A5: London - Holyhead

In 1810, Thomas Telford was given the job of improving the road from London to Holyhead, from where the sea crossing to Dublin could be made. The first half, from London to Shrewsbury, presented few problems, as the Romans had laid out their road (Watling Street) to Wroxeter some eighteen hundred years beforehand. However, the second half of the journey required some serious engineering to get through the mountains. The Holyhead Road was of vital economic and strategic significance in the recently-united United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, connecting as it did the capital cities of the two principal islands in the Kingdom. However, in August 1848, just twelve and a half years after the Irish Mail first used the Menai Bridge, the raison d'ętre of Telford's road project disappeared with the transfer of the Irish Mail to the railway, using the Stephensons' newly-completed Chester & Holyhead line.

The mighty A5 starts at Marble Arch in London. The arch itself was designed by Nash, and built as the main entrance to Buckingham Palace. However, when the palace was extended in the mid-19th century, the arch had to go and was moved to its current location in the corner of Hyde Park, on the site of Tyburn gallows. The streets in the area mainly form a grid pattern, but Edgware Road, the start of the A5, sets off at a jaunty angle to the north-west. It would be nice to think you could see Holyhead (or at least Shrewsbury) if you looked down the middle of Edgware Road with a pair of binoculars, but sadly that's not true: quite apart from the fact that the Marylebone Flyover is directly in the way, the Watling Street part of the A5 is slightly bendier than its ruler-straight map representation, and it does have numerous kinks in it.

Edgware Road has been home to a succession of immigrants, starting with the Huguenots in the 18th century, and now it is the centre of London's Arab community, as can be seen by the numerous Lebanese restaurants and pavement cafes. After a mile or so, we cross the Regent's Canal, and emerge in a rather more genteel area: Maida Vale. In 1806, the British won a battle at Maida in Italy, and soon afterwards a celebratory pub (The Hero of Maida Vale) opened up on the Edgware Road, lending its name to the area.

The A5 continues through Kilburn, although it is usually rather slow progress due to all the traffic. Once a village, Kilburn was notable for its medićval inns which provided food and rest to the weary traveller. For the more devout journeyman, perhaps on the way to St Albans, a stop at the Priory was also de rigeur.

We pass over the delightfully-named Shoot-Up Hill, and through Cricklewood, inspiration for countless Alan Coren columns in the Times, and home to the Goodies and Ken Livingstone. Draw your own conclusions! The Midland main line railway joins us to the east, running parallel with the A5 until St Albans, and over the next hill we reach Staples Corner and find the latest pretender to the A5's crown, the M1, which we shall encounter several times on our route. The A5 itself flies over the North Circular Road as a two-lane dual carriageway; slightly incongruous given the low quality of the route through many of the suburbs we have been passing through. This flyover achieved a sad notoriety in 1993, when it was blown up by the IRA.

West Hendon and Edgware loom large on the A5 now, and gradually the traffic lights thin out. Suddenly, the houses stop -- welcome to the Green Belt -- and we climb Brockley Hill, which was the site of Sulloniacis Roman camp. The astute will notice that this camp lay at one of the kinks in Watling Street: it was positioned at the top of the hill to give a good vantage point in both directions, and the Romans tended to change direction only where visibility was good.

Soon afterwards, we cross the M1 (without a junction) and meet the A41 Watford bypass at a roundabout. However, if we try to follow the A5 north of here we are stumped: it disappears into thin air. The A5 fell victim to a spate of renumberings in these parts in the 1970s and 1980s, when the motorway network was taking shape and highway authorities thought they could fool motorists into not using particular roads by giving them long unmemorable numbers. In defiance, then, we continue our journey north along the A5183 towards St Albans.

We pass through a succession of villages, punctuated by woodland. Several coaching inns can be seen by the side of the road, their names (such as the Waggon and Horses) giving away their origin. Eventually, we cross the M25 and reach the Park Street roundabout, the signing for which may look eerily familiar (it's in the Highway Code, although the place names and road numbers have been changed).

