Tag: British Road History

  • History Along the A53: Buxton through the Potteries to Shrewsbury

    History Along the A53: Buxton through the Potteries to Shrewsbury

    Though the A53 only covers some fifty-five miles, there is more history along it than you might expect. As a result, this post is slightly longer than some. The road is mostly rural, some of it dating back to the Romans, except for where it goes through Stoke-on-Trent, the historic centre of Britain’s pottery industry.

    The Roman Connection

    Buxton has a natural warm spring, so of course, the Romans were there. They called the town ‘Aquae Arnemetiae’, built bathhouses, and made votive offering at the spring itself. A hoard of coins, whose dates covered the occupation period, was found in 1975.1 The only other ‘Aquae’ town in Britain was Bath, in Somerset.

    Romans built a road from Buxton to Leek, which, as today, kept just east of Axe Edge Moor, offering spectacular views over the Derbyshire landscape. This part of the A53 mostly follows the route the Romans laid out.
    After Leek, the Romans left the line of our road, and went to Blythe Bridge.

    There it met a road from Little Chester, in Derby, which went through Blythe Bridge, to a fort and settlement at Chesterton, just north of Newcastle-under-Lyme.2 That road, continued through Middlewich with a branch going to Chester, while another headed north to cross the Mersey at Warrington. It was a part of a network of roads in the area, including one running directly from Buxton to Little Chester.

    Saxon Settlements along the A35

    A Page from the Domesday Book.

    One way to get some idea of which towns and villages arrived along the road in the Saxon period is to see if they are listed in the Domesday Book of 1087. Of course Buxton and Leek appear, but then there is no other settlement until you reach Burslem, (which is listed as Bacardeslim) so is Woolstanton. Neither are on our A53, but they were on the turnpike, until the 1840s.
    Further south-west, more places were already established by 1087. Before you reach Market Drayton, which is in the book, we find Whitmore, recorded as Witemore. Beyond Market Drayton, Wolerton, and Hodnet, are both in Domesday. They aren’t on today’s A53, but were until the 2003 bypass arrived. Shawbury and Shrewsbury, both founded in the Saxon era, are listed. A line of settlements, yes, but no record of a road, though there must have been one, we just donโ€™t know where it ran.

    The A53 in the High and Late Middle Ages

    A section of the Gough Map showing Shrewsbury and Newcastle-under-Lyme. There is a road going from Shrewsbury to Chester, while the road through Newcastle comes from Stafford, through Stone. It continues west before swinging north to reach Warrington, much as the Roman road did.

    Throughout this period, it is difficult to find direct evidence for a road which might be the forerunner of the A57. The Gough Map, from the late fourteenth century, does mark Shrewsbury and Newcastle-under-Lyme, though no sign of a road. That does not always matter, but none of the other towns or villages along the way are given. The road shown tends to run more east-west than north-south.
    Important abbeys stood at Shrewsbury and Dieulacres, just north of Leek. Shrewsbury was pilgrim centre, but I can find no records of the roads along which pilgrims travelled.

    15th Century Battles along the Road: the Battle of Shrewsbury

    It is a sad fact that evidence of a road too often comes from warfare and battles. I have been saying the A53 runs from Buxton to Shrewsbury, in fact, it never reaches Shrewsbury, stopping about three miles to the north-east at Battlefield. The village gets its name from being the site of the Battle of Shrewsbury, in July 1403.3

    Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy, from a manuscript illustration

    On one side were the forces of Henry IV, who had deposed Richard II and seized the crown. Against him was an army led by Henry โ€˜Hotspurโ€™ Percy, the son of the Earl of Northumberland. Though they had helped Henry Bolingbroke to seize the crown, the Northumberlands had fallen out with him. Hotspur had been involved with trying to suppress Owain Glyndลตr’s uprising in Wales, but had changed sides, and was bent on taking Shrewsbury, and link up with the Welsh forces. Neither army marched along our road, but where the battle was fought marks the southerly end of todayโ€™s A53.

    Fragment of an 18th century picture of the Battle of Shrewsbury, from Pennantโ€™s โ€˜A tour in Walesโ€™4

    It was the usual bloody affair. Although Hotspur’s men were outnumbered, at first, they held off the king’s forces. In the end, though, they were overcome, and Henry โ€˜Hotspurโ€™ killed. The result was to consolidate Henry IVโ€™s grip on power.

    A manuscript illustration of John Bradmore removing the arrow from the face of Prince Henry, the future Henry V

    An interesting note is that Henry, Prince of Wales, the future King Henry V, (there are a lot of Henrys in this story) took part in the battle, though still only fifteen. During the fighting, an arrow hit him in the face, just beside his nose. He, refused to leave the field, fearing it would dishearten the troops, but later the London surgeon, John Bradmore, removed the shaft, leaving the arrowhead where it was. It is difficult to know what damage was done, but the arrow must have smashed Henry’s maxillary bone, and could have broken upper teeth, or pierced the nasal cavity. Whatever the case, he had to wait some days while Bradmore devised a special tool with which he was able to extract the rest of the arrow.5 The whole process must have been excruciatingly painful, and, remarkably, no serious infection developed. The Prince of Wales recovered, though he must have carried a scar for the rest of his life.

    15th Century Battles along the Road: the Battle of Blore Heath, 1459

    Another battle took place fifty-three years later, a little north of Market Drayton at a village now called Loggerheads, It is a relatively recent arrival, not marked in my 1952 Bartholomew Atlas. An inn, called the Three Loggerheads, which stood by the road from the sixteen hundreds is still there today, now called The Loggerheads, just off a mini-roundabout on the outskirts of the village. The name is the subject of some debate, but rather than celebrating three not very clever chaps, it probably refers to the three leopard heads, known as โ€˜loggerheadsโ€™, on the coat of arms of Shrewsbury.

    Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury

    The village wasnโ€™t there in September 1459, when Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, brought his troops towards Market Drayton, down the road from Newcastle-under-Lyme. He was hurrying to join forces with those of his bother-in-law, the Duke of York, at Ludlow. It led to the first set-piece battle in what we now call the Wars of the Roses, the Battle of Blore Heath.6

    Henry VI

    The tie to the Battle of Shrewsbury is, Henry IV grandson, Henry VI, was king. He suffered from a psychiatric disorder, which allowed other warlords, particularly Richard of York, to try for the throne. The king may not have been in a good way, but his queen, Margaret of Anjou, an intelligent and forceful character, had taken charge of the situation.

    Margaret of Anjou

    The Queen ordered Lord Audley to go to Market Drayton to cut-off Salisbury’s advance, and take him prisoner. It is likely the line of the road sat further north at the time, but eventually the opposing forces faced each other at Blore Heath, close to Loggerheads.
    The details of the battle are complicated, but Audley seems to have made a reckless charge, his forces becoming mired crossing a brook, allowing the Yorkists to counter-attack. The Lancastrian infantry joined the fray, and during the vicious struggle that ensued, Audley was killed. That was the end really, the Lancastrian troops broke, some joining the Yorkist ranks.

    Audley’s Cross near Loggerheads

    It is believed Margaret of Anjou watched the defeat of her army from the tower of St Maryโ€™s Mucklestone church, a mile north of the A53. The tower still stands, having survived several restorations to the rest of the building.
    A cross was erected at the spot Lord Audley died. It was replaced in 1765 with the stone one which stands today.


    Turnpikes Arrive Along the Road

    Weโ€™re skipping a couple of centuries because I canโ€™t find any evidence of a road from Buxton, through Newcastle-under-Lyme, to Shrewsbury during that time. One was there, for sure, but no record of it. None of the usual suspects, John Leland, John Ogilby, Celia Fiennes, are any help. They do show us Shrewsbury, and Newcastle-under-Lyme existed, but didnโ€™t use the road running between them.

    Turnpike Trusts along the road from ShrewsbuBuxton

    The first turnpike along the road was between Shrewsbury and Shawbury, came in 1756. It was part of a trust covering several roads, so is called the Preston Brockhurst Trust. That was it for nine years.

    In 1765, Josiah Wedgwood wrote, in a letter to his brother, โ€œWe pray toโ€ฆ. have the Road made turnpike from Buxton and Bakewell to Leek, & from Leek to Newcastle.โ€7

    His wish was partly granted, in that the bill establishing the Newcastle-under-Lyme and Leek Trust was passed that year. He had a wait until 1773 for the road from Leek to Buxton to have a turnpike. Meanwhile, two trusts, established in 1769, covered the road from Shawbury to Newcastle.
    Though the turnpikes laid down the basic outline of the future A53, they didn’t give the exact route.8 Weโ€™ve already seen that the villages Hodnet and Wollerton were on the road until 2003, and the Shawbury Turnpike ran through them. It must be remembered, there was no call for bypasses. Stage coaches needed to stop at inns every eight to ten miles. So the turnpikes went through the centre of Shawbury, and Market Drayton.

