THE CARLISLE AND GLASGOW ROAD

The town of Moffat, down below, had no place in the scheme of Telford’s Carlisle and Glasgow Road. It had very little importance in the councils of the Post Office; Glasgow, Carlisle, Manchester, and London being places whose needs far outweighed any local discontent; and the new road went straight away from Beattock, leaving the little town aside.

Before the beginnings of coaching, when Glasgow made its need of direct and speedy communication with the south heard, the London mail went by mounted post-boys, through Edinburgh. At that time the road to Glasgow went through Moffat and steeply up over Ericstane Brae, where it was improved or “turnpiked,” about 1776, but improved, it would seem, in no very substantial manner, for it is recorded that “seventy carts of merchants’ goods” using it weekly had caused it to fall into disrepair. Such remained the condition of affairs when mail-coaches were established elsewhere, and gave the growing commercial city of Glasgow hopes of acquiring a direct service of its own. Such a service meant much to the Glasgow of that day, already grown commercially important. It was pointed out to the Post Office that already, since 1776, the Glasgow and Carlisle Diligence had found it possible to travel this route; and what was possible to private enterprise should be possible also to Government. To induce the Post Office to establish a mail by this route, through Carlisle, the Glasgow merchants and the Chamber of Commerce went so far as to subscribe handsomely to eke out the slender pay offered contractors, and on this basis the mail was established in June 1788. But the Post Office was not content. The road in general was rough and stony, and the Secretary was for ever threatening to withdraw the coach, if the worst places were not repaired. In 1795, Provost Dunlop was informed that the Carlisle and Glasgow mail might have to be discontinued in favour of the old route by Edinburgh, involving a loss of one whole day. Glasgow appealed to the Government to stay this threatened calamity, and to repair the road south of Elvanfoot. It was pointed out that Lord Douglas had expended £4,000 on the road between Lesmahagow and the Hassockwell Burn, near the Devil’s Beef Tub, and that the city had already done much for it. The road, it was added, was not, after all, a local highway, but part of the great national route, north and south, and, as such, rightly the especial charge of the Government. Going through the wild, little-travelled watershed between Clyde and Annan, it could never be adequately repaired from the proceeds of any tolls it was possible to charge. It was further urged that the Government had itself impoverished the road, the mail-coaches being by law exempt from all tolls, and thus being able to carry passengers more cheaply than the stage-coaches, which paid heavily, and, unable to compete on equal terms, had, between 1788 and 1795, been driven off the route. Thus the turnpikes lost their dues at every turn.

To all this the Post Office turned a deaf ear. The Department knew perfectly well how greatly Glasgow appreciated the expediting of its mails by one day, and was convinced that its merchants would make considerable sacrifices to retain the advantage. The Department was entirely correct. An Act was obtained, at the instance of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, empowering the Evan Water Trustees to make and maintain a new road over the watershed, in place of the old road at Ericstane Brae, described in the Act, George the Third, c. 21, 1798, as “very steep and hazardous for all wheel carriages, and dangerous for travellers.”

But it was one thing to “empower” the Trustees to do this, and quite another, and not so easy an one, to find the money. It was eventually raised by subscriptions. The merchants of Glasgow, the public institutions of the city, and a number of English mill-owners between them subscribed £6,000, and the road was begun; firstly from Elvanfoot to Summit Level, and thence down Evan Water to Beattock, there joining the Edinburgh, Moffat, and Dumfries turnpike; and secondly, a continuation of this road by a diagonal line across the level Dale of Annan to Dinwoodie Green, eleven miles south of Moffat, on the Glasgow, Moffat, and Carlisle turnpike.

The works, as already said, were begun, and the first section, from Elvanfoot to Beattock, was completed in 1808; but then the funds became exhausted, and the Dumfriesshire people, who had been expected to do the rest, would not, or could not, do it. So the road had to go, after all, round by Moffat; turning sharply to the left at Langbedholm, two miles north of Beattock, and thence made its way by the Chapel Brae to Moffat, and south, as before, by Wamphray, Woodfoot, and Dinwoodie Green.

Even this half-realised plan was preferable to the rugged round by Ericstane Muir; but no sooner was the new road made than the old question of repairs was again raised. The tolls were insufficient to pay expenses, and the wear and tear of the elements and the traffic could not be made good. What it was like in 1812 we learn from the writings of Colonel Hawker, who, travelling this way at that time, describes it as having been mended with large soft quarry-stones, at first like brickbats, and afterwards like sand. Bad as this was, it was the best that could be done with the resources available; and the Post Office continued hard-hearted, Hasker, the Superintendent of Mail Coaches, threatening continually to withdraw the mail and send it round by Edinburgh. In 1810, the various Trusts concerned had approached Parliament for a redress of their grievances, without result, but at last, in 1813, an Act was passed repealing the exemption of mail-coaches from toll in Scotland, where the population was (it was at length conceded) scanty, and tolls yielded a miserably small sum.

But the Post Office had as many turns as an old and often-hunted dog-fox, and, declining to be baulked, violated the spirit of this concession by an ingenious trick. What had been given by the Act, the Department took away again by the simple expedient of raising the postage on letters to Scotland by one halfpenny each, aggregating an increase of £6,000 per annum. It was quite like a game of chess.

To this move the Scottish Trusts replied by raising their tolls against the mails, with the result that the Post Office was made to pay £12,000 per annum more. They cried metaphorically, if not actually, “Check!” The next move was with the Superintendent, who responded by taking off a number of the mails, by way of warning to Glasgow.

Checkmate!

This was, of course, very interesting as a trial of strength and endurance, but was, after all, a little unworthy, and scarcely the way to conduct the business of a nation. The fact, indeed, seems to have been soon realised, for the Government, on December 7th, 1814, took the whole matter up, and the Treasury instructed Telford to “make a proper survey, plan, and estimate” for amending the whole course of the road between Carlisle and Glasgow, and to report to a special House of Commons Committee. Telford surveyed the road, and in 1815 reported: “The existing declivities, direction, and construction are so bad that for many years the road has been with difficulty kept open.” He submitted detailed plans for its improvement, and assured the Committee that they would, if adopted, shorten the distance, then 102½ miles, by nearly 9 miles, and the time occupied in travelling by at least the equivalent of 9 more.

Hasker’s evidence before the Committee showed that the Post Office seriously contemplated sending the mail by Edinburgh—a six-hours’ longer journey each way.

A commendable feature of those times was that when it did at last come to a Committee being appointed, results were very soon shown. On June 28th, 1815, not long after Telford’s report had been received, the Committee in its turn reported unanimously that his plan ought to be carried out, and that the Government should grant substantial aid towards the cost, estimated at £80,000. A year later—July 1st, 1816—an “Act for a grant of £50,000 for the Road from the City of Glasgow to the City of Carlisle” was passed; the work to be managed by the already existing Commissioners of Highland Roads and Bridges. Voluminous reports, with plans, exist, among the Parliamentary papers of that age, showing how the work progressed to its completion; and the traveller of to-day who explores the districts between Carlisle and Glasgow will see for himself, in the contrast between the extravagant gradients of the old road in the neighbourhood of Moffat, and the easy rise and fall of Telford’s new stretches of highway, how thoroughly the work was done.