Crossing straight over the roundabout takes us into St Albans. An abrupt turn to the right leads to a Steep descent to the River VEr and a climb up again past the Abbey to the crossroads by the Peahen pub in the city centre. This junction always seems to attract large queues of traffic. Imagine how bad things must have been, then, when this junction was the confluence of two of the major routes from the North to London: the road from the West Midlands and the North West, which continued south-eastwards to join the Great North Road at Barnet, and the road from the East Midlands, continuing, back the way we have just come, towards Edgware and Marble Arch. To reflect their importance, the Ministry of Transport designated these two roads as spokes in the numbering scheme in 1922, and they became A5 and A6 respectively. However, to have these spokes crossing each other would have caused a major inconsistency in the numbering scheme, and so the A5 and A6 were made to cannon off one another. At this point, therefore, numbering zone 5 formed an hourglass shape (and still does, despite the A5 and A6 having been renumbered A5183 and A1081 respectively).

Because of the increasing problems caused by this junction (reportedly one of the busiest in Europe), St Albans had become a prime candidate for a bypass by the 1950s. The Ministry of Transport was able to relieve the pressure in St Albans by constructing the first stage of the London-Birmingham motorway as a St Albans bypass. Although not the first motorway in Britain (the M6 Preston Bypass took that honour), what became the M1 (and the M10 spur) was far longer and ushered in a new age of motoring.

Looking at a map of St Albans, you will see that the A5183 was already a bypass of sorts: for the Roman city of Verulamium, once one of the largest settlements in Britain. Watling Street originally continued past St Stephen's church in a north-westerly direction, through Verulamium and rejoined Telford's Holyhead Road now coincident with A5183, near Shafford Farm.

We continue along the Ver valley, bypassing Redbourn, once a busy coaching town which at one time had 27 pubs, and crossing the M1 at a junction. The A5 now reappears, this time with trunk route status (rather surprisingly as its route is duplicated by the M1 on this stretch). Many goods vehicles use the A5 from here because it is a more interesting drive than the motorway, and not too much slower.

The next town, Dunstable, is a perennial bottleneck on the A5, but the situation has been slightly improved recently by linking all the sets of traffic lights in the town centre together, to minimise delay to A5 traffic. The road leaves Dunstable through Chalk Hill (in a cutting engineered by Telford; the original road went over the top) and emerges on the lower ground.

The village of Hockliffe need not detain us much, but it was once a major junction on the British road network, as this was where the road to Derby and Liverpool -- later to become the A50 -- left us. However, the A50 has now been cut back as far as Leicester, as its route has been largely superseded by the M1.

Soon we reach the dual carriageway Little Brickhill bypass, which leads onto the Milton Keynes bypass. As well as concrete cows and one of the largest collections of roundabouts known to man, Milton Keynes has its own road numbering system for through roads, based on a grid. East-west roads are numbered H1 to H10, and north-south roads are numbered V1 to V11 -- the original route of the A5 being V4 Watling Street. However, as the current A5 alignment was built later, it does not fit into the grid and is known simply as the A5.

From a large light-controlled roundabout -- where we meet the original A5 coming in from Old Stratford (now bypassed), the A422 and the A508 (the last two both on new alignments: they too once passed through the middle of Old Stratford) -- the A5 now shoots off northwestward in forthright Roman style across the Northamptonshire countryside. Though to tell the truth, it is only for the first few miles of this section that the proverbial Roman straightness remains clearly evident.

Towards Potterspury, there are some long open-road vistas, which together with the tree-lined character of the road make one think of a route nationale. Not that straight, however, and don't get too carried away: circulez ŕ gauche! A curiosity of Potterspury is that the village sits all on one side of the main road: there is scarcely a house on the left (southwestern) side. This is because the land on the "uninhabited" side of the road is part of the Wakefield Lodge estate, former residence of the Dukes of Grafton.

Soon we are descending into Towcester: on our right a rather "modernist"-looking brick-and-glass construction incorporating a tower with a pyramidal roof turns out to be a grandstand -- a contrast in styles with the Renaissance-style stone arch and colonnade marking the entrance to Towcester racecourse. Towcester retains very much the look of a coaching town and mostly 18th-century buildings crowd the road. There were, apparently, 20 inns here before the railway revolution; there seem to be plenty of pubs still and several hostelries make a point of advertising their room prices prominently (their principal target is racegoers, no doubt). The former town hall is a 19th-century gem, but to appreciate it you will have to be travelling southeastward -- or get out of your car!

