*[4] 'Second Report from Committee on Holyhead Roads and Harbours,' 1810. (Parliamentary paper.)
*[5] "Many parts of the road are extremely dangerous for a coach to travel upon. At several places between Bangor and Capel-Curig there are a number of dangerous precipices without fences, exclusive of various hills that want taking down. At Ogwen Pool there is a very dangerous place where the water runs over the road, extremely difficult to pass at flooded times. Then there is Dinas Hill, that needs a side fence against a deep precipice. The width of the road is not above twelve feet in the steepest part of the hill, and two carriages cannot pass without the greatest danger. Between this hill and Rhyddlanfair there are a number of dangerous precipices, steep hills, and difficult narrow turnings. From Corwen to Llangollen the road is very narrow, long, and steep; has no side fence, except about a foot and a half of mould or dirt, which is thrown up to prevent carriages falling down three or four hundred feet into the river Dee. Stage-coaches have been frequently overturned and broken down from the badness of the road, and the mails have been overturned; but I wonder that more and worse accidents have not happened, the roads are so bad."—Evidence of Mr. William Akers, of the Post-office, before Committee of the House of Commons, 1st June, 1815.
*[6] The Select Committee of the House of Commons, in reporting as to the manner in which these works were carried out, stated as follows:— "The professional execution of the new works upon this road greatly surpasses anything of the same kind in these countries. The science which has been displayed in giving the general line of the road a proper inclination through a country whose whole surface consists of a succession of rocks, bogs, ravines, rivers, and precipices, reflects the greatest credit upon the engineer who has planned them; but perhaps a still greater degree of professional skill has been shown in the construction, or rather the building, of the road itself. The great attention which Mr. Telford has devoted, to give to the surface of the road one uniform and moderately convex shape, free from the smallest inequality throughout its whole breadth; the numerous land drains, and, when necessary, shores and tunnels of substantial masonry, with which all the water arising from springs or falling in rain is instantly carried off; the great care with which a sufficient foundation is established for the road, and the quality, solidity, and disposition of the materials that are put upon it, are matters quite new in the system of road-making in these countries."— 'Report from the Select Committee on the Road from London to Holyhead in the year 1819.'
*[7] Evidence of William Waterhouse before the Select Committee, 10th March, 1819.
CHAPTER XII.
THE MENAI AND CONWAY BRIDGES.
[Image] Map of Menai Strait [Ordnance Survey]
So long as the dangerous Straits of Menai had to be crossed in an open ferry-boat, the communication between London and Holyhead was necessarily considered incomplete. While the roads through North Wales were so dangerous as to deter travellers between England and Ireland from using that route, the completion of the remaining link of communication across the Straits was of comparatively little importance. But when those roads had, by the application of much capital, skill, and labour, been rendered so safe and convenient that the mail and stage coaches could run over them at the rate of from eight to ten miles an hour, the bridging of the Straits became a measure of urgent public necessity. The increased traffic by this route so much increased the quantity of passengers and luggage, that the open boats were often dangerously overloaded; and serious accidents, attended with loss of life and property, came to be of frequent occurrence.
The erection of a bridge over the Straits had long been matter of speculation amongst engineers. As early as 1776, Mr. Golborne proposed his plan of an embankment with a bridge in the middle of it; and a few years later, in 1785, Mr. Nichols proposed a wooden viaduct, furnished with drawbridges at Cadnant Island. Later still, Mr. Rennie proposed his design of a cast iron bridge. But none of these plans were carried out, and the whole subject remained in abeyance until the year 1810, when a commission was appointed to inquire and report as to the state of the roads between Shrewsbury, Chester, and Holyhead. The result was, that Mr. Telford was called upon to report as to the most effectual method of bridging the Menai Strait, and thus completing the communication with the port of embarkation for Ireland.
[Image] Telford's proposed Cast Iron Bridge