Context 151 - September 2017

C O N T E X T 1 5 1 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7 43 An ever-changing tapestry of transport Notes from the chair Not far from where I live, at the junction of the A49 and the B4368, there stands an obelisk, about six metres high. It is a very simple structure consisting of only seven stones above the stylobate – a pedestal, a thin, unmoulded projecting base, four tapering stones and a ball finial. On three faces of the pedestal and the lowest of the tapering stones are inscribed the distances to 36 places far and near. The obelisk’s date is uncertain. The distance given to Holyhead is that prior to the completion of Thomas Telford’s London-to-Holyhead Road (1811–26). It is listed as late eighteenth century, but the lettering on the column might indicate a mid-eighteenth-century date. The road from there to Bishop’s Castle was built by the Bishop’s Castle Turnpike Trust (which received its Act of Parliament in 1768) to connect that town to the Ludlow–Shrewsbury Turnpike, and it seems more than probable that it dates from the completion of that work. In practical terms, I am not sure how often a weary traveller in this outflung part of Shropshire in the 1770s would have needed to know that he still had 295 miles to go before he reached ‘Edingburgh’.While local and nearer distances are given, the obelisk is clearly a monument to travel itself and, in particular, the contribution made to its practicability by the Turnpike Trust. It is a statement of the relationship of Bishop’s Castle to the wider world: a third of the destinations are ports. By the early years of the nineteenth century the turnpikes were beginning to generate increased coaching and wagon traffic, and accommodation for travellers was needed. The Craven Arms coaching inn was duly built on the north side of the junction, named after the Earl of Craven who at that time owned the nearby Stokesay Estate. By 1850 the Craven Arms and the obelisk remained isolated structures since the nearest village of Newton had been given a bypass in the eighteenth century focus as a transportation hub since Roman times. A walking tour of the Castlefield area showed just why. Here there are multiple layers of infrastructure as first roads, then canals and successive railway developments each oversailed its predecessor, giving rise to large numbers of warehouses and goods-transfer arrangements. Some of the features at Castlefield retain their original uses. Some have been modified for alternative transport modes, some to new uses altogether; some have fallen into disuse, some dereliction, and some have been demolished. Fortunately, a new use has been found for the former Liverpool Road station, the world’s oldest surviving station building, as part of the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, the venue for the School. It by the LudlowTurnpike Trust. Thus, when Thomas Brassey completed the Shrewsbury to Hereford Railway in 1852, it was perfectly natural that the station for the area took its name from the only nearby building and became Craven Arms station. Over the next 20 years Craven Arms became the railway junction for Bishop’s Castle, MuchWenlock and, importantly, Swansea. All the development one might expect of a railway junction involving three railway companies duly appeared, including several streets of terraced housing for railway workers. The town of Craven Arms was born: a place generated entirely from transport infrastructure. Manchester was an apposite location for an annual school with a transport infrastructure theme because of its