    The Turnpike Through Newcastle-under-Lyme

    Section of an Ordnace Survey mapof Newcastle-under-Lyme, 1876-78. ยฉ Library of Scotland

    Getting through Newcastle, matters became complicated. There was a north/south turnpike from before the Newcastle-under-Lyme and Drayton Trust began. The turnpike on our road would have come into Newcastle along Church Street to end at Lion Square. The square has gone now, but it sat where High Street, Liverpool Road and Bridge Street meet. The Newcastle-under-Lyme and Leek Trust, established four years earlier, took over, going along Merrial Street, which used to become Marsh street. On the late 1870s map, Nelson Place is marked, but it wasnโ€™t fully developed until 1818. In the eighteenth century, Marsh Street took you to Queen Street, and on towards Burslem.

    Through ‘The Potteries’

    Part of a sketch map drawn by Josiah Wedgwood, from a letter to Thomas Bentley, showing the Ridgehouse Estate, which became Etruria.

    The sketch map on the right, the Ridgehouse Estate, bought by Wedgwood in 1766. It shows the “Road to Newcastle” running past what would become Etruria in 1769. The blue line is the Trent and Mersey Canal, which wasn’t finished until 1777.
    The mid-eighteenth century was the period when the six towns, which we know as โ€˜The Potteries’, expanded to become one of the leading ceramic manufacturing centres in the World.
    The area, particularly around Burslem, had been known for its potters from at least the fourteenth century, if not before. It offered easily dug clays of several different types, and coal. In addition, people held their land as โ€˜Copyholdersโ€™9 which gave them more freedom to operate independently from the great landowners.

    Josiahs, Spode and Wedgwood

    The Wedgwood family were an established pottery makes, but Josiah Wedgwood, who opened his first ‘potbank’ in 1759, had the drive and vision essential to the explosive rise of โ€˜The Potteriesโ€™. He was by no means alone, however. The likes of William Greatbatch, Thomas Whieldon, and of course, Josiah Spode, among others, revolutionised what could be made from clay.

    A fragment from William Yates’ 1775 map of North Staffordshire

    How the turnpike make its way through ‘The Potteries’ is complicated. To try to make sense of it, we can turn to William Yateโ€™s map of North Staffordshire, 1775.10
    We see after it left Newcastle, the road climbed toward Corbridge, which is marked as Cow Bridge. It must have picked up the southern end of today’s Elder Road. This in turn fed into what we now know as Nile Street. One branch of the road continued north into Burslem. The road to Leek, though, took a right turn into Hot Lane, continuing on through Norton, to meet with the line of the modern A53 at Endon.

    The line of Leek New Road, which became the A53, with the route of the 1765 turnpike

    Weโ€™re not quite finished with the A53 turnpikes through the Potteries. A new, straight piece of road was built, starting about 1839, running off from the southern end of Elder Road, through Stockton Brook, to Endon. Leek New Road is still the line of our road today. From Endon, the turnpike pretty much mapped today’s A53 as far as Leek.

    Leek to Buxton

    A simplified map of the centre of Leek

    The basic road pattern in the centre of Leek hasnโ€™t changed much from the eighteenth century. The road from Derby, via Ashbourne to Stockport, the A523, runs north-west/south-east, with our A53 going in the other direction. Today you are kept away from the centre, directed along roads which were always there, but now form a ring round the town.
    The turnpikes, though, would have made for the Market Place, or Derby road to stop at one of the two principal inns the Red Lion, and The Roebuck, both still with us. They would then have set out, once more, along Stockwell Street to reached Buxton Road, which is todayโ€™s A53.
    From Leek, the turnpike went through Upper Hulme, which was bypassed in the 1950s and on to Flash Bar, a little north of Flash, the highest village in England.

    The Knights’ Table, once the Travvellers’ Rest at Flash Bar, on the turnpike to Buxton

    There was a tollgate here, and an inn called the Travellers Rest, which is now a bed and breakfast, called the Knightsโ€™ Table. In its time, Flash had a reputation for roguery. The remote setting, on the borders of Derbyshire, Cheshire, and Staffordshire, allowed the lawless to skip from one jurisdiction to another to avoid being arrested. The village was particularly known for counterfeiting coins, to the extent that โ€œFlash moneyโ€ entered the language.
    Just past Flash Bar, the road, which has been climbing steadily since leaving Leek, starts to head down, revealing sweeping views to your right. The turnpike went this way, down hill past the junction with a turnpike heading for Congleton, now the A54, and so into Buxton.

    Cycling along the Road

    As the turnpikes faded, a boom in cycling happened, all around the country. The North Staffordshire Bicycle Club began in the 1870s, in association with the Victoria Athletic Club, which was formed in 1868 to organise a sports meeting for the annual Wakes Week.

    Early map of the Victoria Athletic Ground, showing the oval track around the Football Ground, which became the home of Stoke City F.C.

    In 1878, the club opened the Victoria Athletic Ground, which included an oval cinder track, with space enough in the middle to be the home of Stoke City F.C. The Bicycle club held its first races there the same year.11
    Further on, we find the Leek and Moorlands Club, formed in 1876. It changed its name to Leek Cyclists’ Club, and is still going strong. As always, the enthusiasts who joined clubs were a tiny minority of the millions who cycled, pretty much everywhere, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
    Along the A53, though, cyclists may not have had it all their own way because horse-drawn transport must have continued at both ends of the road. The reason: only Stoke and Leek had a direct railway connection, which began in 1867. No trains ever ran from Buxton to Leek, or Stoke-on-Trent to Shrewsbury. So itโ€™s a good bet people used horses, carts, traps, and even carriages.

    Cars Begin to Arrive

    The Menely Cyclecar, 1920

    Cars took a time to arrive along the road.
    The Menley Motor Company12, in 1920, manufactured a ‘cyclecar’, between Newcastle and Etruria, on what would become the A52. It wasnโ€™t a great success. They only built sixteen of them, and went out of business within the year.

    The Jen-Tug, built in Stoke-on-Trent between 1947 and 1951

    Starting in 1947, Jensen manufactured commercial vehicles at their Campbell Road works in Stoke13. They pioneered lighter vehicles, and made an early articulated lorry, the ‘Jen-Tug’. The move to Stoke was always intended to be temporary, so in 1951 they transferred to their new plant at Kingswinford in the West Midlands.

    Today’s Road

    The Nicholson Memorial Tower

    It turns out the A53 has been an unusually stable road. Coming off a mini-roundabout on the A6 in Buxton, it takes you up over the moors, and down towards Leek as the Romans, and the turnpikes did.
    The route through Leek doesnโ€™t show you the best of the town, though you do pass the Memorial Tower, on the corner of Ball Haye Street and Ashbourne Road. It was built by Sir Arthur Nicholson in memory of his son, and the other sons of Leek, killed in the Great War.
    As you move on, apart from the bypass round Market Drayton which means you donโ€™t see much of the town, the A53 stays close to the late eighteenth century route.

    Through Stoke along Leek New Road, from the 1840s, and on to Etruria Road, to go past the New Vic Theatre, there is a worrying moment when the sign for the Nelson Place Roundabout only offers the A53 heading back for Leek. Grit your teeth and follow the A34, and eventually, you are on your way to Shrewsbury.
    Of course, you never reach the town, for our road stops at the Battlefield Roundabout, where it meets the A49 from Ludlow to Whitchurch.

