crossed the Conway over Pont Fawr, possibly designed by Inigo Jones. After that, you headed north to meet the Conway to Bangor turnpike.

    This cross-country route was necessary, first because it avoided the ferry at Conway. Secondly, beyond Pentrefoelas the way was still little more than a track, with the section through the Nant Ffrancon Pass unuseble for much of the year

    Lord Penrhyn’s road from Capel Curig to Port Penrhyn

    Then, in 1790, a quarry owner, Lord Penrhyn, began work on a road from Capel Curig, through Nant Ffrancon, as far as Llandygai so he could move slate to his harbour at Bangor. His lordship didn’t need to go to Pentrefoelas, so the road there from Capel Curig remained as bad as ever.

    Twelve years on, the Capel Curig Turnpike Trust took responsibility for maintaining the whole stretch from Pentrefoelas to Llandygai. It didn’t follow the exact route of the A5, but crossed the Conway several times using pack-horse bridges. One such, Pont Rhydllanfair, with its telltale low parapets, can still be found by taking a left off the A5 by the Ty’r Bont B&B, (which I think is still there?) about three miles from Pentrefoelas, signed for Cwm Eidda. From Capel Curig, the turnpike could follow Lord Penrhyn’s road.
    Once cross the Menai Strait, the first stop was the Three Tuns Inn. It’s still there, on Cambria Road, Menai Bridge, though now called the Cambria, and is no longer an inn.10 After that, you took the Porthaethwy Ferry to Holyhead turnpike, (1765 to 1823);11 not the A5 route, but cross-country to Llanynghenedl, and over Four Mile Bridge.

    Thomas Telford’s Holyhead Road

    Thomas Telford

    Following the Act of Union with Ireland in 1800, traffic along the road increased, as did the volume of complaints about the lamentable state of the road. In 1810, it was decided something must be done. That something was Thomas Telford’s survey of the road between Shrewsbury and Holyhead, published in 1811.
    The government, as ever, was reluctant to lay out the cash, particularly with the war against Bonaparte at full pitch. So the Holyhead Road Commission was not established until 1815, but at least, Telford was made its engineer in chief. He straightway set about building a road that would be the A5 through Wales. The surface was smooth, slightly cambered, to allow water run off, and the gradient never more than 1 in 22.

    Telford’s Waterloo Bridge

    Telford also built two bridges along the road that were critical to the whole project.
    The first was the Waterloo Bridge over the Conway at Betws-y-Coed. The cast legend on the bridge reads: “This arch was constructed in the same year the Battle of Waterloo was fought,” though it was not actually completed until 1816.12

    Telford’s Menai Strait Bridge

    The second is the, more famous, suspension bridge across the Menai Strait, started in 1819, though not opened until 1826.13 At the time, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, and stood thirty metres above the water to allow tall-masted ships so sail under it. Work has been done on it over the years, but Telford’s basic structure still carries the A5 over the Strait.

    Telford’s road across Anglesey, which became the A5

    Once on Anglesey, faced with the dreadful state of the old turnpikes, Telford created an entirely new road. It went through Llanfairpwllgwyngyll (Llanfair PG), Gaerwen, Gwalchmai, Bryngwran, and Caergeiliog, with a 120-foot embankment across the Stanley Sands to reach Holy Island.
    By the time he was finished, he had transformed the Holyhead road in Wales from being one of the worst roads in the land into one of the best. As a result, by 1828, the journey time for the New Royal Mail coach from London to Holyhead was 32 ¾ hours.14 He had also laid out the line of the future A5.

    All Change

    Robert Stephenson’s Victoria bridge.

    The railways eventually arrived, and from 1837, as lines were opened, coach routes closed.
    The London to Holyhead mail coach through Shrewsbury ended in May 1838, though a coach continued to collect the Holyhead mail from Birmingham station until October 1847.
    By 1850, Robert Stephenson’s Britannia Bridge was carrying the railway over the Menai Strait, which meant from then, the post went by train. For the Holyhead Road, the great days of the stage coach were over.