The Brackley - Northampton road (A43) once crossed Watling Street in the town centre. A dual-carriageway bypass now takes it around the northwestern side of Towcester. The town centre signposts, incidentally, are so small and discreet they can be almost enigmatic. "N'pton" is supposed to represent Northampton: interesting that the Southampton equivalent is So'ton -- which can be equally mystifying at first to new visitors.

Imperceptibly to the traveller but clearly enough on the map, there is a slight turn to a more northerly course on leaving Towcester town centre, as the A5 crosses first the River Tove then, at a roundabout, the A43. It is unusual for Roman roads to change their alignments on low ground: the explanation here is that the turn took place within the walls of Lactodorum, the prosperous Romano-British town which stood here for four centuries (an interesting map is to be found... outside Towcester Safeway!).

So far our journey along the A5 has not afforded any really long-distance views; however, on passing Foster's Booth (about 4 miles out from Towcester), a wide vista suddenly opens out across the broad valley of the Nene to our right. This is the first real indication that our road has been, very slowly but steadily, gaining height (we have climbed well over 200 feet since leaving Milton Keynes). The West Coast railway line and the Grand Union Canal are converging on our route, also climbing and each aiming to cling to high ground now in anticipation of the ridge to be crossed later.

Road, rail and canal all finally come together at Weedon Bec (light-controlled junction with the A45). Thomas Telford's Holyhead Road diverged from Watling Street here, to run by way of Daventry, Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton before rejoining today's A5 at the point where the eponymous town of Telford now stands.

200 years ago Weedon was a focal point in the country's communications system. In a way reminiscent of today's freight depots gathering near key motorway interchanges, this point near the centre of the Thames - Mersey / Severn - Trent canal sytem (forerunner of the M1/M6/M5) was selected for the establishment of extensive military barracks and stores: as well as being easily, if slowly, suppliable by water, it was the place in England judged the most remote from the threat of a fast seaborne invasion! The troops stationed at Weedon came in handy later too, for putting down riots by the railway navvies camped near Kilsby...

Soon the M1 joins our happy band but it will be a few miles before we actually see it as it is hidden behind the railway embankment to our right. Some 5 miles from Weedon, as we descend a slope just after passing the B5385 turn to Watford, the railway bends, passes beneath us, and zooms off at a 30 degree angle to our left, while at a similar angle to our right we see the canal struggling painfully uphill through the Watford Flight. And just after that, we finally catch sight of the M1, just before it throws off its M45 spur. Strange that the motorway junction should be mostly in cuttings on top of a hill, no doubt the designers had their reasons; strange, too, that we know the names of Telford and Stephenson, but who laid out the M1 -- was it all designed by committee?

On the lefthand side of the A5, and level with the aforementioned motorway junction, is... Watford Gap. No, not the notorious motorway services of that name -- they are a mile or two nearer London -- but the original inn (now uninhabited and rather tumbledown) which has stood here for hundreds of years. Watford Gap is a "gap" in that here is where the ridge is easiest to cross: on the ground, though, it feels like the highest point in the district!). In pre-turnpike days, the inn stood at the oblique intersection of Watling Street with the old Northampton - Rugby road, which took a more southerly route than today's A428: running south of Althorp Park and by way of Great Brington, Long Buckby, Watford and Kilsby. The A5 now follows that route towards Kilsby, the onward Roman road having been abandoned as a way over the ridge at this point, though the M1 follows hard alongside the old route (now just a track, but still a public right-of-way) for just under a mile.

Kilsby ridge is dotted with huge crenellated ventilation shafts for the rail tunnel beneath: far more numerous than strictly necessary for a tunnel less than a mile and a half long, had it not been for the fact that the tunnellers hit an underground sea of quicksand. The only solution was to sink extra shafts and install 13 pumping-engines which, extracting sand and water at the rate of 2000 gallons a minute, took 8 months to complete the task. Altogether, the project was set back 19 months and went more than 300% over budget - the 21st century anticipated!