    So we see the A53 is a short road with much to say for itself. The next post will be about a longer road, which also has much history running along it: the A10

    1. Aquae Arnemetiae, Historic England Research Records, Heritage Gateway Website, https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=306059&resourceID=19191 โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    2. Ratledge, David, 2026, Derbyshireโ€™s Roman Roads, Travelling with the Romans Website, https://www.twithr.co.uk/derbyshire/derbyshire.html โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    3. Shilston, Peter, G., 2018, The Battle of Shrewsbury, 1403,Peter G Shilstonโ€™s Blog
      https://petergshilstonsblog.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-battle-of-shrewsbury-1403.html โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    4. Pennant, Thomas, 1781, A Tour in Wales, Printed by Henry Hughes โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    5. Battle of Shrewsbury, BritishBattles.com, https://www.britishbattles.com/one-hundred-years-war/battle-of-shrewsbury/Battle โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    6. Historic England, 1994, English Heritage Battlefield Report: Blore Heath 1459, https://historicengland.org.uk/content/docs/listing/battlefields/blore-heath/ โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    7. Hunt, Tristram, 2021, The Radical Potter. Josiah Wedgwood and the Transformation of Britain, Allen Lane โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    8. Rosevear, Alan, 2023, Turnpike Roads in England and Wales Website, http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/ โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    9. Wedgwood, Josiah, C., 1913. Staffordshire Pottery and Its History, Sampson, Low, Marston & Co. โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    10. Yates 1775 Map of North Staffordshire โ€“ Public domain old map, https://picryl.com/media/yates1775mapofnorthstaffordshire-b9d7e6 โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    11. Baxter, Tony, 2025. Stoke-on-Trent โ€“ Victoria Athletic Grounds, oldvelodromes.co.uk Website, https://oldvelodromes.co.uk/HTML%20tracks/804.html โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    12. Did You Know? โ€“ there was once a car manufacturer in Stoke-on-Trent, thepotteries.org Website, https://www.thepotteries.org/did_you/015.htm โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    13. Jensen Motors – Pensnett Factory, Kingswinford, Jensen Museum Website, https://www.jensenmuseum.org/jensen-factory-pensnett-kingswinford/ โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
  • The Land’s End Road: a history of the A30 – Part 2

    The Land’s End Road: a history of the A30 – Part 2


    In the previous post, we followed the history of the A30 to the end of the seventeenth century. This post is about what happened next.

    Daniel Defoe was making his Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain1 in the 1720s. He describes a trip to Landโ€™s End, but how did he get there?

    On an earlier trip, he had waxed lyrical about the Thames at Staines, but when he eventually starts his journey to the South-West, he sets out from Hampton Court, so crosses the river at Chertsey. He made his way over Bagshot-Heath, then a bleak place, renowned, throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as a centre of highway robbery.
    Once safely at Basingstoke, he goes off to Winchester. Eventually, he does tip-up at Salisbury, then on to Shaftesbury, and pretty much follows our road to Exeter.
    After that, though, he abandons the A30, travelling round the south coast, through Dartmouth, and Plymouth. He arrives at Penzance, (which he spells with an โ€˜sโ€™ instead of a โ€˜zโ€™) via Helston.
    It looks as though he reached Landโ€™s end along part of the A30, then the B3263. On his return trip he goes to Bodmin (Bodmyn) via St Ives, Redruth and Padstow, Once he makes Bodmin he seems to then follow the future A30 across the moor to reach Launceston. Once over the Tamar, heโ€™s off along the north Devon coast, and thatโ€™s the last of any A30.

    The First Turnpike on the Land’s End Road

    The earliest turnpike along the road was the Kensington to Powder Mills and Cranford Bridge Trust from 1716. Itโ€™s all A315, which, as we saw in the last post, was always part of the Landโ€™s End Road. In a way, the A315 might have been the A30, but it looks as though the ministry men wanted to tie the A30 to the A4, both significant routes to the West Country.

    The Kensington tollgate at the Bell and Anchor, in 1859, seen from the east side, 32 years after the trust was dissolved.
    In 1717, the gate had been at โ€œthe sign of the Robin Hoodโ€ perhaps a forerunner of the Bell and Anchor, which stood on the site of todayโ€™s Olympia near the junction with North End Road.

    The turnpike started at Couter’s Bridge, which carried the road over Couter’s Creek, one of London’s lost rivers. Today, the railway line running through Kensington (Olympia) station follows the line of the creek, at this point. The line of the turnpike then ran west, through Hammersmith, Chiswick, Brentford, and Hounslow. It finished at the Bedfont Powder Mill, on the western edge of Hounslow Heath, which was much larger at the time.

    The approximate line of the Kensington to Powder Mill turnpike.
    The Bedfont Powder Mill from an 1869 Ordnance Survey map

    The Powder Mill made Gunpowder, and has a long history. There is evidence of it being there around 1610. For a period, mid-century, it became a sword manufacturer, but returned to making “Black Powder” around 1655.
    It continued to make gunpowder until after the First Wold War.2 It is remembered today as Mill Way, a no-through-road lined with bungalows.

    Staines to Salisbury Turnpikes

    There were, at least eleven trusts between Staines and Salisbury.
    The one that ran from the Powder Mill went as far as Egham by 1727. It reached Bagshot ten years later. Then in 1809 the trust was split in two, with the section Egham to Bagshot becoming a separate turnpike, in itโ€™s own right.
    From Basingstoke a turnpike followed the line of the A303 for a bit, but then went across country joining the route of todayโ€™s A30 at Sutton Scotney, about seven miles north-east of Stockbridge. It continued through Stockbridge to finish at Lopcombe Corner. Today, you turn left to keep on the A30. A right turn would put you on the A343, from Andover, which was the A30 until 1933.

    Turnpikes on from Salisbury to Exeter

    A discouraging road sign on the A30, on the way into Salisbury.

    Following the A30 through Salisbury is curious. You come in via the north-east corner and leave by the north-west corner. The sign before you join the ring-road at St Markโ€™s roundabout is not encouraging, only offering the A36 for either Southampton or Warminster. You are directed to the third exit, which feel counter-intuitive, but there is an A30 Shaftesbury sign. This oddness is not a result of modern planners, but an inheritance from the turnpikes.

    The Shaftesbury Drove joining the A30 near Donhead St Andrew, Wiltshire,


    There is an ancient route starting at Harnham, a south-western suburb of Salisbury, which today is a right of way along the edge of a beautiful chalk landscape. Eventually the path drops steeply down Whitesheet Hill to meet the A30 about five miles east of Shaftesbury.

    In 1756, a turnpike, the Whitesheet Hill to Harnham Hill, took over the management of this piece of road. It kept going for thirty years, despite the route being steep and hard to maintain.

    The route of the A30 around Salisbury, on the 1923 Ministry of Transport map

    What finally did for it was a new turnpike, begun in 1788 which ran along the easier ground of the valley. To achieve this its northern end ran off an existing turnpike, with a ridiculously long name,3 some six miles west of Salisbury, at Barford St Martin. The die was cast. In 1923, the MOT map shows the A30 taking precisely that route.
    Once the new turnpike, called the Whitesheet, was up and running, the rest of the way was pretty straightforward. On the map above, a turnpike, the Sherborne to Axminster, is shown, but it soon divided into four trusts which took the road across Somerset. The Honiton Turnpike is not all A30, though the Exeter is.

    Exeter to Land’s End Turnpikes

    By 1760, two turnpikes were in place maintaining the road from Exeter, through Okehampton to Launceston. It took another nine years before the old pack-horse road across Bodmin Moor got a turnpike.

    Beyond Bodmin, even after the turnpike arrived, things were complicated. There was no direct route to Penzance for fifty years. Instead, you joined a turnpike, for a few miles, which had gone through Camelford, then run along the north coast, to avoid Bodmin Moor. That fed you onto the Truro Turnpike, and you had to go all the way to Falmouth, before cutting across country to Helston, and on to Penzance.
    Eventually, in 1825, the Hayle Bridge Causeway arrived, which took the road over the Hayle river, and from there into Penzance. Itโ€™s not quite todayโ€™s A30, but close. Very late on, a turnpike was opened, from Penzance to St Just, though none of it was A30.

    Coaches Along the A30

    From Cary’s Itinerary, 1798, giving the road between Stockbridge and Salisbury.

    If you hunt around, itโ€™s possible to piece together most of our A30 route in Caryโ€™s 1798 Itinerary,4 though none of the three versions he offers gives us the entire modern road. His main route goes through Andover, just as the road did in 1923. However, he does offer an alternative, which is more the modern A30, going via Stockbridge.
    In the 1828 edition we find the Royal Mail leaves the Swan with Two Necks, Lad Lane, London. It took twenty-two hours to reach Exeter, going via, Andover, Salisbury, Blandford, and Dorchester.
    Beyond Exeter, though, with turnpikes south of Bodmin in place, Redruth, Camborne Church, and Angarrack, at the foot of the charming named Steamers Hill, are all listed. Next we have the River Hayle crossing, then on to Crowlas, to reach Penzance, all A30.
    However, we can’t be sure coaches ran from London to Penzance. The London Stage Coach Directory, section of the Itinerary list six coaches a day heading out to Exeter. A note under the Phoenix,5 tells us, from Exeter coaches run to Plymouth, Falmouth, Penryn, Truro, Bodmin etc. Perhaps the โ€˜etc.โ€™ covered Penzance, but perhaps not.