    The route of the A5 in 1923, with today’s Chirk bypass

    In a sense, the Welsh section of the road never recovered. Nonetheless, it was Telford’s route that the Ministry of Transport made the A5 through Wales.
    Of course, changes have come. We now have the Chirk Bypass, finally opened in 1991. It runs north/south past the village, as far as the Halton Roundabout. Here you need to take the first exit, a sharp westerly turn, which takes you to the Whitehurst Roundabout, to connect with the old line of the A5.


    After Chirk, the 1923 version of the road picks up the modern A5 south of Pentre, and it is mostly Telford’s road until you come to the junction with the A55 North Wales Expressway. The A55 has become the dominant road, from the Llys Gwynt Interchange to Holyhead Port.
    The A5, Telford’s A5, is still there, a two-way road, passing through the same towns and villages it did in his day. The Stanley Bank, affectionately known as The Cob, still carries the A5 onto Holy Island, and so to the port.

    Back at the Menai Straits, there has been some chopping and changing. The A55 now runs along the upper deck of the new Britannia Bridge. Stephenson’s original burnt down in 1970, and its two-story replacement carried the A5 from 1980 to 2001. By then, the A55 had been made dual carriageway across Anglesey, and was routed over the Britannia Bridge, allowing the A5 to return to where it should be: Telford’s bridge.15

    Today, few of us use the A5 through Wales to reach Holyhead. Your satnav, or route-finding app, will point you to the North Wales Expressway. However, the A5 is still the only single digit ‘A’ road in Wales, and it continues to mark the boundary between zones 4 and 5. You might drive it to reach Snowdonia, or simply to enjoy a leisurely trip through lovely countryside, offering, in places, some of the most majestic, and stirring views to be seen on this island.

    The first three posts have all featured single digit roads, but the next post will be Part 1 of a 2 part look at the A57, which runns from Liverpool to Lincoln.

    1. Wright, Thomas, 1838. Queen Elizabeth and Her Times: A Series of Original Letters, Selected from the Inedited Private Correspondence of the Lord Treasurer Burghley, the Earl of Leicester, the Secretaries Walsingham and Smith, Sir Christopher Hatton, and Most of the Distinguished Persons of the Period, Volume 1, H Coburn ↩︎
    2. White, Kevan, 2018 Roman Britain: Rhyn Park, Roman Britain Website, http://roman-britain.co.uk/places/rhyn_park.htm ↩︎
    3. Cooke, Richard, 2016, Ty’n Y Llidiart, B5437, Corwen, Denbighshire, LL21 9RJ.October 2016 V 2.0, Aeon Archaeology ↩︎
    4. Wiles, John, 2007, Caer Llugwy, Bryn-y-Gefeiliau Roman Site, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales Website, http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/95274/details/caer-llugwy-bryn-y-gefeiliau-roman-site ↩︎
    5. Wats, Edward, 1917, The Royal Mail to Ireland, Edward Arnold ↩︎
    6. Ogilby, John, 1699. The Traveller’s Guide, or a Most Exact description of the Roads of England, Abel Swall ↩︎
    7. Ayres, George, 2017. History of the Mail Routes to Ireland until 1850, Lulu.com ↩︎
    8. Ogilby, John, 1699. The Traveller’s Guide, or a Most Exact description of the Roads of England, Abel Swall ↩︎
    9. Cooke, Richard, 2011. Capel Horeb, Four Mile Bridge, Isle of Anglesey Archaeological Building Record, Gwynedd Archaeological Trust, ↩︎
    10. British Listed Buildings, The Cambria, British Listed Buildings Website ↩︎
    11. Rosevear, Alan, 2008. Turnpike Roads in England and Wales Website, http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/ ↩︎
    12. History Points, Waterloo Bridge, Betws-y-coed, HistoryPoints.org Website, http://historypoints.org/index.php?page=waterloo-bridge-betws-y-coed ↩︎
    13. Ayres, George, 2017, History of the Mail Routes to Ireland until 1850, Lulu.com. ↩︎
    14. Cary, John, 1828. Cary’s new itinerary; or, an accurate delineation of the great roads, both direct and cross, throughout England and Wales; with many of the principal roads in Scotland, Published by G & J Cary, 86 St James Street ↩︎
    15. Britannia Bridge, SABRE Website, https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Britannia_Bridge ↩︎
  • Settling the A1