Dropping down to the edge of Kilsby village we come to a roundabout junction with the end of that great warhorse of A-roads, the A361 ...from Ilfracombe. Now we take over that road's northward direction, gradually descending the ridge (passing over both the main railway line and the Northampton loop) before crossing the A428 at the Halfway House pub and rejoining the original Watling Street alignment a mile and a half after Kilsby (the connection from this point back to the A428 is also numbered A5). The flat land at the bottom of the slope is now occupied by the extensive Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT, and Daventry because that's the local-government district it's in, though it actually lies closer to Rugby). Eddie Stobart has a major base here. Incidentally, the non-rail-connected parts of the terminal appear recently to have been rechristened a Logistics Park.

Our route is now dead straight again as we run between the myriad masts of Rugby Radio Station. This is where the signal comes from that resets your clock to BST/GMT if you've got one of those "radio-controlled" ones, but there are so many masts the station must have other uses too. Incidentally, you can see these masts well before crossing Kilsby ridge, and if you live near here you'll never have a problem finding your way home at night since the red lights on the things are visible from 20 km away. The A5 is the traditional border between Warwickshire and Leicestershire (and, on this stretch, Warwickshire and Northamptonshire), though in practice the administrative boundary usually lies a little way back from the road itself on one side or the other, which explains why, when we see the sign welcoming us to Warwickshire, it is on the righthand, Northants side of the road!

The top of the rise after the radio station brings us onto Dunsmore, the heath that stretches from here westwards to Coventry, and is the starting point of a curiously large number of major routes. We then dip down to Dow Bridge, where Warwickshire, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire all meet, then climb again to the junction with the original A427 (later a B-road and now altogether unclassified) at Catthorpe Cross.

Soon after passing under the M6, we reach the roundabout with the A426, which links the M1 and M6 motorways. This section of the A5 is quite pleasant to drive down, being through rolling countryside, with just enough occasional dual carriageway to ensure that you never get frustrated at being stuck behind a truck. And there are quite a few trucks between here and Cannock, as this section functions as an unofficial M6 bypass (much cheaper than the M6 Toll!).

We cross the M69 at the Stretton Baskerville roudabout, and duly come to Hinckley and Nuneaton. On our right lies MIRA, the Motor Industry Research Association, where new cars are thoroughly road-tested. We bypass the hat-making town of Atherstone, and come across a signpost to what has to be one of the best place-names in England...Sheepy Magna! (accessible via Sheepy Road, no less). Without much further ado, we find ourselves at junction 10 of the M42, with its attendant Tamworth Services.

We now reach a new section of the A5 bypassing Tamworth, which is grade-separated dual carriageway and has very nice low-spray tarmac that you'll really notice as you leave this section if it's raining. The B5404, which leaves almost immediately, is the old route through Fazeley. The A51 passes under us, and the A453 makes an appearance from Tamworth town centre. We now alight upon the new Hints and Weeford bypass, opened in September 2005, which climbs up over The Devil's Dressing Room and it's associated quarry and back down to the old Roman road at the newly refashioned A38 junction (this was built in 1972 originally as an overlarge roundabout to accomodate a grade-separated junction for the A38 later). The A38 now goes under the A5 GSJ roundabout and the recently made M6 (Toll) connection - junction T4. The A5 is now shadowed by the toll road all the way to Churchbridge, near Cannock, starting with a fine view of the exit toll plaza to the south west as you leave the roundabout.