    Bolt-in-Tun sign, Fleet Street

    Just to add a further complication, William Hanning, the chief engineer of the Ilminster Turnpike Trust, made an alternative, fast coaching route between London and Exeter around 1800. His New Direct Route, left the A30 after Basingstoke, to go via Andover, over Salisbury Plane, past Stonehenge, to Wincanton and Ilchester, joining the original route a little north of Honiton. Cary tells us that in 1828 The Subscription Coach left the Bolt-in-Tun inn, Fleet Street, every day to go along the New Road to Exeter. Other coaches, such as, Quicksilver and New Exeter Mail also used the route. Of course it was never A30, but a certainly version of the Land’s End road.

    Jamaica Inn

    About halfway between Launceston and Bodmin, at the village of Bolventor, was an inn, built, in 1750, by an important Cornish landowning family, the Trelawneys. It was originally called New Inn, which hints at there being an older pub on the site, probably dating from the sixteenth century.
    Once the turnpike arrived, it was a natural stop for coaches. In the late 1770s it was renamed Jamaica Inn, in deference to the Trelawneys, who were Governors of Jamaica. It was made famous by Daphne du Maurier using it for her 1936 novel of wrecking, smuggling, and a clergyman of dubious character. Today it is a thirty-six bedroom hotel and restaurant, though it, and the village of Bolventor, were bypassed in 1991.

    The impact of the Railways

    Weโ€™re at the high-water mark of coaching days because the railways were coming. They didnโ€™t arrive all at once along the A30, but by 1844 there was a train service between London and Exeter. You could take a train from Plymouth to Launceston by 1865, but a direct line to London was not in place until 1886, and the connection to Bodmin had to wait until 1888. Inevitably, over time, long-distance travel between London and Cornwall moved from coach to train.

    Inevitably, over time, long-distance travel between London and Cornwall moved from coach to train. As with many roads in that era, the A30 was used to reach the nearest station, for local journeys, and later, by cyclists. Bike clubs were founded at Exeter and Launceston in the 1870s, Salisbury in 1885, and Basingstoke in 1892. Most cyclists didnโ€™t join a club, they rode them to work, to go into the village, to take a message to the doctor, or just for the pleasure of a jaunt with friends.

    Hardy Country

    Thomas Hardy, 1893

    Thomas Hardyโ€™s novels appeared in the 1870s through to 1895. The A30 runs through his Wessex, itself, an echo of Alfred the Greatโ€™s kingdom. Even if the road keeps north of Alfredโ€™s capital, Winchester, (Casterbridge in the books), stretches carry a Hardyesque feel.

    The sunken road running down the hill into Wesk Coker.

    There’s the sunken lane as you come to West Coker (Narrowbourne in Hardy), with its Post Office on the corner of East Street, and Church Street to your right, taking you to the lychgate of St Martinโ€™s. On, between wooded slopes, which open up to rolling downs to the south, with their field patchwork, then down the hill into East Chinnock, past set-back stone houses, half hidden among greenery. You arrive at Crewkerne along another, perhaps, green lane, with the glimpse of the town laid out before you. Amid the warm stone of the town, where King Ethelred had coins struck, it is possible to imagine you might catch a glimpse of a Tess Durbeyfield, Giles Winterborne, or Bathsheba Everdene.

    The Royal Military College, Sandhurst

    Royal Military College,Sndhurst

    In 1812, the Junior Department of the Military College, which had been established at Great Marlow in 1802, moved into new buildings at Sandhurst. The senior section joined them some years later.
    In 1947, the site became the Royal Military College, universally known as Sandhurst. Thus, for two hundred years, young men, and from 1984, young women, would have been up and down the road between Bagshot and Blackwater. A mile of the A30, along Camberley High Street forms the south-eastern boundary of the College, so no doubt, future military leaders would have known the road pretty well.

    Trevethick’s ‘Puffing Devil’

    Replica of Trevethic’s ‘Puffing Devil’, 2017

    Two milestones along the path of the arrival of self-powered vehicles are found along the A30.
    The first happened in Cambourne, five miles south-west of Redruth. On Christmas Eve, 1801, Richard Trevithick ran his “Puffing Devil,” a steam powered, passenger carrying, vehicle up Camborne Hill. Onlookers were astonished.

    ‘The horses stood still,
    The wheels went round,
    Going up Camborne Hill coming down.’

    Central Camborne, showing Fore Street and Commercial Street. ยฉ Openstreetmaps

    There is a plaque on the wall just where Fore Street meets Commercial Street, which was the A30 until a bypass arrived in 1975. Though โ€œPuffing Devilโ€ only made one successful run, it was the progenitor of the traction engine, the steam lorry, and the whole notion of an automotive road vehicle. Yes, we had to wait for the internal combustion engine, but the idea was abroad.

    The First Motor Car Import.

    The second milestone was passed ninety-four years later, and it involved a car with an internal combustion engine.

    the Honourable Evelyn Ellis in his prize Panhard-Levassour

    In July 1895, the Honourable Evelyn Ellis collected his Panhard-Levassor from Micheldever Station, a little south of today’s A303. It was the first car to be imported into Britain, having arrived at Southampton two days earlier.
    Ellis drove his prize to Basingstoke where he picked up the line of the, not yet arrived, A30. He was heading for his home in Datchet, between Windsor and Slough. He stayed on the the A30 beyond Bagshot, before turning north for Ascot, Windsor, and Datchet.
    Given his class, and temperament, he didnโ€™t feel the need to worry about the four mile an hour speed limit. (It was claimed he reached at least twenty mph.) Nor did he bother with the law requiring a man, carrying a red flag, to walk in front of him, to alert oncoming horses and their riders.

    Other Early Cars Along the A30

    People up and down the A30 tried their hand at cars.

    The Yeovil Motor Carriage of 1897

    The Yeovil Motor Carriage Company began making small two-person motor carriages in 1897. They were well named as they were clearly converted carriages, with no space for horses. The business only lasted two years.
    In Exeter William Shepherd and his sons built a car in 1899, and went on to open W. Shepherd and Son, Motor Car manufacturers & Repairers, in 1901.6 I wonder how many cars they actually repaired in their first few years? They were successful enough, however, to have continued in the city into the 1950s.

    The first car in Exeter, a Benz, came with the circus in 1896 or 7. The brewer John Evony Norman was the first man in the city to get a numberplate, in 1903, the year the Motor Car Act was passed. His number, FJ1 was joined by eight other registrations by the end of the year.

    A Thornycroft Type J (Restored by Tomo. T)

    In Basingstoke, the Thornycroft Steam Wagon Company Ltd arrived from Chiswick, in 1898, where from 1903 to 1912 they manufactured high-end motorcars. What they were best known for, however, were commercial vehicles.
    Their Type J, 4 ton lorry, gained a reputation for reliability and durability during WW1. The company continued making a range of large vehicles at Basingstoke until 1972.
    Along the road at Salisbury, a firm called Dean and Burden produced the โ€˜Scoutโ€™ car. They changed their name to Scout Motors in 1906, eventually producing fifteen hundred cars before they folded in 1921.

    The Road gets a Number

    1923 Ministry of Transport Map showing the A30 going through Andover

    All of these enterprising concerns were started before there was an A30. But it did arrive, in 1923. The MoT map shows the road, west of Basingstoke, running along what is now the B3400 to Andover then along the A343 to Lopcombe Corner, where it joined todayโ€™s A30 once more. From there on itโ€™s basically the modern A30, except, no bypasses, it simply ploughs through Salisbury, Shaftesbury, Yeovil and Exeter. Back then, the road south-west from Exeter, took you through Okehampton and Launceston, where today it is not so much a question of bypasses, as a complete realignment of the road.
    After Launceston, the 1923 road was much as todayโ€™s, if a bit wigglier. Of course, it went past Jamaica Inn and through the centre of Bodmin, emerging via what is now the A389 through Lanivet, before rejoining the modern A30. All the towns and villages the A30 once went through are now bypassed. Some of those bypasses, such as the first one round Redruth date back to the 1940s. It was upgraded when Camborne was bypassed in 1975, and a bypass round Hayle arrived in 1984. Originally, the A30 finished at Penzance, but not for long. In 1925, the green 3318 (no letters in 1923, โ€˜Bโ€™ roads were green) became the A30.

    The Alternative to theA30: the A303

    Of course, the road wasnโ€™t to be left alone, and 1933 saw a major rearrangement. Summer traffic was already beginning to be a problem, so the planners created the A303 as an alternative route between Basingstoke and Exeter. You may search in vain for the 303 on the 1923 map, for it wasnโ€™t there.

