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Updated: July 21, 2025
At the close of the American war, as a noble lord of high naval character was returning home to his family after various escapes from danger, he was detained a day at Holyhead by contrary winds.
All that day we lay in Holyhead, but I could neither read nor write nor draw. The captain of another steamer which had put in came on board, and we all went for a walk on the hill; and in the evening there was an exchange of presents.
This was, for a long period of time, the principal inn of Chester, and was the house at which Swift once put up, on his way to Holyhead, and where he invited the clergy to come and sup with him. We sat down in a small snuggery, conversing with the landlord.
To-morrow, on board the Irish packet, a sure hand awaits the box: the problem still unsolved, is to find some one to carry it as far as Holyhead, to see it placed on board the steamer, and instantly return to town. Will you be he?
Our first destination being Dublin, of course we went by Holyhead.
From Leamington to London was nearly an all-day's run, although the distance is only one hundred miles. A repair to the car delayed us and we went several miles astray on the road. It would have been easier to have returned over the Holyhead Road, but our desire to see more of the country led us to take a route nearly parallel to this, averaging about fifteen miles to the southward.
The ambiguous light of a December morning, peeping through the windows of the Holyhead mail, dispelled the soft visions of the four insides, who had slept, or seemed to sleep, through the first seventy miles of the road.
He made his excuse to me that he had no acquaintance in Chester, but he would go before and get some handsome apartment for me at a private house. I asked him how long we should stay at Chester. He said, not at all, any longer than one night or two, but he would immediately hire a coach to go to Holyhead.
He saw again that crowd of hurried soldiers detraining at Holyhead, thinking that perhaps they were going to Ireland, but not quite sure ... and he could see them stumbling up the gangways of the transport, each man heavily accoutred; and sometimes a man would laugh, and sometimes a man would swear ... and then the ship sailed out of the harbour, rounding the pier and the breakwater, churning the sea into a long white trail of foam as she set her course past the South Stack.... They could see the lights on her masthead diminishing as she went further away, and then, as the cold sea wind blew about them, they shivered and went home.... Now, lying here in this stillness, warm and snug, Henry could see those soldiers, huddled together on the ship.
As early as 1808 it had been determined by the Post-Office authorities to put on a mail-coach between Shrewsbury and Holyhead; but it was pointed out that the roads in North Wales were so rough and dangerous that it was doubtful whether the service could be conducted with safety.
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