After about 1˝ miles we reach Wall Island, the junction with the A5127 to Lichfield, the A5148 link to the A38, and Junction T5 of the M6 (Toll). Before construction of the toll road, the roundabout was very strange and had all the ramps for grade separation between the A5 west of the junction and the A5148. These were reformed and the exit from the toll road eastbound onto the A5148 was engineered to pass under a radically changed A5/A5127 roundabout. The A5 then becomes a dual carriageway as we pass the village of Wall, hated by schoolchildren for many miles around as they get dragged round the Roman ruins, until we reach the A461 Walsall - Lichfield road at Muckley Corner (actually a roundabout, not a corner). After leaving rural Staffordshire we enter the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, and then a further mile west the M6 (Toll) passes below us from left to right heading for Chasewater. Junction T6 lies just to the north of us a mile further along at Chasetown. The A452 meets us at a strange triangular roundabout, and goes off on its way to M6 J5 and the NEC, and back out into Staffordshire we go. After a section of dual carriageway, we find ourselves at Churchbridge, on the outskirts of Cannock. Here the A5 crosses the M6 (Toll) by virtue of a new junction (T7) and massive reworking of the roads in the area, resulting in a Magic Roundabout! The toll road heads off to our left to join the original M6 near Little Saredon. After passing under a railway bridge we continue past a series of grotty-looking retail parks, but after just over a mile we're back in rural countryside. This section is nice and wide, with reservoirs on either side of the road, and very, very straight as befitting the Roman Road, and before we know it, we've reached the M6 at Junction 12. Here much of the long-distance traffic which has bypassed the West Midlands continues its journey north on the motorway.

After passing the M6, the A5 continues pretty much unchanged: wide and very straight. Before too long, we reach the junction with the A449 at Gailey, where all of the Wolverhampton-bound traffic that joined us at the M6 turns off. The road then loses its primary status, and stays that way all the way to Telford. The road here is narrower, and full of gentle curves, rises and falls. After about 2˝ miles, the Shropshire Union Canal crosses on a pretty 18th century aqueduct above. Soon, we enter the picturesque village of Weston-under-Lizard (and no, there's no river Lizard!), which other than the stately home of Weston Park (which is signed separately), is one of the smallest places to be signposted off a motorway. Just after Weston, we reach the roundabout junction with the A41.

The road continues much the same as before, quite pleasant to drive down. Off to the right is the FA's School of Excellence at Lilleshall, and before too much longer we come to the brow of a hill: the new town of Telford is spread out in front of us. The junction with the B5060 is at the bottom of the hill, left is for the M54 at Junction 4. This is also the point where the A5 diverges from the Roman road. The road can be seen on maps as local streets, finally becoming the B5061 all the way through Wellington, heading to Wroxeter (Watling Street’s destination) but then veering off to Shrewsbury. The modern road swings round to the left, and meets the B5061, Telford's Holyhead Road which we left behind in Weedon. Down the hill to Telford town centre we go, and get eaten up by the M54 at the modern Junction 5.

At Junction 7, the A5 re-asserts itself over the motorway, and we continue along the relatively new A5 Expressway. Most drivers probably haven't noticed that we've left the motorway behind, as it is only just sub-motorway standard, with narrow hard shoulders. After about a mile, we reach the brow of a hill, and then clap our eyes on the Cambrian Mountains for the first time. At the only junction (a roundabout at the end), we swallow the A49, and then spit it out again a bit further around the Shrewsbury bypass. This is actually the second incarnation of the bypass: the earlier version now carries the number B4380. At Montford Bridge we rejoin the original route, and strike north-west into border country. The once notorious bottleneck of Nesscliffe was bypassed in 2003: look out for the distinctive footbridge across the bypass. We pass the wonderfully named village of "Ruyton Of The Eleven Towns", and at Queen's Head we veer off from the original line of the road (now numbered B5009) to visit Oswestry. At the roundabout you have to decide between "SOUTH WALES" to the left on the A483, and "NORTH WALES" to the right on the A5 -- which we shall be taking, of course. This stretch of road was built in the last twenty years [more specific?] as part of a programme to improve the A483, an important North-South link in Wales.

We finally cross the Welsh border on a bridge over the Dee Valley on the Chirk bypass (watch out for sidewinds, which can be detected at the windsocks at either end), and turn left to regain the original route. The area of road signs increases once we're in Wales because the signs have to be bilingual -- don't be confused into thinking that Wrexham and Wrecsam are different places, just because they're on different lines of a sign! Here begins the section where Telford really left his mark when improving the road, and because most of it hasn't really been improved since, many of the original features are still evident. For example, the majority of Telford's milestones are still standing by the roadside, quietly doing their job. The Welsh Office have recently erected brown tourist signs along the road to mark its status as an "Historic Route".

