Through England & Wales on Bikes
Hull to Wrexham & Llangollen

Through England & Wales

On Bikes.

(By H. and F. RIECK, of Coff’s Harbour, N.S. Wales.)

Wrexham, 15th May, 1905.

After selling our house and garden property in Delmenhorst, we took our residence during March and April in Bremen, which city we have described some time ago in these columns. As, in the beginning of May, the weather began to look promising, and the days got longer and warmer, we packed up all that was necessary for a six months’ tour, put our bikes in first class order, and bought tickets for a journey on the North Sea from Bremen to Hull, on the east coast of England. We started on 29th April by the steamer “Elita” at 6 p.m., said a last adieu to our dear little friend, Miss E. Doberer, of Grafton, who had been residing with us for the last six months for the purpose of studying German. We left her in an excellent home for young ladies at Bremen, where she will be well cared for. Several friends came to see us off, and, while daylight lasted, we had a pleasant and interesting run down the river Weser, whose banks are lined with enormous shipbuilding establishments and operations. Our captain told us that, when recently 100 men struck work at one establishment, the whole of the workmen, about 6000, were discharged. This bold step had, as I now see in the newspapers, the effect that this big strike is amicably settled. Below the town Blumenthal, on the Weser, we saw a Children’s Colony, a large mansion and garden, splendidly fitted up and given by a rich lady for the use of poor or sick children to live there in summer in this lovely and healthful country.

We reached the mouth of the river Weser at 12 o’clock at night, and slept well all night; but on Sunday morning it was stormy and rainy, and we could not get on deck in the afternoon and night. As there was a terrible head wind, our poor little ship “Elita,” which is one of the best and cleanest, but not the largest, of this “Argo line of steamers,” tossed, sprung, rolled and swayed against the contrary wind. On crossing the great Wash Bay, the wind abating a little, we managed to get into the mouth of the Humber River, where we took the pilot on board, and things calmed down. Opposite Grimsby we crept on deck. There we saw the water all yellow with the soil washed from the land; a dark smoke haze lay over Grimsby to the south; and the north bank showed low green marshes, with an occasional old barn, or perhaps shelter for stock, which seemed just then to be turned out into the paddocks. One could not see far for smoke and dirt in the air.

Our captain paced the deck in anxiety, because the wind was blowing still desperately, for if, while landing our steamer, there would cause only the slightest damage, only rubbing a bit of paint off the pier, he—the captain personally—would have to pay 20 times the value of the damage done, as the English were so hard on the Germans in such matters. However, we got in without any mishap, and the Customs Officer, a very kind, homely old gentleman, came on board, passed our luggage, and when we showed him our little bit of tobacco and 25 cigars, he did not trouble us to open our luggage. At about 5 o’clock in the afternoon we put our feet not exactly on English soil, but upon splendid Australian hardwood, our own country’s very product, with which the principal streets of Hull are finely paved. Besides this, the city of Hull is not a very inviting place; it lies low, with smoke bedabbled low brick houses. The streets are broad and well laid out; there are plenty of monuments and churches, but the very numerous, working people looked desperately torn, dirty, untidy and neglected. “In fact, out of Naples never”—writes Mrs. Fanny R.—“I saw such dirty and neglected people. There were such a lot of ragged newspaper boys, with no boots, no hats, dirty like chimney sweeps, and the seats of the ragged, dirty trousers pinned up with safety pins”; but they were all well behaved, and gave no cheek like Australian children often do to strangers. But they appeared melancholy and dull, and cried their wares: newspapers, matches, etc., out in lamentable, ear piercing, shrill tones.

We went to several hotels before we could procure beds; all hotels were full, mostly of commercial travellers. At last we were kindly shown to a Temperence hotel, and after a cup of tea and a plate of sandwiches we went to look at the town. We also visited the Secretary of our Bicycle Club, who kindly gave us the best route to Wrexham, in Wales, to which place we were bound; also we bought in Hull a bicycle map and guide, walked all about town, and came back to our hotel, where we had some trouble to get in. As the street mob in Hull are much against temperance places, all the doors of this house were securely fastened at dark.

