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^ Quaint Bay, St. Albans. 



VIL— THE HOLYHEAD ROAD. 



The history of the New and Direct Road to Holyhead 

 by St. Albans, Redbourn, Dunstable, Brick-hill, Tow- 

 cester, Dunchurch, Coventry, Birmingham, and thence to 

 Shrewsbury, begins, as I read its record, two hundred 

 years before the Holyhead Mail showed fair claim to be 

 one of the fastest coaches in England, or the Shrewsbury 

 Wonder's supreme punctuality regulated the watches of 

 dwellers on the roadside. It is true that in November, 

 1605, roads as we now understand them did not exist ; 

 but this same route, or at all events tracks across unin- 

 closed heaths, even then connected the above-mentioned 

 places with each other and the capital, and marked the 



