“Master Thomas is in the stable, my Lord,” was the reply given by the footman.
He was, in fact, taking an active part in caring for the horses, just as, in later years, he “delighted in seeing twelve or fourteen horses bedded down, all for his own driving on the Shrewsbury road.”
“The most popular man in the county,” as he was presently to be known, married in 1803, and settled at Pradoe. He became active in the volunteer movement consequent upon the threatened invasion of England by Napoleon, and was Chairman of Shropshire Sessions and High Steward of Oswestry. That he never chose to compete for Parliamentary honours was due to his love of a country life in general and of the road in particular. He set up his own four-in-hand and drove it himself, on an average, three times a week, the thirteen miles from Pradoe to Shrewsbury; at other times the five miles to Oswestry, or, on occasional longer trips, to Llangollen or Bangor. Long before Telford had taken in hand the first portion of his work on the Holyhead Road, “His Honour” and his neighbour, Sir Henry Peyton, had done something to improve the part that ran close by. It was in those days heavy with sand, and “as bad a road as ever coach travelled on.” Grips and watercourses ran athwart, and rendered it specially dangerous at night. He had these defects covered over, and the sandy parts laid with hard material.
THE HONOURABLE THOMAS KENYON. From an Old Print.
A rigid punctuality was the chief feature of “His Honour’s” drives. He is described as having been a stylish whip, though by no means a fast driver, and never tempted to any racing rivalry. He was a species of Providence to the country-folk who had business calling them into Shrewsbury, and would always give a lift to any decent wayfarer. Only one condition he insisted upon: that no walking-sticks were allowed. Any one desiring a ride must choose between throwing his stick away and walking. Ducks and geese and market-baskets were permissible, and many an old market-woman rode to or from Shrewsbury on his coach; but sticks never had a place there. The reason of this objection to them does not appear. His punctuality was as invariable as that of the “Wonder” itself; and we have already heard how the country-folk took out their watches as that smart turn-out passed—not to see by how much the coach was overdue, but to set their watches by it. The country people whom he had brought into Shrewsbury learned, by many doleful experiences, to value punctuality as greatly as he; for if, when ready to return, they came to the “Lion” yard a minute too late, they would find the inexorable squire and his coach gone, and have to resign themselves to walking home.
This lover of the road and all its ways lived to see the old order pass away and railways supplant the crack teams that passed his gates. Endeared to all the coachmen and guards on the Holyhead, and the Chester, and Liverpool roads, he was the recipient in 1812 of what was called “a Token of gratitude presented by the Coachmen and Guards of the ‘Lion’ Establishment, Shrewsbury.” This took the form of a silver salver purchased with a subscription of a hundred and twenty guineas. The presentation was made in the course of a dinner at the “Lion” by Isaac Taylor, himself, as the guest of the evening truly said, “one of the most spirited and respected coach-proprietors in the kingdom.” It was an occasion marked by much compliment, and much enthusiasm for the road, but the glory had already waned. Four years before, the London and Birmingham Railway had cleared the greater part of the Holyhead Road of its coaches, and the “Wonder” itself, from the smartest four-horse coach in England had become a two-horse conveyance; but still a wonder, the wonder being that it could, in the face of the railway advance, have kept the road at all.
Nine years later, in 1851, the Honourable Thomas Kenyon died, and was laid to rest in the church of West Felton.
XXIX
Beyond that straggling village, at a point where a branch of the Ellesmere canal runs athwart the road and is lost in a long perspective to the right, is the hamlet called “Queen’s Head,” taking its name from the old coaching-inn of that name still presenting a stolid red face to the highway. The inn, the road, the canal, and a deserted toll-house all tell a tale of the havoc wrought by the railway. It was a busy place once, for many coaches changed at the inn, and on the old grass-grown wharves of the canal many a ton of goods was unloaded from the barges that in times gone by passed in great numbers, laden with coals, bricks, and manure. It is also the point whence a branch road, going through Whittington, and rejoining the main Holyhead Road at Gobowen, saves a mile by avoiding Oswestry altogether.