OCTOBER, 2004


It seems most everywhere we go we run into his name: on bridges, on canals, on roadways, on harbors. There are towns named after him in England and Pennsylvania. We had to find out more about this man whose path we—and Home at First guests to England, Scotland, Wales, and Sweden—so often cross, the man the called "The Colossus of Roads".

THOMAS TELFORD didn’t invent the Industrial Revolution, but he was its first great star, a star of the order of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Bill Gates. He was the most glamorous and most sought after civil engineer of his time. He made engineering into a science and an art. He helped invent modern times, literally paving the way into the future. Like Elvis prepared the world for the Beatles, Telford caught the public’s imagination, making public acceptance easy for the geniuses that followed, especially Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
          Telford was a lowlands Scot, born August 9, 1757, near Langholm, Dumfries & Galloway, a few miles from the English border, and mid-way between dramatic Hermitage Castle and the ill-fated town of Locherbie. In this region where sheep vastly outnumber people, Telford was the son of a poor shepherd, and helped support the family as a shepherd until becoming an apprentice stonemason at 14. From the family farm at Bentpath (west of the A7 on the B709 in Eskdale), Telford’s path led to Scotland, England, Wales, and Sweden, and always went uphill. The path led ultimately to Westminster Abbey, where Telford, who died September 2, 1834, aged 77, was buried among the great kings and citizens of Britain.
          Along the way, the path of Thomas Telford crossed many paths familiar to us at Home at First. Join us as we journey with Telford to some of the fascinating destinations we share.

A stormy Thames lashes at the riverside
facade of Somerset House in this
romantic painting by Edward Dayes
from circa 1790. Thomas Telford
learned civil engineering working
on this grand building, now home to
some of London's finest art collections.

London: After working on Edinburgh’s New Town, young Thomas Telford went to London to work on the construction of Somerset House (shown left from a contemporary painting). The great neo-classical building replaced a crumbling Tudor palace on the banks of the Thames northeast of Westminster (and today just across the river from the London Eye Ferris wheel). It was here that Telford gained his engineering education and gained a reputation as an emerging talent. A visit to Somerset House is still informative. Its size and complexity make it a complete course in the trades of architecture and civil engineering. Today, Somerset House no longer is home to government offices and the Royal Navy, but to some of Britain’s great art treasures and an ever-changing calendar of events, many classical, many eclectic. That its

        Telford went on to build the trunk road from London to Holyhead, Wales (and its ferry port to Dublin) that became one of Britain’s main transport routes. While it was the Welsh portion of this road that presented Telford his greatest challenge, it was the importance of London as hub of the empire that Telford’s work was expanding.

Detail from Telford's preserved iron footbridge
at St. Katharine's Docks, London.
Photo © Home At First

Once the import center of
Britain, Thomas Telford's
St. Katharine's Docks have
been converted into St.
Katharine's Marina, an
upscale, pedestrians-only
complex of shops,
restaurants and residences next to the River Thames
at the Tower of London.
Photo © Home At First

         Such works made the science of civil engineering and the name Thomas Telford inseparable. When, in 1818, London’s new Institute of Civil Engineers named its first president, no one was surprised by the choice: Thomas Telford. But late in life Telford did not slow down. He moved to London, but not to settle down. As he approached 70 — old age in the Victorian era — he was still unmarried and still hard at work, among other things, designing and building (1824-8) London’s great, modern dock facilities just east of the Tower of London. Called St. Katharine’s Docks, these state-of-the-art wharves and warehouses welcomed clipper ships bringing exotic cargoes of rare feathers, decorative shells, tea, indigo, marble, perfume, and ivory from around the British Empire. The docks served London well until becoming obliterated by Nazi bombs during the Blitz.
         Today, St. Katharine’s Docks are East London’s great success story of urban renewal, having become an upscale yacht basin with trendy shops, restaurants and fashionable residences, including Home at First’s Apartments at St. Katharine’s Marina. The Center Dock at St. Katharine’s has preserved Thomas Telford’s original iron pedestrian drawbridge, an elegant relic very much in keeping with the style of the modern marina architecture.

Shropshire: If London gave Telford the education he had lacked, Shropshire gave him his first great responsibility and first major achievements. The year was 1788, and the Industrial Revolution was being fought hard in Shropshire, a sleepy county in western England bordering North Wales. The new transportation technology that was sweeping England — canals — made it feasible to haul goods and people across the flat lands of the Midlands (around Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool). But could that same technology be installed across the rugged topography of the Severn River Valley and the hill country that surrounded it? Telford, who had made a name for himself in London as an up-and-coming civil engineer and impressed some influential friends, looked like an

Telford's Pontcysyllte Aqueduct near
Llangollen, Wales, is still the world's
highest and longest canal aqueduct.
Boat tours carry visitors across its
1000-foot length 126 feet above the
River Dee from nearby Llangollen.

Walking along the Shropshire Union Canal.
No hills, rural scenery, pub refreshments.

        Closer to home, guests to Home At First cottages on the Shropshire/Cheshire border can walk along the towpaths of Telford’s Llangollen Canal and his Shropshire Union Canal (built 1826-35 as the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal). Canal walking is a great way to enjoy the sleepy countryside of pretty western England. Enhance your walk with a stop at any of many public houses that serve canal travelers to this day.
        Shropshire has not always slumbered. In the early 18th century, a fellow named Abraham Darby, who lived in the Shropshire hill country east of Shrewsbury,

and Over (Gloucester, 1831). These latter four bridges may be visited by Home at First guests to the Cotswolds simply by tracing the River Severn north from Gloucester.
        Telford also built the A5 trunk road from London to Holyhead, Wales, right through Shropshire, passing just to the north of Ironbridge Gorge. When the British government decided to built a completely new town to wake up the economy of this sleepiest part of Shropshire in the 1960’s, the high-tech town was named after its best-known adopted son, Thomas Telford.

A statue of Thomas Telford leans on his
namesake town's sign in Shropshire.