The A5 and the Shropshire Union Canal run side by side until the village of Froncysyllte, whereupon the canal boldly turns north and crosses the River Dee on the most audacious piece of canal engineering in the country: the Pontcysyllte aqueduct, designed by Telford, which is not for the vertiginous! We continue along the south side of the valley and descend into Llangollen. This town is home to the International Musical Eisteddfod, and also -- bizarrely -- the Doctor Who Exhibition. The symbols for these appear on brown tourist signs through the town, resulting in the memorable sight of a Dalek pursuing a Welsh dragon.

West of Llangollen, we continue to follow the Dee upstream. It's much more obvious we're in a river valley, as the road hugs the steep southern side, squashed up by the railway (formerly an important east-west link, now a tourist line). Passing through the tiny village of Berwyn, which gives its name to an extensive range of hills to the south, we look down on the railway and the B5103 turns off, threading its way under the railway and over the river. Meanwhile, we climb as the railway goes into a tunnel and the river goes around the long way.

We pass through two small villages: Glyndyfrdwy (which simply means "Dee Valley"), with a 30mph limit, and Llidiart-y-Parc (national limit - but take care!), soon arriving at the larger settlement of Corwen. Here's where we part company with the Dee at last - the valley turns to the south, but we're continuing west. Shortly after we cross the river on a fine stone bridge, there's a signal-controlled junction with the A494 to Ruthin and Queensferry. The A5 and A494 multiplex for a mile and a half, crossing Afon Alwen (a major tributary of the Dee - we haven't left it completely!) at a bridge on a double bend.

The A494 leaves us again at Druid, another signal-controlled junction. We continue, tight against the river for another 7 miles, the old twisting line interrupted by a brief stretch that was widened in the 1990s near Ty-nant. The new road cuts through a bend and gives a climbing lane - one of the few overtaking opportunities in this area.

At Cerrigydrudion, the straight line of the road appears to head straight into the village, but we bear left, using a short 1920s[?] bypass to pick up an equally straight road on the other side. It's straight on the map, but in the vertical dimension, it's anything but! The soft ground at this watershed between the catchments of Conwy and Dee is not well suited to supporting a modern road, and it has a habit of shuffling about underneath and leaving the road looking like a rumpled blanket.

For a while, the road is a sequence of straights and modern sweeping bends, with a few "traditional" corners thrown in for good measure. A mile or two after the village of Pentrefoelas this changes again, as we duck into the woods to follow the River Conwy downwards. We hug the river tightly (there's no alternative in this narrow gorge), winding down, and crossing at a bridge about halfway down the gorge. The road in this section is supported by walls that keep it perched above the river. After a while, we emerge from the woods and the valley widens a bit. Make the most of the bright sky while you can, for a mile or two later we're back in the woods, again closely following the Conwy as it twists down to Betws y Coed.

We cross the river on the cast-iron Waterloo Bridge, which was built in 1815 to celebrate the famous victory over Napoleon. The sides of the bridge feature the emblems of the four countries of the newly-formed United Kingdom, plus a legend to commemorate its construction. We climb steeply as we leave the village, gaining a climbing lane for the hill. On our right, the river makes an even more dramatic descent, over the Swallow Falls. Above the falls, the gradient gradually eases, and the A5 bends right to cross the river. The old line can be followed by leaving the A5 here, to rejoin at Pont Cyfyng, a bridge two miles further upstream.

Pont Cyfyng marks the beginning of the sprawling village of Capel Curig, home of the National Mountaineering Centre at Plas y Brenin, which sits at the foot of Moel Siabod, the prominent peak to the south. We continue through, bearing right at the junction with A4086. We're climbing again, but this time we're out of the woods and there are good views southwards across the valley. The old pre-Telford line of the road lies on the other side of the river, and makes a good walk from Capel to Ogwen.

North of us, a series of reservoirs (the largest being Llyn Cowlyd) gathers North Wales's plentiful rainwater for delivery all the way to Liverpool. (Further south, mid Wales does the same for Birmingham.)

