348 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



To set out ourselves on the roads on which these pro- 

 digies were perpetrated, it may be well to state at this 

 point that there were three routes to Holyhead in the 

 prime of the coaching days ; firstly, the direct and old 

 road, via Chester, and measured from Hicks's Hall, going 

 via Earnet, St. Albans, Dunstable, Hockliffe, Woburn, 

 Newport Pagnell, Northampton, Hinckley, Tarn worth, 

 Rugeley, Nantwich, and Chester ; secondly, the road 

 measured from Tyburn Turnpike, and going via Southall. 

 Uxbridge, Beaconsfield, High Wycombe, Oxford, Wood- 

 stock, Chapel House, Shipston, Stratford-on-Avon, Hen- 

 ley-in-Arden, and Birmingham ; and, thirdly, the new 

 road (" new old ' though, as it turns out) via Barnet, St. 

 Albans, Dunstable, Brickhill, Stony Stratford, Towcester, 

 Daventry, Dunsmoor, Coventry, Birmingham, and thence 

 to Shrewsbury, as route No. 2, via Wednesbury, Wol- 

 verhampton, Shifnal, Haygate, and Atcham. 



It was this latter route which was taken by the Wonder, 

 the Holyhead Mail, and other crack coaches ; and it is 

 on this route that I purpose to travel, permitting myself 

 as heretofore the graceful license of running off it, on to 

 one of its branches, whenever the desirability of a change 

 suggests itself, or an anecdote or an accident calls for 

 diversion. 



And the accidents on the North- Western Road begin 

 early ; before, indeed, it branches from the Great North 

 Road, which it does, or did, at Barnet Pillar (the stone 

 put up to commemorate the celebrated battle), six fur- 

 longs beyond Barnet town. But as I say the first 

 casualty to be noticed on the North- Western Road oc- 

 curred before this spot is reached, so near to London 

 indeed as Finchley Common (which is about a mile and 

 a half beyond Highgate Archway), though the cause of 

 the accident, the first cause, originated at a place called 

 Redbourn, twenty-one miles down the road. And in 

 this wise : Owing to an obstruction below Dunstable — in 

 point of fact to heavy snow-drifts — four or five coaches 