    The A303 and the A30.

    The new-made road mostly followed William Hanningโ€™s eighteenth century New Direct Route, including some seriously old ways around Stone Henge. We are not doing the A303 here, but anyone who is interested should read Tom Fortโ€™s highly entertaining, and well-informed book The A303: Highways to the Sun.

    All I will say is, for generations, the trip across Salisbury Plain, past the ancient standing-stones, was part of the whole business of going on holiday.
    The rearrangement had an impact on the A30. Instead of going to Andover, from Basingstoke it followed the A303 as far as Micheldever Station, where it forks left, for Egypt and Stockbridge, while the A303 forks right towards Andover. On a 1951 Bartholomew map, the A30 is shown as continuing along, what is now, the unclassified Stockbridge Road, to Sutton Scotney. From there on, itโ€™s Stockbridge, and so on to Salisbury.

    A Shy Road

    On modern maps, between Basingstoke and Honiton, the A30 seems surprisingly coy. Itโ€™s there, but you have to look for it. To be fair, when you find it, itโ€™s not a swift drive, but thatโ€™s the point. If youโ€™re in a hurry, thereโ€™s the M4/M5 route. Though, if you are looking for a pleasant trip though a particular version of English countryside, with echos of Alfred the Great, and Thomas Hardy, the A30โ€™s as good a road as any.
    Dip off the bypasses to take in Salisbury, Shaftesbury, Yeovil, and the other pretty towns the road once served. Beyond Exeter, you can get a move on, provided you avoid peak holiday season. Launceston, Bodmin, and Penzance all fine A30 towns, and worth stopping off for. Indeed, much of the road offers the feel of a way that has been travelled through the long arc of time.

    1. Defoe, Daniel, 1724 to 1727. A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, George Strahan London โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    2. Philo, Phil, and Mills, John, The Bedfont Gunpowder Mills, https://www.wargm.org/WASC/Files/wasc_1525_00.pdf โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    3. It was called the Fisherton, Wilton, Heytesbury, Willoughby Hedge & Redhone Turnpike Trust, 1761. โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    4. Cary, John, 1789, Caryโ€™s New Itinerary, Printed for John Cary, 181 Strand London. โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    5. Cary John, 1828, Caryโ€™s New Itinerary, Printed for John Cary, 181 Strand London. โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    6. W. Shepherd and Son, Graceโ€™s Guide to British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/W._Shepherd_and_Son โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
  • The Land’s End Road: a history of the A30 – Part 1

    The Land’s End Road: a history of the A30 – Part 1

    The A30, at two hundred and eighty-four miles, is the third longest โ€˜Aโ€™ road in Britain. Itโ€™s too long, and too interesting to fit into one post, so this is the first of two, covering the history of the road up to the end of the seventeenth century.

    Setting Off

    A Beach near Penzance

    The lure of the South-West!
    Off to Cornwall!
    But how do I get there?
    For many centuries, people used some version of the London to Landโ€™s End Road, which, in 1923, was made the A30, with a touch of A315 through London.

    Finding the Road

    Routes offer by Google Maps for London to Land’s End

    Today, though, punch โ€œLondon to Landโ€™s Endโ€ into your โ€˜satnavโ€™ and youโ€™re offered the M4 to Bristol, then the M5 to Exeter. Alternatively, you might try the M4, M25, M3, to join the A303 west of Basingstoke. Again you are delivered to Exeter, and Honiton, some twenty miles north. On the other hand, you might stick to the M3 past Southampton, then the A31 and A35, to arrive at Honiton, which would take you about an hour longer.

    โ€œJust a moment,โ€ you might say, โ€œwhat happened to the A30?โ€
    Well, once you reach Honiton, you are definitely on the A30, and youโ€™re away. Apart from a brief flirtation with the M5 round Exeter, itโ€™s A30 dual carriageway past Launceston and Bodmin, to the far side of the Camborne Bypass. Then you find youโ€™re on a two-way road, past Hayle, to Penzance. After that, the A30 takes on a more country-road feel as you carry on to Landโ€™s End.
    At a first glance at a map, the A30 seems to disappear somewhere beyond Basingstoke, until Honiton. It is there, of course, though often bashful, and tucked away.

    The London End of the A30

    Today, theA30 starts on the western edge of London.
    At Henly’s Roundabout, on the A4, a bit before Heathrow, take the exit, for ‘Heathrow (Terminal 4 & Cargo)’, and โ€˜Staines, A30โ€™, and, there you are, youโ€™re on it. Itโ€™s โ€˜The Great South-West Roadโ€™, but for only the three miles to the Clockhouse roundabout, though, up to the nineteenth century, it was the name for the entire road.
    In fact, the London to Landโ€™s End Road never set off from where todayโ€™s A30 branches off the A4. It started, and still does at Hyde Park Corner.

    A section of William Morgan’s Map of of the Whole of London, 1662

    William Morganโ€™s Map, The whole of London, 1682, shows The Road to Exeter Etc. running off from the west end of Piccadilly, through what was then Portugal Street.
    It kept going west through Knightsbridge, Kensington, Hammersmith and Chiswick.
    Somewhere between Turnham Green station and Kew Bridge Road, it picks up the line of a Roman road coming in from Marble Arch.

    Map sowing the connections between the A30, the A4 and the A315

    The 1923 MoT map shows the A30 running straight on from the A315, at a crossroads where โ€˜The Clockhouse Roundaboutโ€™ is now.
    Strictly speaking, it went against one of the tenants of the system, that roads should keep their number throughout their length. On the map above, you can clearly see, it’s the same road.
    In 1923, the stretch of road between Henly’s Roundabout and the Clockhouse Roundabout didn’t exist. But on the MoT map, it’s shown as a dotted line, suggesting the planners already had plans (they do that), and werenโ€™t going to leave things alone, which they didnโ€™t.

    A Roman Road to Isca Dumnoniorum

    Naturally, the Romans had to get in on the act. Exeter, which the Romans knew as Isca Dumnoniorum, was an important naval town, so they had a road to it.
    Not much is the A30, but this first bit from Kew, over Hounslow Heath to Staines, then on to a little north of Sunningdale, runs along the route of what later became known as The Devilโ€™s Highway.
    After Sunningdale, the Romans took a cross-country route to Silchester, (Calleva Atrebatum to them) a village about six miles north of Basingstoke. The next bit of the Roman Road, now called The Port Way, went to Andover, then to the Iron Age hillfort of Old Sarum, outside Salisbury.
    It is thought there may have been a Roman town called Sorviodunum within the ring of the older fort, but the archaeological evidence remains sketchy. The A30 may follow The Port Way for a few miles from Lopcombe Corner towards Salisbury, which, of course, wouldnโ€™t be there for another thousand years.

    Where the Romans took their road next has nothing to do with the A30. They went off to Dorchester, then roughly along the line of today’s A35 to Honiton, from where the A30 more or less follows the Roman road into Exeter.

    Roman Roads Further West

    Received wisdom has it, the Romans didnโ€™t venture much beyond Exeter. However, modern technology, and sophisticated geographic techniques, have produced evidence of them carrying on. There was a Roman fort at Okehampton, very much A30, though, it looks as though an important road hub was centred on North Tawton, a village about six miles to the north-east. It all suggests there was a road, not quite the A30, but heading in the right direction.

    A road must have carried on from there because there was a fort at Nanstallon, about a mile west of the A389, which was the A30, until the bypass arrived. There was a second Roman fort at Restormel Castle, about four miles south-east of Bodmin. It now seems there was an extensive network of pre-Roman tracks, Roman military roads, and, later, non-military roads running through Devon and Cornwall. They appear to have been developed to allow animal drawn vehicles to move around the area, avoiding flood-prone areas.1
    During improvements to the A30 north of Redruth, archaeologists uncovered a section of ancient road, with ditches either side, which lined up with part of the present A30. It is thought to be Roman, if not earlier.2

    Part of the display of items, including Cornish tin ingots, found in a Bronze Age shipwreck excavated off the coast of Turkey

    Of course, we canโ€™t necessarily say, because we have evidence of small sections of road, that the Romans had a precursor to the A30 running through Cornwall. But, Cornwall had been known for tin production from, at least, the Bronze Age. Tin ingots from south-west Briton have been discovered in a shipwreck off the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, and three more off the coast of Israel.3 Finding British tin in the eastern Mediterranean strongly suggests that Phonetician traders were visiting the shores of Cornwall and Devon at least two centuries before the Romans arrived. I canโ€™t imagine the commercially minded Romans would not have exploited such resources, even if the demand for tin to make bronze had dropped.