After a grand night’s rest and breakfast, we went to our steamer, sent our luggage by a goods train to Wrexham, said good bye to our captain, and started on our trip across the whole of England on our bikes, which brought us, as described in this paper in previous articles, across Italy, over the Simplon Pass (in the Alps), and through Switzerland, France, along the Rhine, Black Forest, Alsace-Lorraine, to Amsterdam and Bremen, in 1901. On Tuesday, 2nd May, we left Hull along the far stretching Hessel road, paved also the whole length with Australian hardwood. We followed the tram lines, on which here in England fine roomy two-storey tram-cars run. We had a head wind, and presently came to muddy, marshy roads. So far we never saw a tree, bush, or living green thing in the big city of Hull; but after we went out three or four miles the meadows began to show green, and we soon passed the neat little village of Hessel, where the country began to rise, and with it rose also our spirits. At the next village, Anlaby, are some lovely estates of rich squires, with most wonderfully and curiously trimmed green box-bushes and hedges; some resemble peacocks, cocks and hens, etc., opposite each other on gateways; also spires, domes, flat tables, seats, and many other things most neatly done, and they all looked very funny and friendly, all cut out in box-bushes.

We had lunch at South Cave, sitting in a scrupulously clean scrubbed, tile floored village kitchen, with a cosy fire in an open chimney, which, since we had left our Australian home at Coff’s Harbour, we had not seen for many years. In Germany the fires are always kept in closed stoves, as the heat can so better be regulated; but we liked very much to see the cosy flames in this open fireplace in this village inn. We ordered two pint pots of ale and ate to it some hard-boiled eggs, sandwiches, etc., which we had brought along with us. We had a yarn with our plain but worthy old hostess, Mrs. Sarah Flyn, and listened to the dialect of some grave old Yorkshire farmers, sitting over their ale. Then we pushed on, as it looked like rain. Scarcely two miles against westerly wind and up hill we passed, when it began to rain smartly. We pushed on with the intention to reach Hawden. After having reached the top of a range the sun broke through the clouds, larks sang over the fields, the huge oak groves, harbouring in dozens of nests hundreds of rooks, showed the sprouting leaves, and down hill we sped like a whirlwind, and reached the town of Hawden sooner than we thought. As we found the King William hotel a very homelyinn, friendly people, and as dark clouds gathered we resolved to stay here for the night. After changing our wet clothes, drying the latter before the fire, we soon felt, after a hearty meal of splendid Yorkshire fried ham and eggs, quite well, and marched off on foot to explore the town and surroundings. This small town of Hawden must have been in olden times a fine and important place. The proud and grand looking ruined walls of a fine and very large old church and extensive convent buildings have been in the middle ages destroyed by Cromwell, but are still a magnificent sight. A comparatively small part of the church is reserved and used now as a Protestant church, and appears still too much large for this, at present, small town, which is inhabited by about 1000 people, who, in greatest part, appear to be poverty-stricken and depressed. There are no manufactories and very little farming (ploughing and digging is done), as all the lands are in the hands of big land-owners, who have it under grass for sheep and cattle breeding and hunting. There are no new houses built in Hawden, but many are uninhabited and falling to decay.

We were up with the larks next morning, as the weather was sunny and calm, and we reached by a short cut through the meadows the Rive Ouse, where we had to cross by ferry boat. The surly ferry-man, whom we had to wake up at seven o’clock, scolded us, shut the window with a bang, and would not get up till eight o’clock. He indeed appeared utmost independent, and kept us waiting till half-past eight before he would condescend to row us over for our good money. We travelled then along low, marshy flats of great fertility, like we saw in Holland and Friesland, with canals, whereon were boats and barges. We reached the village of Snaith and got on to the celebrated splendidly-kept road from Doncaster to York, once upon a time ridden by Dick Turpin of Robin Hood renown. This road leads through densely populated lands. We saw here clumps of green friendly forests and parks of the high nobility, but also here, very seldom, ploughed fields. The sheep on the pastures appear to be all of Lester or Lincoln breed, fine, big sheep, with very long wool. The cattle were mostly Shorthorns; of horses we saw splendid specimens of heavy draught, costing from £70 to £80 each.

There appears to be a great deal of horse and cattle-breeding in Yorkshire, and the greatest events are the shows in these parts. We passed the pretty little village of Thorne, a lively market town, with smooth, cemented streets, and clean homely houses and people. We ran through Hatfield and reached Doncaster at 12 o’clock. This town lays high and dry, has beautiful churches, broad, busy streets, fine houses, and here we saw the first manufacture chimney-stacks since Hull.

