From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Article from 'The Autocar' magazine discussing the history of road routes and travel conditions in England and Wales.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 160\5\ scan0306 | |
| Date | 28th March 1941 | |
| BENTLEY March 28th, 1941 The Autocar 283 "The Road from London to Barwick," has had several changes of route. The Roman road went via Baldock, Stamford, Grantham, Lincoln, Doncaster, Tadcaster, York, Stamford Bridge and Northallerton. A more modern road passes through St.{Capt. P. R. Strong} Neots (missed by the Roman road), Stamford, Grantham, Newark, Retford, Doncaster, Selby and Northallerton. Ogilby's route was through Ware, Royston, Huntingdon, Stamford, Grantham, Retford, Tadcaster, York, Northallerton. From Northallerton all three routes are identical. The Holyhead road, too, takes a different route from the Telford highway, which, incidentally, is through Birmingham and Wolverhampton. Most of us in going to North Wales from London leave the Telford road at Weedon and take the Watling Street to Atherstone, rejoining the Telford highway well north of Wolverhampton. Then our route to Holyhead is via Shrewsbury, Llangollen, Corwen, Bettws-y-Coed, Bangor and the Menai Bridge. The Roman way was through Chester and Conway; Ogilby mapped out his route through High Barnet, St.{Capt. P. R. Strong} Albans, Dunstable, the Stratfords, Towcester, "Daventree, vulgo Daintre," Coventry, Coleshill (called Coleshall), Lichfield, Rugeley, Stone, "Namptwich," "Torperley," Chester, Denbigh, Conway Ferry, "Penmanmaure," across the sands (tide permitting), then finally by ferry to Beaumaris, and so to Holyhead. The state of the roads in general and the Holyhead Road in particular in Ogilby’s days may be gauged by reference to Macaulay’s “The State of England in 1685,” in which he says “on the west lines of communication the ruts were deep, the descents precipitous, and the way often such as it was hardly possible to distinguish, in the dusk, from the unenclosed heath and fen which lay on both sides. . . . It was only in fine weather that the whole breadth of the road was available for wheeled vehicles. Often the mud lay deep on the right and the left: and only a narrow track of firm ground rose above the quagmire. . . .” “The great route through Wales to Holyhead was in such a state that, in 1685, a Viceroy, going to Ireland, was five hours in travelling fourteen miles, from St.{Capt. P. R. Strong} Asaph to Conway. Between Conway and Beaumaris he was forced to walk a great part of the way, and his lady was carried in a litter. His coach was, with great difficulty, by the help of many hands, brought after him entire. In general, carriages were taken to pieces at Conway, and borne by stout Welsh peasants to Menai Straits.” Travelling in these “good old days” was a real adventure and full of discomfort. It is on record that Queen Elizabeth confessed to the French ambassador that after a coach journey in London she was unable to sit down for several days. That was a hundred years before Ogilby, but apparently conditions had not improved in his time. There are many little mysteries to be found under the magnifying glass. For example, Mr. Ogilby marks rivers Fluvius, smaller streams rills, and smaller still brooks. Yet the New River in Hertfordshire is named as a river. Mr. Ogilby was a little careless, I fear, for on two maps facing each ‘other he spells Bristol as “Bristol” on one and as “Bristoll” on the other. On other maps I find Birmingham marked “Birmingham vulgo Bromicham,” “Bermingham,” and “Bromicham alias Birmingham.” It is very interesting to trace the roads through what are now London’s suburbs. In the Days of Charles the Second On the London-Newhaven map I observe that—two miles out—there was a gallows where the road branches off to Tooting. Six miles farther on—between “Stretham” and Croydon—there was another, and a third near East Grinstead. Three in thirty miles! I cannot understand why Mr. Ogilby sometimes marked his maps with “to the mill,” and at others “to ye mill.” The following extract from the “Advertisement” which concludes the preface shows that, if England did not have the broad highways as we know them today, at least it had many thousands of miles of roads. “Having in our General Survey of All England Designed the Actual Admeasurement of above 40,000 Miles of Roads, and in order thereunto, already run over near Two Thirds of that quantity; We have in the subsequent WORK Selected only the most Considerable of Them, or such as an Orderly Distribution of the Kingdom has Obliged Us to Exhibit; wherein, whereforeever the Sincerity of Our Intentions, by Mistake, Omission, or Misinformation, shall appear manifestly Violated, We Crave, and shall gratefully Accept, the Candid Informations of Knowing and Judicious Men, and Regulate Our selves and the WORK accordingly, which is Capable of Emendation, either by Insertion or Alteration.” It is passing strange that although Britannia Volume One (the maps) is well known, the other two volumes are rarely quoted—in fact I cannot recall seeing any quotations from them in spite of the following reference in one modern book “Ogilby found in them (the roads) alone material enough to write a volume as large as Harrison’s whole Description. Nor does Ogilby merely give a list of the roads—he writes of them with an intimate knowledge and a vivid interest in the places through which they pass.” Undoubtedly there was much to write on roads in those days. Charles II, in his speech to Parliament in 1662 when arranging for the coming of Catherine of Braganza, said “The mention of my wife’s arrival puts me in mind to desire you to put that compliment upon her, that her entrance into the town may be with more decency than the ways will now suffer it to be: and for that purpose I pray you would quickly pass such laws as are before you, in order to the mending of those ways, and that she may not find Whitehall surrounded by water.” In Ogilby’s day the roads were the only means of communication, and one would have thought that they would have been more adequate. In the year Britannia was published, a clerk of Trinity College, Cambridge, wrote a pamphlet in which he declared that a horseman had often to give way to hundreds of pack horses, panniers, whifflers. . . . It is of interest that Cambridge students were among the first highwaymen. E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} J.{Mr Johnson W.M.} APPLEBY. A 17 [Text from central image] BRITANNIA, Volume the First: OR, AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE KINGDOM OF ENGLAND AND Dominion of Wales: By a Geographical and Historical DESCRIPTION OF THE Principal Roads thereof. Actually Admeasured and Delineated in a Century of Whole-Sheet Copper-Sculps. ACCOMODATED With the Ichnography of the several Cities and Capital Towns. AND COMPLEATED By an Accurate Account of the more Remarkable Passages of Antiquity, Together with a Novel Discourse of the Present State. By JOHN OGILBY Esq; His MAJESTY’s Cosmographer, and Master of His MAJESTY’s Revels in the KINGDOM of IRELAND. LONDON, Printed by the Author at his House in White-Fryers. M.{Mr Moon / Mr Moore} DC. LXXV. | ||