There still stands, at the entrance to the Pier, the granite archway erected to commemorate the landing of George IV. in 1821. Severely classical, in the Doric sort, it resembles (save that it is not so large and not so black) the funereal entrance to the Euston terminus of the London and North-Western Railway. It bears an inscription in Welsh—“Cof-Adail i Ymweliad y Brenin Gior y IV. ag ynys fÔn. Awst VII., MDCCCXXI.”—which those whose Pentecostal attainments render it possible may translate.

Holyhead was a proud town that day, August 7th, when George IV. landed, on his trip to Ireland. He had come, aboard the yacht Royal George, round by St. George’s Channel, escorted by a squadron, and spent five days in the Isle of Anglesey, detained by contrary winds. “His Majesty,” says a contemporary report, “was struck with admiration at the appearance of the town”; and we in our turn might well be struck with astonishment, were it not that modern monarchs are the best of actors and can smile approval to order.

But, in spite of this admiration, the King did not stop at Holyhead. That battered warrior, the Marquis of Anglesey, took him across the island to Plas Newydd. The next day died Queen Caroline, at Hammersmith, and the news by incredible efforts reached the squadron lying off Holyhead the day after. The King was freed at last from the wife he hated, and his feeling towards her was sufficiently marked by the facts that the squadron did not fire the salute of minute-guns usual on such occasions, and that the trip to Ireland, with its attendant banquets and rejoicings, was not interrupted.

The winds that could in those days detain a fleet, and kept the King’s yacht and his escort swinging for days idly at their anchorage, made a vast difference to Holyhead. The Times correspondent on that occasion tells how scarce provisions grew, and to what extravagant prices ordinary articles of food rose. Eggs, he wails, were sixpence each, and for neither love nor money could he obtain any Welsh mutton for his dinner. He was, accordingly, truly thankful when the squadron sailed and plenty reigned once more. The King left, however, before his escort. He had observed how the Dublin new steam-packets crossed, irrespective of weather, and took passage on the 12th, aboard the Lightning, named afterwards, in honour of the occasion, the Royal George the Fourth.

When, in 1851, Borrow walked into Holyhead, he stayed at the “Railway Hotel,” a “noble and first-rate” house. All others were described to him as “poor places, where no gent puts up.” What, then, had become of the several mentioned in the works of Cary and Paterson; the hostelries that had been sufficient for the needs of coaching times? Only four years had then passed since the last coach was driven off these ultimate miles, and yet Maran’s Hotel, the “Royal,” the “Hibernian,” the “Eagle and Child,” and others, were already dismissed among those unmentionable “poor places.” Possibly travellers by coach put up with a great deal more than railway passengers would tolerate. An illuminating side-light on these matters is shed by Jack Williams’ recommendation of the Holyhead inns, quoted by Colonel Birch-Reynardson; and certainly Jack Williams, who drove the Mail between Bangor and Holyhead, should have been an authority.

“Coachman, do you know Holyhead well?” asked a passenger. “Me know Holyhead,” said Jack, who spoke with a strong Welsh accent. “Yes, inteed; I suppose I to; at laste I should to; I’ve lived there all my life. Yes, inteed; I was pred and porn there.” “Then you can tell me, I dare say, which is the best inn; for I want to stay a day or two at Holyhead.” “How should I know the best inn?” said Jack. “Well, if you know Holyhead so well, surely you must know which is the best inn.” “Well, inteed, I know that there’s two inns in Holyhead, but I canna say which is the pest; I never goes to either of ’em.” “Well, but you must know which of them is called the best, and which would be best for a gentleman to stay at.” “Well, inteed,” said Jack, at last, “I’ll tell you how it is. Should you wish to get drunk, go to Spencer’s. Should you wish to get lousey, go to Moland’s.”

“Maran’s” was probably the house meant. As Colonel Birch-Reynardson remarks, it is not likely that the landlord or the landlady would have felt flattered by Jack Williams’ account of what any one going to their house was to expect.

No one need look to match Borrow’s experience at the “Railway Hotel,” where “Boots” was a poet and critic of poets. “In those days,” says Borrow, “there never was such a place for poets as Anglesey; one met a poet, or came upon the birthplace of a poet, everywhere.” Every one is now a great deal more matter-of-fact, and railway and steam packet time-tables, are the forms of literature best known to the modern hotel staff.

Holyhead, in short, is but a dependency of the London and North-Western Railway, and wakes up only at those intervals when the steamers and the trains arrive. Then, just as though it were an ingenious mechanical toy of a larger growth, like those that used to be—perhaps are now—at the Crystal Palace, and as though the necessary penny had dropped into the mechanism, everything begins to work furiously. Trains roll in, electric lights glare coldly from tall standards in the docks, mountains of luggage are shot out upon platforms or quay walls; porters, sailors, passengers, newsboys, and a miscellaneous crowd rush back and forth, just after the fashion of those little clockwork mannikins in the glass cases. Then the whistles of the steamer or train blow; the passengers are all aboard, the porters trundle their trucks back whence they came, the crowd disperses, the newsboys end in the midst of their shouting, and out go the lights; all as though the machine had done its allotted task, but would begin it all over again if another coin were forthcoming.

Some day, when the oft-discussed project is realised of making Holyhead, instead of Liverpool, the terminus of the trans-Atlantic voyage, the melancholy wastes surrounding the town will be built upon or excavated for docks. Even now, a large proportion of the American passenger traffic comes this way: travellers landing from the great liners at Queenstown saving time and escaping the tedious up-channel voyage and delays at Liverpool by taking train from Queenstown for Dublin, and so across to Holyhead.

More than five millions sterling have been sunk in harbour, lighthouse, and railway works at this bleak port. Close under the sheltering hills behind the town are the original harbour and the railway company’s improvements upon it; and away in the distance the great breakwater of the Harbour of Refuge, that occupied twenty-eight years in building, and was completed in 1873. The breakwater stretches half way across Holyhead Bay, a distance of nearly a mile and a half, with a lighthouse at its seaward end; the greater lighthouses of the Skerries, seven miles away, and the South Stack, on the other side of Holyhead Mountain, guarding the approaches to this perilous coast.