What road and travel method would one have taken from Middleham to Liverpool in the late 1700s?
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What road and travel method would one have taken from Middleham to Liverpool in the late 1700s?
Where is Middleham?Quote:
Originally Posted by Erobinson
Thanks for your reply, sir. Hopefully this google link works.Quote:
Originally Posted by pablo42
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=where+...ed=0CAoQ8gEwAA
Generally, though not all the time, if you follow a road with an A prefix, they generally aint changed for years.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erobinson
From Liverpool, you'd probably take the A59 to Preston, then the A6 up North then the A69 across the pennines. The other way is the A580 to Manchester then the A62 over to Leeds then the A1 up North.
These A roads have been gradually updated, but their routes are pretty much what they once were.
If I can help you any more let me know.
...but I would think that the old Roman road system was the smoothest and easiest to pass.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erobinson
The mill towns had not yet grown, so looking at a map, I would guess south to York and then west to Manchester on the path of the Roman roads. Unless they had lots of cash, they probably walked...:shock:
The Roman Road system is here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ro..._Britannia.svg
Trains started 1830...
He could have travelled the Manchester to Liverpool portion by canal, the predecessor to the Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1750
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersey_...ell_Navigation
gil A - fascinated by these sort of old family questions that are just not covered well in history books - the "how people did stuff"...
Thanks Pablo42. A couple of questions with apologies for being so unfamiliar with your country. I live just north of Memphis, Tennessee.Quote:
Originally Posted by pablo42
What would you have called the A59 in 1800?
What are the pennines?
I think the A59 would have been called a turnpike. It's the road to Preston and is still called Preston Road. There's still evidence of it being a toll road in earlier times.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erobinson
The Pennines are a range of hills, small by your standards, stretching along the backbone of England. Pretty much seperates Lancashire from Yorkshire. They were considered quite dangerous.
...ignored the Turnpike system which was well defined by the late 1700's.
It consisted of toll roads served by Stage Coaches - yes the "Stand and Deliver" type...:)
I still vote for Middleham to York and then to Manchester - Warrington - Liverpool.
This old map of roads from York details the York to Chester route (Roman stuff again...:)...) and goes through Warrington on the Mersey - which would then be easy to travel by water to Liverpool.
It's in a AA (Automobile Association for any US readers, not Alcholics Anonymous!) type strip format, but the route and cities can be seen --
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....scar_1766.html
The use of the stages would be very money dependant - your ancestor could still have been walking.
Mr. McAdam from Ayrshire (my roots) had still not got tarmac (that's how tarmac got it's name) down on the roads yet, so they were just improved dirt roads, with the excellent Roman engineering of a good base still standing centuries later.
Dangerous in the sense that robbers and thieves occupied the route?Quote:
Originally Posted by pablo42
I don't think it was robbers and thieves too much, though there would have been more than enough. The conditions and the terrain would have been dangerous enough. Pertty treacherous even today.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erobinson
Cool stuff indeed.Quote:
Originally Posted by az_gila
Would young men have traveled much by horse back then? Would they have stabled the horse during a river part of a journey or taken the horse on board?
I have heard that Middleham was reputed for its horsebreeding, and there is some evidence that my ancester, a Mr. Gildart, might have been associated with the craft. There's some discussion in a compilation of our family history that the name Gildart was derived from the term geld herder.
Anyway, we believe he traveled from Middleham to Liverpool in 1700 and at the time, was not a man of means. I find it remarkable that he might have actually walked a major portion of the way.
I imagine a man had to be well-armed along those roads as well, and perhaps would never travel alone.
...by Google maps (via York) gives this --Quote:
Originally Posted by Erobinson
Walking directions to Liverpool, Merseyside, UK
149 mi ? about 2 days 1 hour
Via A170/Sutton Rd, A59/Holgate Rd, A5060/Chester Rd, A5060/Chester Rd
...or 49 hrs at 3 mph - which is reasonable on a flatish surface - and that was also our Boy Scout hiking estimate.
5 to 7 days should do it back then I would think - but, if he could afford a horse, then that would be the way to go... do it in a couple of days?
It sounds like some of my Scottish family - the money to get to Liverpool (Glasgow in their case) would be much less than what was needed for a trip across the Atlantic to New York or Halifax.
Do you know how/where he entered the US?
I imagine that travel in the US around that time was quite similar to the UK, except that the US used the great rivers as major arteries. Once you left the rivers, it probably was mostly horse or foot for the great non-monied masses...:)
He actually stayed in Liverpool for the rest of his life. His grandson came over to the U.S. in 1778 as cornet in the British Legion.Quote:
Originally Posted by az_gila
After the war, he settled in the Mississippi Territory and started our tribe. He became a territorial agent.
The Mississippi was the way to go north and south. But the currents are so swift that you had to ride or walk back, depending on how much you were able to sell your goods for.
If you needed to go east on the way back north, you probably took this route.
http://www.tngenweb.org/maps/tntrace.htm
Some of the names of stands. They are just stops where travelers nourished themselves or spent the night. Some became cities. Others vanished.