    Evidence for the A30 from the Middle Ages

    Yes, the Romans were about, but werenโ€™t they everywhere?
    After they went, though, evidence of a would be A30 pretty much disappears for about a thousand years. It’s true that places along the road, Bodmin, Launceston, Yeovil, Shaftesbury and Basingstoke developed through the Saxon period, but even after the Normans came, we have no clear record of the roads which may have connected them. Exeter had had a cathedral from 1050, and people would have travelled to and from it, perhaps along parts of the furture A30, but if they did, they don’t tell us about it.

    We have to wait for the Gough Map, probably made at the end of the fourteenth century, for the next clue to the road.
    The outline of the A30 is there. Whatโ€™s more, from, Launceston we see a red line, to Exeter, Honiton, and on to Chard, which we can take to be a road. It continued through Shaftesbury, as far as Salisbury. After that, though, the line goes to Winchester, and on to Kingston, via Farnham and Guildford. Much more A3 than A30.
    However, all is not lost, because Basingstoke, Bagshot and Brentford can be found, each in its correct relative position. It’s not clear why lines suggesting roads are sometimes drawn, and sometime not. Generally though, itโ€™s accepted that if there are places, in the right order, we can assume there was a road.
    From about the same period, though possibly earlier, one of the itineraries from the Cannons of the Premonstratensian Abbey of Titchfield in Hampshire gives us the A30 route from Salisbury to Exeter. The cannons set off from Titchfield, north-west of Portsmouth, to go through Romsey to reach Salisbury. From Exeter, they went to Torre Abbey in Torquay,4 so it seems there was an established road, our A30, between Salisbury and Exeter by the beginning of the fifteenth century, and had probably been there much earlier.

    Henry VIII on the Land’s End Road

    The vine, as it may have looked in 1535

    Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn used part of the road during their 1535 progress. (The one which included the consequential visit to Wolf Hall.) They worked their way down to Portsmouth, and then took their time on their way back, staying at grand houses in Hampshire. Eventually, they arrived in Salisbury, and probably took an A30 route to reach at Hurstbourne Priors, east of Andover, on the B3400, which was the A30 in 1923. The party went on to stay at The Vyne, a particularly grand house north of Basingstoke. A few days later, they travelled south, five miles, to Basing House, of which we will hear more later. They stuck to the A30 for a bit, as their next stop was at Elvetham House, which is in Hartley Wintney, between Basingstoke and Camberley. That was it for theA30, because they then swung north to stay at Easthamstead House, near Bracknell.5

    Two More On the Road in Tudor Times

    It was Henry who set John Leland ferreting around the place. His Itineraries, published long after his death, tell of his 1542 trip to the West Country. He records taking the A315 Roman Road through Brentford, and Hounslow. After that, he heads for Slough, going by Longford, which is, now, on the north-west corner of the airport.
    It sets the pattern for the whole trip, which is not very illuminating so far as the A30 is concerned. Yes, he went to many of the places along the road, but often followed rivers. He speaks of the highway to London between Honiton and Exeter, so that is definitely A30.6 When he reached Cornwall, he visited Launceston, Bodmin, Redruth, and Penzance, but he doesnโ€™t follow the A30. In his habitual way, he dotted about, checking on what was to be found in the countyโ€™s religious houses.
    Holinshed does give us what looks very like the A30 of 1923, as far as Bodmin, after which he goes off to Truro.

    The Civil War Along the Road

    Given this road was one of the main routes from the Royalist West Country to Parliamentary London, it was bound to see action, and so it did, more or less from the start.
    There was an early skirmish, known as the Battle of Babylon Hill, in September 1642. Sir Ralph Hopton had brought a party of Royalist troops to Babylon Hill, on the A30, east of Yeovil. Parliamentary troops mounted a surprise attack, but didnโ€™t push home their advantage, and the Royalists escaped with the loss of about twenty men.

    The Battle of Turnham Green

    At the London end of the road, there was a more significant, if unresolved, confrontation along the A30/A315.
    In the Autumn of 1642, Prince Rupert of the Rhine rode out from Oxford, taking a number of towns, including Maidenhead. From there they travelled along the Bath road, and the A3006, once part of the A4, to set up camp on Hounslow Heath.
    Parliament agreed to negotiations, but while they were going on, the King ordered Prince Rupert to clear the Parliamentary forces out of Brentford, which he did, sacking the town for good measure. In response, the Earl of Essex brought a Parliamentary force to Turnham Green, blocking the road to the capital.
    Throughout Sunday, November 13th, the two armies faced each other. There was sporadic artillery fire and the odd skirmish, but neither side advanced. That night, under the cover of darkness, the Royalists fell back to Hounslow Heath.7 From there they crossed the Thames at Kingston Bridge, eventually withdrawing to Oxford. The Battle of Turnham Green was more of a stand-off than a battle, but it was the one and only time Charles attempted to take London.

    Skirmish at Sourton Down

    Along the road in Devon, there was a skirmish, in April 1643, at Sourton Down, about four miles south-west of Okehampton. The action was emblematic of the indecisive engagements during the early part of the war. Major-General Sir James Chudleigh led Parliamentary forces from Okehampton, along the line of the B3260, once the A30, in an attempt to enter Cornwall. A troop of Royalists, command by Sir Ralph Hopton, marched across the downs to intercept him. Chudleigh got wind of the approaching column, and used his cavalry to mount an ambush.
    Hoptonโ€™s Royalists regrouped on the higher ground, where they could fire down on the enemy infantry. A fierce thunderstorm started, so it was raining and pitch-black, but the royalists continued to fire by aiming at the glow of the Parliamentary forceโ€™s musket fuses.

    Glowing fuses left behind by the Parliamentary troops

    When Chudleigh realised what was happening, he sent orders that his men should hang their fuses on bushes, and retreat. So, the Royalists stood, all night, on the edge of a windy and rain-swept Dartmoor, firing into the foliage.

    The West Country remained a stronghold for the king until Parliamentary forces took Launceston and Bodmin in early 1646. Hopton finally surrendered in March of that year.

    The Sieges of Basing House 1643-45

    Drawing of John Paulet, with Basing House behind.

    As well as set-piece battles, and bloody skirmishes, sieges were a feature of the war.
    Basing House, south-east of Basingstoke, which we met before, when Henry VIII stayed there, was attacked, in November 1643, by a force of seven-thousand Parliamentary soldiers.
    The house was owned by John Paulet, Marquess of Winchester, a Roman Catholic, and committed Royalist. Parliament wanted him out. That first attack failed, so in June of the following year, Parliamentary troops began a second siege, which was broken by Royalist forces in September. In the end, Oliver Cromwell, himself, led the assault that took the house in October 1645. Perhaps because of the high casualty rate among Parliamentary soldiers, Pauletโ€™s Catholicism, and Catholic priests being found hiding in the house, the reprisals were unusually savage, but Paulet was not killed. The house was a casualty, though, as Parliament ordered it to be pulled down.

    Two Late Seventeenth Century Travellers

    Ogilby’s Land’s End Road diversion from Chard through Axminster, to Honiton

    The war, and Britainโ€™s experiment with republicanism, eventually ended, and from Charles IIโ€™s reign comes John Ogilbyโ€™s Britannia, with four plates covering The Road from London to The Land’s End in Cornwall.
    Quite a bit of his road he gives is the A30 to Exeter. He follows the 1923 route as far as Chard, but then, for some unknown reason, his map takes us to Axminster, and along the line of todayโ€™s A35 to reach Honiton. Beyond Exeter, though he avoids the A30 almost entirely.

    The other great traveller from the final years of the seventeenth century was Celia Fiennes, on her side-saddle. From the point of view of the A30 she’s no more help than John Ogilby. She goes somewhere she calls “Rusbery, 19 miles by Stanes.“[sic.] After that, sheโ€™s off to Uxbridge. She does visit places along the A30, but assiduously avoids actually using the road. The sole exception is when heading back towards London, she went to Honiton “15 mile, all fine Gravell way, ye best Road I have met with all in the west.” [sic.]8 That bit of old Roman road, from Exeter to Honiton, seems to be the most consistently used stretch along the whole A30.

    So we see, at the dawn of the eighteenth century there was a road, which had the potential to become the A30, but it wasnโ€™t quite there. In the next post, we will look at what happened to it next.