    Settling the A1

    Avatar photo

    By AJ

    This first post is about what happened to the A1 between when it got its number, in 1923, to the road we have today.
    [There will be an article later on how the road numbers came about.]

    The A1 is the longest road in Britain, and one of the oldest. Some of it is Roman, though it’s possible stretches existed even before they arrived. Not the A1, of course, but the beginnings of the North Road, which is what it was held to be, for, getting on for, two thousand years. As the highway which connects the capital cities of two kingdoms, through the ages, armies have marched it, kings have travelled it, and people of note have voyaged it. Then there is the countless number of folk who have gone up and down it, but left no record, no trace. We must not forget, it is these nameless people who are, far and away, the overwhelming majority of those who have used The North Road, and still do.

    How Many North Roads?

    One of the decisions the newly created Ministry of Transport faced, just after the First World War, was the where the A1, pivotal to the whole scheme, should run. Such a thing sounds bizarre to us today, but in the nineteenth century, you could use a number of routes, and still feel you were on The North Road.
    Heading north, for Edinburgh, after Doncaster, you might go via Selby, to reach York. From there it was by Thirsk and Northallerton to reach Darlington. More and more though, during the coaching era, the mail had missed out York to go through Wetherby, Boroughbridge, and Topcliffe to reach Northallerton.

    Great or Old North Road

    Heading south, even at the height of the coaching boom, the road divided at Alconbury, outside Huntingdon. The left fork took you along The Old North Road, through Huntingdon, Royston, and Ware, arriving in London by Bishopsgate.
    (South of Royston, what was the Old North Road is now the A10, and I will devote future posts to it)
    The right fork, the Great North Road, went through Baldock and Hatfield, then Potters Bar, Barnet, Whetstone, and Finchley, and so into London along the Holloway Road and Islington.

    The stone marker, which stood where the two ways separated, has been moved to stand beside the B1043, once the Great North Road, near, what was, the Alconbury airbase. It informs southbound travellers that, to reach London by the Old North Road, they still had sixty-five miles to go, while by the Great North Road it was sixty-eight.

    The A1 Arrives, but it’s not Right

    On 1st April 1923, the list of road numbers, and accompanying Ordnance Survey maps, were finally published. What they showed was, the A1 would follow the Great North Road past Alconbury. It would not go to York, but reach Darlington through Boroughbridge, Topcliffe and Northallerton.
    Such a route may have been convenient in the days of stagecoaches, but not for cars. There must have been shaking of heads and sucking of teeth at the ministry, but they decided something must be done.
    As it happened, there was another road, known as Leeming Lane, running north from Boroughbridge, following the line of a Roman road, called Dere Street. On the official map, Leeming Lane was numbered A66, which ran from Hull, through York, to Penrith.
    Perhaps they could move the A1?
    Radical! But, it’s what they did. By the end of 1924 the A1 ran along Leeming Lane as far as Scotch Corner, before heading north-east to Darlington. This was a novel route for the North Road, though today, it seems it was the way the A1 must always have gone, but of course, it wasn’t.

    Bypasses and other Disruptions

    Needless to say, it wasn’t the end of the matter. Leaving London, the A1 continued to follow the line of the Great North Road, through Barnet and Potters Bar, until 1927.
    Then, the Barnet Bypass opened. It started where Archway Road met North Hill, coming up through Highgate Village. Here, you took a left turn off the A1, onto a new stretch of road which took you to the North Circular. After about half a mile, you turned right onto Great North Way, and on to Watford Way. It was initially given the number A5903, which seemed bizarre to me, until someone at SABRE pointed out that, at the time, the ministry simply gave new roads the next number on their list.

