Welsh Journals

REVIEW ROADS AND TRACKWAYS OF WALES. Richard Colyer, Moorland Publishing, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, 1984. Pp. 192. £ 7.95 This is a most attractively produced book, well illustrated, well indexed (apart from the absence of references to counties) and charmingly written. The author is clearly motivated by a deep love for the Welsh countryside and its history. He can claim with justice to have written the first book in English to deal with the whole history of roads in Wales, taking us from the prehistoric, through the Roman, medieval, post-Union and early modern periods into the era of the eighteenth and nineteenth century turnpikes. General accounts of the state of affairs in different periods are followed by descriptions of selected routes, principally in Cardiganshire and Radnorshire. Montgomeryshire, and other counties, receive less detailed attention. In his introduction the author disarmingly forestalls criticism of his omissions and his 'incompetence' in some fields. He explains that he has avoided footnotes in the text on the grounds that 'the "general reader" tends to ignore them while the specialist, in any case, is normally familiar with the literature'. Three pages at the end of the book are devoted to 'further reading'. This said, is seems churlish for a reviewer to be critical. Nevertheless, the undersigned has to report an initial feeling of unease as he first turned the pages of the book and dismay by the time he had finished reading it. The omission of references is unfortunate for many readers, typified by members of county clubs, who would not call themselves specialists but would wish to follow up local details mentioned in the author's broad sweep. The 'further reading' is a mere list of books and articles with no indication, other than their titles, of their relevance to particular statements in the book, except on drove roads on which the reader is referred to the author's own earlier work. The list is inadequate for our county it should include A. Howell's articles in the series 'Roads, Bridges and Canals in Montgomeryshire' in the Montgomeryshire Collec- tions (hereinafter Mont. Coll.) 8, 1875, 15, 1882, and 16, 1883, as well as that in volume 9, 1876, and R. T. Pritchard's more modern 'Montgomeryshire Turnpike Trusts' in volume 57, 1961. Within the limited space available and the limited knowledge of the reviewer, detailed criticism of the book must be confined to some aspects of its treatment of Montgomeryshire. One general point needs correction, the Roads Act of 1769 created not four (p. 175) but three districts (Mont. Coll. 8, 320), the fourth not coming into being until the 1834 Act (Mont. Coll. 9, 179). It may be worth recording here that A. H. Dodd makes a rare error in Archaeologia Cambrensis 5, 1925, 137, when he finds five districts in the county. The special body of trustees for the building of the Llandrinio bridge never formed a separate district but worked within the third. That added in 1834 for the Machynlleth area was the fourth, not the fifth. One Montgomeryshire route described in detail is the Machynlleth to Welshpool drove road in a section (pp. 132-139) containing an almost unbelievable collection of errors and dubious history. An illustration has the caption 'Early nineteenth century Machynlleth' but shows the Castlereagh Memorial Clock whose foundation stone was laid in 1874. Edward I's 'market and fair charter' was granted not 'to the town' of Machynlleth but to Owen de la Pole and his heirs (a Latin text of the charter was provided by one of our predecessors, the Hon. and Rev. G. T. O. Bridgeman in the very first volume of the Mont. Coll., 1868, 141-2). Owain Glyndwr's 'admin- istrative base' at Machynlleth (p. 133) and his 'last Welsh parliament in 1404' (p. 172) at Dolgellau seem to belong to legend rather than history. As far as the reviewer's knowledge goes, the sole reliable evidence of Owain's connection with Machynlleth comes in the ambiguous statement of Adam of Usk that he 'held or counterfeited or made pretence of holding parlia-