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Updated: May 26, 2025
The contrast, indeed, between the noble grandeur of Telford's bridges, and the works on the neighbouring railways, is by no means flattering in every respect to our too exclusively practical modern civilization. Telford was now growing an old man.
Mark Telford's first ambition when a child was to ride a horse. As a man he liked horses almost better than men. The cool, stirring rush of wind on his face as he rode was the keenest of delights. He was enjoying the ride with an iron kind of humor, for there was in his thoughts a picture.
As long as she lived, indeed, he never forgot her; and one of the first tasks he set himself when he was out of his indentures was to cut a neat headstone with a simple but beautiful inscription for the grave of that shepherd father whom he had practically never seen. At Langholm, an old maiden lady, Miss Pasley, interested herself kindly in Janet Telford's rising boy.
Telford's great sensitiveness made him feel the ill success of this enterprise far more than most other men would have done. He was accustomed to throw himself into the projects on which he was employed with an enthusiasm almost poetic.
I suppose my ignorance of the subject, and the want of musical experience in my youth, may be the cause of it."* Telford's mother was still living in her old cottage at The Crooks. Since he had parted from her, he had written many printed letters to keep her informed of his progress; and he never wrote to any of his friends in the dale without including some message or other to his mother.
A man of great foresight, but nothing more; he foretold a bridge over the Menai, when no one could have built one, a bridge over which people could pass, aye, and carts and horses; we will allow him the credit of foretelling such a bridge; and when Telford's bridge was flung over the Menai, Lleiaf's couplet was verified.
Another passage in one of these summer tourist letters well deserves to be copied here, as it shows the artist's point of view of labours like Telford's and Stephenson's. "From Bormio," he says, "the famous road begins which passes over the Stelvio into the Tyrol; the highest carriage-road in the world. We began the ascent early in the morning. It is magnificent and wonderful.
Altogether, on Telford's Highland roads alone, there are no fewer than twelve hundred bridges. Nor were these the only important labours by which Telford ministered to the comfort and well-being of his Scotch fellow-countrymen. Scotland's debt to the Eskdale stonemason is indeed deep and lasting.
Chirk Castle stands on an eminence on its western side, with the Welsh mountains and Glen Ceriog as a background; the whole composing a landscape of great beauty, in the centre of which Telford's aqueduct forms a highly picturesque object. The aqueduct consists of ten arches of 40 feet span each.
The most remarkable of all Telford's designs, however, and the one which most immediately paved the way for the railway system, was his magnificent Holyhead Road. This wonderful highway he carried through the very midst of the Welsh mountains, at a comparatively level height for its whole distance, in order to form a main road from London to Ireland.
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