    Apex Corner in the 1920s

    Next you would look out for a further right turn, already known as Apex Corner by the 1920s. Now you were on the southern end of the A5092, which fed you back onto the A1, just beyond Hatfield.It was the blueprint for the A1, as we now have it. In fact, it became the way you would have been most likely to choose through the 1930s and 40s. By 1937 the Barnet Bypass had been renumbered A555, and was part of the London to Edinburgh trunk route, even though the A1 still ran from Highgate, through Barnet, to Hatfield. It was not until 1954, the year after Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, that from the top of Archway Road past Apex Corner to Hatfield was numbered A1. The original Great North Road route, through Barnet and Potters Bar, became the A1000, as it is today.


    The A1 was never given time to settle. More than fifteen bypasses had arrived before the outbreak of World War Two.
    The war put abreak on things, but it all got going again at the beginning of the 1960s. One of the most significant changes was the Doncaster Bypass, opened in the summer of 1961, which put the A1 onto an entirely new route from Markham Moor to Aldwick le Street. As a result, not only Doncaster, but towns such as Retford and Bawtry were no longer on the A1.

    By 1970 Darlington and Durham were bypassed when the road just north of Scotch Corner was upgraded to motorway standard. And then, in the south the A1 had to accommodate the coming of the M25. By the end of 1975, Bignell’s Corner, a three-level roundabout where the M25 crosses the A1, was being built. It marked the southerly limit of the A1(M), though Junction 1 was not fully there until 1979, and it would take another seven years for the A1(M) to join up with the Stevenage Bypass. Then one day in late 1986, as we drove towards London on the A1, Hatfield had disappeared, and we simply sped through the Galleria tunnel. It was somehow unnerving.

    “Improvements” continued, often causing frustration and annoyance. But, as with banging your head on the wall, it was better when it stopped. Between the A14 spur at Alconbury, (which has since become the A3107) and the A 605 junction for Peterborough, the road was upgraded to motorway standard in 1998, to give a ten-mile stretch with four lanes in each direction. By the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, all the roundabouts, between Buckden and the one giving access to Berwick-upon-Tweed, had disappeared.
    Then, after seven years tribulation, the whole of the road from Darrington, near Pontefract, to Leeming Barr was upgraded in 2012. The stretch after Scotch Corner that bypasses Barton was finally raised to A1(M) status in 2018, making the road a motorway up to junction 65, south of Gateshead. After that, it’s just A1 again, though still dual carriageway past Newcastle, to a little north of Morpeth.
    From then on, the A1, one of the country’s major thoroughfares, keeps reverting to a single carriageway road reminiscent of the late 1940s. There are bursts of dual carriageway, such as the ten-mile section which bypasses Felton and Alnwick, but it is more or less two-way traffic north of the Tweed. As you go on, you come across two stretches of dual carriageway, one of which takes you into Scotland, but fades away after about a mile. Until you reach the Dunbar bypass, opened in 2004 the A1 barely has the feel of a twenty-first century highway, but from then on, it is good dual carriageway, albeit with roundabouts, all the way to Edinburgh.
    Over three years up to 2020 the A1 between Buckden and Alconbury Hill was seriously disrupted, not for its benefit but as a result of upgrading the A14.


    Has the A1 settled?

    Given its history, I doubt it
    As I write, work on the A421 flyover at the Black Cat Roundabout is causing the usual disruption. No doubt it will be better when it stops.
    Will they put another lane on the Doncaster Bypass? It’s been mentioned, but I can’t find any definite plans. What’s for sure is, however permanent roads seem to be as we drive along them, it is an illusion. Even a road as venerable as the A1 has taken decades to settle; the North Road centuries. My guess is, it may never finally settle.

    In the next post, we’re gong North of the Border, to look at the A8/M8, the road from Edinburgh, through Glasgow, to Greenock.