Celebrating 200 years of road cut through The Rock

"It was hazardous in the extreme for passengers, drivers and importantly, horses," says historian Roger Jeavons.

The worst part was Old Hill, the one-in-five gradient leading to Tettenhall's Upper Green.

"Passengers often had to disembark and walk up the hill, possibly also carrying their luggage, while the horses were somehow encouraged to struggle with the empty coach to the top," he says.

"Descending the hill was equally terrifying, with the coach slipping and sliding."

If only it were not for The Rock, a 40ft sandstone cliff which stood in the way of easy progress along the vital artery linking London with the increasingly important port of Holyhead in Anglesey.

Today thousands of people pass through The Rock at Tettenhall. Commuters heading into work, drivers heading to and from the M54. Children on the way to school, pedestrians heading into the village for a some shopping or a bite to eat.

Few of them will give a thought to the tremendous feat of engineering – not to mention hard labour – that went into producing the route we all take for granted.

It is 200 years since what is effectively the Tettenhall bypass opened to the public, removing the need for the treacherous climb to the top of the village.

Tettenhall historian Roger Jeavons says travellers faced 'extreme dangers and difficulties' of getting horse-drawn stagecoaches up and down the hill. But finding a safer route not only required a monumental feat of engineering, it was also a major political challenge.

The Act of Union between England and Ireland, passed in 1801, led to a considerable increase in trade between the two nations, and Holyhead became established as a major port. The Act also gave 100 Irish MPs the right to sit in Westminster, and the Government set about improving the road link between Holyhead and London.

A parliamentary committee was set up to organise the necessary improvements for the Holyhead Road, appointed Thomas Telford as the consulting engineer. The first stage of the project was the 120-mile link between Holyhead and Shrewsbury, including the construction of the Menai Suspension Bridge. Work began in 1815, and took five years to complete – a remarkable feat when compared with the time taken for infrastructure projects today. Indeed, the entire route to London took just 13 years to build, mostly by men equipped with little more than picks and shovels. The work itself was carried out by 24 separate turnpike trusts, which derived their incomes from charging tolls to travellers. These would prove crucial in deciding the eventual route that the bypass would take.

When Telford examined the section between Tettenhall and Wolverhampton, he decided it best to completely avoid the Tettenhall ridge. Instead, he proposed routing the road through Aldersley to the Wergs, but the chairman of Wolverhampton turnpike trust rejected his proposal, saying the Aldersley area was prone to flooding, and it's waterlogged state would make it difficult to provide a suitable road surface.

Telford then submitted an alternative scheme, which would involve cutting a tunnel through the ridge, leading to Upper Green, but that too was rejected by Wolverhampton turnpike trust.

Instead, the trust drew up its own alternative plans, which involved blasting a cutting through The Rock, and then using the rubble to build a hill leading up to the road. The scheme also required the replacement of the existing bridge over the Staffordshire-Worcestershire canal and the adjacent Smestow Brook, leading to the area around it becoming known as Newbridge.

Telford was unimpressed, criticising the slope that led up to The Rock, and the stand-off meant that the trust had to carry out the work on its own, without any support from government.

The Rock cutting began in 1820, and took three years to complete.

Roger is in awe at the accomplishments of the men who cut through the 40ft cliff to build the road.

"This was long before the days of lorries or mechanical diggers, mechanical diggers, lorries or machinery," he says.

"In those days it was just horses, spades, gun powder for blasting, and muscle power."

Completing such a feat of engineering was no small task, and it was three years before the work was complete. It had also been very expensive, and users of the road were made to pay for the convenience in the form of greatly increased tolls.

Initially tolls were collected in a booth at Chapel Ash, but this was abandoned in favour of two gates, one at the area now known as Newbridge, and another at Compton.

The road was a huge success, enabling the freeflow of traffic between London and Holyhead. Even Telford grudgingly accepted that is was at least an improvement on horse-drawn carriages having to struggle up through Old Hill.

A short while later, the Halfway House was built about a mile up the road, providing overnight accommodation at the halfway point between Holyhead and the capital.

A horse-drawn tramway between Wolverhampton and Newbridge opened in 1876, eventually making way for Lorain electric trams in 1902.

The much-improved transport links to the rest of the country, coupled with Wolverhampton's emergence as a manufacturing centre, made Tettenhall an attractive place to live for the well-heeled.

Roger Jeavons points to the millions of vehicles which have used the road over the past 200 years, from the horse-drawn carriages of the the 1820s to the articulated lorries of today, as a vindication of the turnpike trustees, not to mention the workmen who built the road.

"It is a true testament to the commitment and construction skills of our ancestors," he says.

"Meanwhile, Old Hill remains exactly the same today, hidden away, as if trapped in a time warp.

"I believe this colossal two-year long engineering feat, completed 200 years ago this year, was, and remains, a truly outstanding engineering achievement, and is worthy of recognition.

"An astonishing achievement. You could say, a cut above."