    1. Parcero-Oubiรฑa, Cรฉsar, Smart, Chris, and Fonte, Joรฃo, 2023, Remote Sensing and GIS Modelling of Roman Roads in South West Britain, Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology Volume 6-1 โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    2. Cornwall Council, 2024, 10,000 years of Cornish history uncovered during A30 improvement works, https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/council-news/environment-culture-and-planning/10-000-years-of-cornish-history-uncovered-during-a30-improvement-works/] โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    3. Roberts, Benjamin and Williams, Alan, 2025. Bronze-age Britain traded tin with the Mediterranean, shows new study โ€“ settling a two-century debate, Durham University, https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/current/thought-leadership/2025/05/bronze-age-britain-traded-tin-with-the-mediterranean-shows-new-study–settling-a-two-century-debate/ โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    4. Dickins, L, 1938. Premonstratensian Itineraries from a Titchfield Abbey MS. at Welbeck Proceedings, Leeds Philosophical Soc., 349-61. โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    5. Holinshed, Mark, The 1535 Royal Progress When Seymour and Cromwell โ€‹Trounced de Boulogne, Henry VIII the Reign – the Blog, https://www.henryviiithereign.co.uk/royal-progress-of-1535.html โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    6. Smith, Lucy, Toulmin, 1909. The Itinerary of John Leland, in or about the years 1535 โ€“ 1543, George Bell and Sons, London โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    7. Plant, David, 2009(a). Brentford and Turnham Green: November 1642, B C W Project Website, http://bcw-project.org/military/english-civil-war/edgehill-campaign/brentford-turnham-green โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    8. Fiennes, Celia, 1888. Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary, Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. โ†ฉ๏ธŽ

  • A57 History Part 2: Manchester to Lincoln

    A57 History Part 2: Manchester to Lincoln

    A57 History Part 2: Manchester to Lincoln

    In the previous post, I traced the development of the A57, from Liverpool, to the point where the Hyde Road leaves Manchester. In this one, I will look at the rest of the road, through Glossop, Sheffield, Worksop, and so to Lincoln.

    Finding a Road

    It is difficult to find evidence for any A57 road between Manchester and Glossop, until the coming of stagecoaches. The Romans had a road (Margary no. 711) running from a fort in Castlefield, a district south-west of Manchester city centre, to another, known as Melandra, between Woolley Bridge and Glossop.1 The latest evidence points to the Roman road running north of the A57, but parallel to it, so going in the right general direction. However, beyond Glossop it went off towards Barnsley and Doncaster.

    Manchester to Glossop showing approximate line of the Roman road, and the route stagecoaches took before 1818

    If we jump forward to the end of the eighteenth century, coaches from Manchester to Sheffield were going through Glossop, but via Ashton Underline, more the A6018 than the A57. It could have something to do with Hyde not being there until the early nineteenth century. However, by 1818, the Manchester Hyde and Mottram Turnpike went to Glossop.

    Glossop to Sheffield

    The route of the Snake Pass, now the A57, and the two, older, turnpikes routes between Glossop and Sheffield.

    Beyond Glossop, Sheffield bound coaches either took the Woodhead Pass (A 628) or the more southerly route, through Chapel-en-le-Frith, over the Winnats Pass, then along the Hope Valley. Neither of these routes is particularly direct.

    Dukes Devonshire and Norfolk, who financed the building of the Snake Pass, and so laid down the route for th
    e future A57.

    In 1818, the Duke of Norfolk, the Lord of the Manor of both Sheffield and Glossop, got together with the Duke of Devonshire, who owned the land in between. They hatched a notion to build a new road, along the line of a packhorse trail, known as Doctorโ€™s Gate.
    It was a rash decision. For a start, building an entirely new road, not just improving an existing one, was rare. In addition, the terrain was unforgiving, making the construction difficult and expensive. A Sheffield surveyor, William Fairbank, was initially given the task, but when he was obviously floundering, John McAdam was brought in to finish the job, at some expense, I’m sure.

    The Cavendish family crest, which gave the Snake Pass its name.

    The origin of the name, Snake Pass, might refer to the wiggly nature of the road, but it did not. As part of their Lordshipsโ€™ plan, an inn was built, about seven miles from Glossop, for coaches to stop. It was originally called The Ladyclough Inn, but the Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish, put his family crest, a knotted serpent, over the front door. It was not long before one-and-all called the place the Snake Inn, and the name attached itself to the whole stretch of road.
    The 1828 edition of Caryโ€™s New Itinerary, gives the Royal Mail, from Sheffield to Manchester, going on the new Line of Road through Glossop,2 which we can suppose was the A57, Snake Pass route.

    A view along the Snake Pass

    It’s doubtful that their Lordships ever got their money back, because twenty-three years later, the Manchester to Sheffield railway line opened, killing the coaching trade. They did, however, give us the Snake Pass, a gem of a drive. From Glossop, it takes you over the high ground between the moorland plateaux of Kinder Scout and Bleaklow to the Ladybower Reservoir. Its highest point, one thousand six-hundred and eighty feet, is where it crosses the Pennine Way.
    The opening of this Snake Pass route meant there was a direct road between Glossop and Sheffield, now called the A57.

    Through Sheffield

    Before the 1960s Inner Ring Road was built, the A57 came into Sheffield along Glossop Road, which is now the B6547. It then went straight through the centre of Sheffield, past the cathedral and along some of the cityโ€™s oldest streets such as Haymarket, Waingate and Wicker.

    The original route of the A57 through Sheffield.

    One-way systems, and redevelopment, mean, today, you canโ€™t drive the 1923 route, over Ladyโ€™s Bridge, and out of the city along Staniforth Road, now the B6200. Quite sensibly, the modern route keeps cars away from the centre, directing traffic north of the city, via the A61, to pick up the A 57 as the Sheffield Parkway.

    Steel Town

    A late medieval Sheffield made knife

    The ancient street names are a clue to how long metal has been worked in the city. Robertus le Coteler, one of Sheffieldโ€™s early little mesters, paid Hearth Tax in 1297 for the workshops he owned, which produced knives, swords, and other bladed tools.3
    In The Canterbury Tales, the Reeve says of a miller:
    ‘Ther was no man, for peril, dorste hym touche.
    A Sheffeld thwitel baar he in his hose.    ‘
    For ‘thwitel’, read ‘knife‘, which gives us the modern word whittle. So, even at the end of the fourteenth century, it was noted that the knife was made in Sheffield. By 1379, twenty-five percent of the population of Sheffield were listed as metal-workers.
    It was the beginning of โ€˜Steel Townโ€™ Sheffield becoming the world-renown producer of fine cutlery. Not knives and forks alone, though, but steel for armaments and railways. Ingenuity and quality have always been the stamp of Sheffield, and though the industry was filleted during the 1980s, firms producing high quality steel hang on, drawing on centuries of skill and nous.

    A Castle and a Queen

    A romantic rendering of how Sheffield Castle may have looked, in its day.

    A castle once stood east of Waingate. The original motte and bailey structure burnt down in 1266, as did much of the town, during Henry III’s struggle with Simon de Montfort. It was rebuilt in stone in the 1270s.
    In November 1570, Mary Queen of Scots, then aged 27, arrived there, having travelled from Chatsworth. Little did she think she would stay in Sheffield, on and off, for fourteen years.

    Manor Lodge, Sheffield

    To begin with, Mary was kept in the castle, but later, more comfortably, at Manor Lodge, which still stands.
    The castle, though, did not survive the Civil war. Seized by Royalists in 1643, it was battered by Parliamentary artillery in 1644.4 Three years later, the House of Commons ordered its demolition. The Earl of Arundel did, at one time, have a scheme to restore it, but the damage was too extensive, and finally, the remains were levelled.

    On to Worksop

    There is little, or no, record of a road from Sheffield to Worksop in the Middle Ages, or the early modern period. Worksop is probably of Saxon origin, for it is in Domesday. There was a minor, Wars of the Roses, skirmish there, in December 1460.
    During Henry VIIIโ€™s reign, Leland visited the town, but tells us nothing of a road to Sheffield, as he came from Doncaster, and went on to Mansfield.

    Mary Queen of Scots as a younger woman

    There must have been some sort of highway, because, in the summer of 1583, during her imprisonment at Sheffield, Mary Queen of Scots was taken to Worksop Manor for a time. The house burnt down in 1761. An eighteenth century mansion was built on the site, albeit only one wing of what was planned.

    The Worksop to Attercliffe turnpike, was in place from 1764, and by 1798, Cary outlines a road between Sheffield and Worksop, which looks very like the A57 of 1923.5 Coming out of Sheffield it goes along the B6200 as far as Swallownest, which was the line of the A57 until the 1970s. After that, it is pretty much the A57 into Worksop.