Soon we are treated to a view of the vast battlements of Tryfan. The East Face is favoured by climbers, and the North Ridge – which forms the ridge edge from our viewpoint – is popular amongst the more adventurous hillwalkers. As we pass the northern end of Tryfan, below the Milestone Buttress (named after the nearby milestone on the old road), we are treated to another view - the beautiful Llyn Ogwen in front of us.

We follow the southern shore of the lake. At the far end, we again have the option of following the old road (long and narrow - for the enthusiast only!), or alternatively we could park here and walk up to Llyn Idwal above us to the south - of particular interest to geologists, geographers and naturalists. When we're ready to continue, we cross the outlet of Llyn Ogwen, and as the valley drops away rapidly to become the broad Nant Ffrancon, we follow a cunningly engineered line gently descending along the slopes of the eastern side until we're once again by the river. It's interesting to compare the different lines of the new and old routes here: the oldest route descends quickly on the western side of the valley, whereas the subsequent turnpike road clung to the eastern side. Telford realigned the turnpike road substantially to even out the gradient.

Before long we reach the village of Bethesda, site of the largest slate quarries in the world. We then descend through woods along the Ogwen valley, before turning sharp left and crossing the river at Halfway Bridge. Suddenly, the countryside opens out and we reach the junction with the A55. Travellers in less of a hurry than we are would now turn off to reach Holyhead as quickly as possible. We, however, descend into Bangor, first around a sweeping right-hand bend then down beside the stone wall of the crematorium (which blocks any view we might hope to catch of Penrhyn castle). By the harbour and pier (which stretches halfway to Anglesey!) we turn sharp left. The A5 avoids the city centre and cathedral (Bangor is the oldest diocese in the country) and follows a zig-zag path to the Menai Bridge. Proceeding in a straight line is not easy because of the different vertical levels of the city.

The Menai Bridge is really the jewel in the Holyhead Road's crown: before its construction, the only way across the treacherous Menai Straits was a dangerous (and inconvenient) ferry crossing. Because shipping needed to use the route, the bridge had to be built 100 feet above sea level, which was unthinkable then. However, Telford worked his magic and built the first great suspension bridge in the world. Just about everything about its construction was innovative at the time, including the massive iron chains and suspension rods. However, in the mid-20th century, the bridge had become inadequate for modern traffic volumes -- so much so that bus conductors would sometimes have to ask some passengers to alight, walk across, and meet the bus at the other side! The bridge was repaired, strengthened and widened between 1938-1940, and the name of Alexander Gibb, who supervised the work, now appears on one of the central towers, opposite that of Thomas Telford.

After crossing the bridge, we veer left to run alongside the strait, past a layby from where good views back to the bridge can be had. We approach the other bridge over the strait, the Britannia Bridge. This was built in 1850 by Robert Stevenson, and carried trains across in two iron tubes, rectangular in cross-section, supported by two limestone towers. However, in 1970 two boys accidentally set fire to the bridge, and almost destroyed it. The bridge was reconstructed so that the railway was supported by arches, and a road deck, carrying a diverted A5, was added over the top in 1980. However, since the recent completion of the A55 North Wales Expressway, the A5 has returned to its original routing through Bangor and over the Menai Bridge.

The A5 proceeds through the village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyll (as it is signed from the road), often abbreviated to Llanfair PG. However, the station and many local shops and garages display the famously lengthened version (Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch), which was dreamt up in the nineteenth century to encourage tourists to visit the island.

After the dramatic scenery of Snowdonia, the much flatter scenery of Anglesey might seem rather dull. But the island is known as Mam Cymru (the Mother of Wales) because of its fertile land. In fact, the rolling hills, lush green fields and the occasional rocky crag are rather redolent of Ireland. We run very close and parallel to the new A55 (which has taken most of the traffic away from the old road), crossing over the flood plain of the Afon Cefni. After passing through the village of Gwalchmai we cross the brow of a hill and get our first good view of Holyhead, with Holyhead Mountain skulking in the background. The A5 passes along the Stanley Embankment (forsaking the older bridge to the west) to Holy Island. The A5 finally ends at the ferry terminal, from where you can take a boat to Ireland proper!

An account of the first mile can also be found at London Geezer's Webpage

Tom, Viator, Steven, Bealach na Ba, T1(M), Lez Watson