    The 1923 route of the A57

    Of course, nowadays, you canโ€™t drive the original route of the A57 through Worksop. Where the modern road swings almost due south at a roundabout three-quarters of a mile outside the town, you follow the signs for Kilton, Tickhill and Blyth. The B6041, Gateford Road is the way the A57 once ran. Because Bridge Street is pedestrianised, you have to go around the houses, then along the B6040 Retford Road to pick up the A57. The A60 remains the one ‘A’ road through Worksop, coming up from Loughbough and heading for Doncaster.

    The Coming of Coal

    The Prince of Wales visit to Shireoak Colliery, November 1861

    A little to the north-west of the A57, the Duke of Newcastle began sinking the first shafts of the Shireoaks Colliery. It was the catalyst that changed Worksop from a market town, where they grew liquorice, made hats, and Windsor chairs, to a coal producing, industrial centre.
    Though Worksop is in Nottinghamshire, its four pits, Shireoaks, Steetley, Manton, and Firbeck have always been regarded as South Yorkshire collieries. Over the years, the Worksop miners played their part in national mining disputes, culminating in the strike of 1984/5. Despite a majority in Nottinghamshire voting to continue working, men from Shireoaks and Manton supported the struggle.

    The Manton Colliery Memorial

    The Shireoaks pit hung on until 1990. The last Workshop pit, Manton, closed in 1994, bringing an end to a hundred and fifty years of winning coal in the area.

    A Road to Lincoln

    The real fun starts the far side of Worksop.
    There was never a direct turnpike road between Worksop and Markham Moor. However, from 1822 there was a turnpike running east from Worksop to Retford, (then known as East Retford). At Retford you could pick up the Bawtry and East Markham Common Turnpike, opened in 1766, which ran south down part of the Great North Road. That turnpike took you to East Markham, from where the Dunham Road Trust, opened in 1765, ran to Dunham Ferry, where it connected with the earlier Lincoln Northwest District Turnpike, from Dunham Ferry to Lincoln.

    Turnpike routes between Worksop and Lincoln.

    By the end of the nineteenth century maps give a road running north-west from Markham Moor, which, beyond Elkesley, is marked Worksop Road. This must be the road which was the basis of the route the ministry men chose for the A57, though it was never a turnpike.

    Elkesley and the A1 Changes

    Elkesley was a victim of the wanderings of the A1.
    In 1923, the A57 ran through Elkesley and West Drayton, crossing the A1 at Markham Moor. As I covered in a previous post, in 1961, the Doncaster bypass arrived. As a result, The A1, which originally went from Markham Moor to Retford, to reach Blyth, was rerouted to go through Elkesley and Upper Morton, that is, along a stretch of A57. When the A1 was duelled in 1967, Elkesley found itself stranded, with only one way to join, or leave, the high-speed road. A bridge and new junctions were finally constructed in 2015. A second result is that the A57 temporally abandons its identity between Upper Markham and Markham Moor, and the A1.

    On to Lincoln

    This Chain Ferry is from further down the River Trent at Walkerith, though the one from Dunham to Newton must have been similar.

    Once the road reaches Markham Moor, and becomes the A57 again, the road follows a well-trodden path.
    East of Dunham, you have to cross the Trent to leave Nottinghamshire and enter Lincolnshire. Until 1832, that meant taking the chain ferry, which had been there for centuries. Eventually, a group of businessmen had a bridge built, with a toll paid to cross. It was not replaced until the end of the 1970s, and even then, the original piers were kept. The tolls, 50p a car, are to pay for their replacement when the time comes.
    Once over the river, you skirt Newton on Trent, continuing to the charmingly named Drinsey Nook Junction, where you turn right for Lincoln.

    A view along part of the Foss Dyke

    For a while, the road runs beside the Foss Dyke. We are not sure who built this ancient waterway, but it is likely the Romans had a hand in it. It joins the Trent, at Torksey Lock, where a small bronze statue of the Roman God Mars was found in the eighteenth century.
    If the Romans built that end, did they take it all the way to Brayford Pool in Lincoln, where they already had an inland port? The documentary evidence suggests Henry I may have been involved in part of its construction, or perhaps its reclamation.6 The canal certainly has a โ€˜straightโ€™ Roman feel about it.
    As you come into Lincoln, you pick up the Carholm Road. Since 2017, the A57 was routed, via a right turn at the end of Carholm Road, onto Brayford Way, which was built in the 1990s. It takes you back over the Foss Dyke, catching a glimpse of Brayford Pool. From there the road runs along a series of streets, Rope Walk, St Markโ€™s Street, Tentercroft Street, and the East West Link Road. It then goes under a flyover, round a long, right-hand loop, to the junction with the A1434, where today’s A57 ends.

    The A57 through Lincoln, today, and how it went in 1923.

    Of course, that was not how the road originally went. Until the High Street was pedestrianised, from the end of Carholm Road, the A57 kept, more or less straight, going along Newland. It then seemed to have then gone along Mint Street, to join the A15 on the High Street, just by the Stonebow, once the entrance to the city’s Guildhall. Even by 1923 theA15 no longer followed the line of the Roman road along the High Street.

    The A57 is a curious road, in many respects, but so are many of our roads. Lincoln to Liverpool, Liverpool to Lincoln, it seems unlikely, but there it is, weaving a route from the industrial North-west to an ancient city, founded by the Romans. As we saw at the beginning of the previous post, it links the lost pool in Liverpool to the ancient Brayford Pool. A road between two pools.

    1. Margary, Ivan, D., 1973 Roman Roads in Britain: Written by Edition, (3rd Revised edition), J. Baker โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    2. Cary, John, 1828, Caryโ€™s New Itinerary, Printed for John Cary, No. 181 Strand โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    3. Unwin, Margaret, Joan, 2002 The Hallamshire Cutlery Trades in the late 17th century: a study of the Hearth Tax returns and the records of the Cutlers’ Company, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Sheffield โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    4. Civil War and the Fall of Sheffield Castle, 2020, Libraries Sheffield Blog, https://shefflibraries.blogspot.com/2020/04/civil-war-and-fall-of-sheffield-castle.html โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    5. Cary, John, 1798, Caryโ€™s Itinerary Printed for John Cary, No. 181 Strand โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    6. Fossdyke Navigation, Canal and River Trust Website, https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/canals-and-rivers/fossdyke-navigation โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
  • 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 Iโ€™s chief minister William Cecil gave orders โ€œfor the laying of the Postsโ€.
    Holinshed tells us, it meant โ€œthere should be set Posts appointed between London and Ireland.โ€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 Glyndลตr’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 Glyndลตr, 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 โ€œThe Sands.โ€

    “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 waterโ€™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

    Ogilbyโ€™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:

    โ€œobserve 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.โ€8

    Going โ€œby Way of the Bridgโ€ 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 Penrhynโ€™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: โ€œThis arch was constructed in the same year the Battle of Waterloo was fought,โ€ 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 Telfordโ€™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 ยพ 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 Stephensonโ€™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 โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    2. White, Kevan, 2018 Roman Britain: Rhyn Park, Roman Britain Website, http://roman-britain.co.uk/places/rhyn_park.htm โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    3. Cooke, Richard, 2016, Tyโ€™n Y Llidiart, B5437, Corwen, Denbighshire, LL21 9RJ.October 2016 V 2.0, Aeon Archaeology โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    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 โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    5. Wats, Edward, 1917, The Royal Mail to Ireland, Edward Arnold โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    6. Ogilby, John, 1699. The Traveller’s Guide, or a Most Exact description of the Roads of England, Abel Swall โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    7. Ayres, George, 2017. History of the Mail Routes to Ireland until 1850, Lulu.com โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    8. Ogilby, John, 1699. The Traveller’s Guide, or a Most Exact description of the Roads of England, Abel Swall โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    9. Cooke, Richard, 2011. Capel Horeb, Four Mile Bridge, Isle of Anglesey Archaeological Building Record, Gwynedd Archaeological Trust, โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    10. British Listed Buildings, The Cambria, British Listed Buildings Website โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    11. Rosevear, Alan, 2008. Turnpike Roads in England and Wales Website, http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/ โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    12. History Points, Waterloo Bridge, Betws-y-coed, HistoryPoints.org Website, http://historypoints.org/index.php?page=waterloo-bridge-betws-y-coed โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    13. Ayres, George, 2017, History of the Mail Routes to Ireland until 1850, Lulu.com. โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    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 โ†ฉ๏ธŽ
    15. Britannia Bridge, SABRE Website, https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Britannia_Bridge โ†ฉ๏ธŽ