Leaving this town of Doncaster behind we ascended the “Yorkshire Wolds,” had hard work up hill with the wind in our teeth through the charming village of Hicklestone, where there was a nice old-fashioned beautiful church, and thence we reached our destination for the day: the town of Barnsley about 5 o’clock, after a run of exactly 40 miles.

We found Barnsley so crowded with its bi-weekly market that we had to get down from our bikes and walk through the streets. Long were we searching for beds, but all hotels were full; so we tried private apartments, and found at last a nice, clean, little white-haired old woman, who took us in for 2s per night, and 6d for bikes to stand alongside our beds. It seems there are no tips in England, but charges manifold, and if we, in the beginning of our journey, let them take in our wheels for one hour while we drank a glass of ale, they charged us 3d each; but we do not do this any more but lock our wheels together by a padlock. When we had found quarters at Barnsley we went out for supper, and to look round to see the town and the people. On the immensely crowded extensive market we bought a dozen of very superior bananas for 6d. We were very much astonished at the multitude of people, considering that this market is held all the year through twice a week the whole day till eleven o’clock at night. Everything can be bought there. It is a lucky fact that on our bikes we can only carry the most necessary articles, else my dear little companion, Mrs. F.R., would have again merrily started shopping.

We started away from Barnsley at an early hour in the morning, first passing many coal and smoke begrimed villages, where coal mines are worked, via Silkston Common and Pennyston, and then we began to climb up steep and high barren hills, called “The Moors.” We heard about these moors, and thought them to be level peat moors; but to our chagrin we found them quite the reverse. On the maps these ranges are called the Pennent Hills. These mountain ranges contain a landscape of enormous extent: hills and high tablelands, deserts without any bush or trees, and bare of any vegetation except heather. So cold and cheerless is it on top of these heights that even the little heather sheep are scarcely to be found, and no sign of a human being exists for a distance of about 10 miles. Sometimes a moor cock or grouse flew up and screeched out at us, as we trudged up hill for many, many weary miles for hours and hours through this neglected landscape, which in many parts shows pretty fair soil: yellow light loam, with black soil on top, and in most parts is well watered. People tell us that the high noble owners keep these lands in a desert state for grouse shooting only, being “too cold to be of any use for agriculture, and even for the cultivation of forest trees with any profit.” But when we think of the very cold, rough and stony Harz mountains, full of lovely timber, and if we think of the many descriptive pamphlets scattered broadcast amongst our farming population, coaxing them by the immigration agents to the icy Arctic regions of Canada, we think otherwise.

Arrived at the top of these Pennent Hills, we mounted our wheels and began to spin merrily down the long, long winding inclines. We left these triste neglected hills behind, whose landscapes stretch towards heaven, at present like the bare palm of a beggar, but for which surely, in a perhaps far future, a happy time of national cultivation may dawn. After a long and jolly run continually down hill, we reached at last some sign of human habitation: a village called Woodhead, and we stopped at the small inn for refreshments, but when we started again we observed that the chain of one of our wheels was broken. In these scarcely populated regions nothing could be done, but as the road for the greatest part ran down hill, we drew the chain out and ran without chain down hill.

We reached the town of Hyde, eight miles from Manchester, and at a repairing shop got our damage mended. We thought to reach Stockport, six miles further, that evening, but on starting the chain broke again, and, as after repeated mending, another link of the same chain, which the repairer, as he admitted, handled too roughly in his vice, snapped, we decided to stay in Hyde, get our damaged chain carefully and patiently repaired, and make a fresh start in the morning.

Between Woodhead and Hyde, a long stretching valley is dammed across in several places, and hereby are created fine lakes or reservoirs, which supply the very big town of Manchester with excellent mountain water, having its origin in the Pennent Hills.

The town of Hyde is celebrated for its cotton manufactories. At five o’clock the streets were thronged with factory girls and women. We were surprised to see here in England young children of 14 years, and many still younger, who are employed in these cotton mills. When they are 14 years, or if they have passed the standard examination before that age, they are sent to work in the factories at 5s per week. The working hours are from 5 o’clock a.m. in summer till 5 p.m. In the evening they appear in swarms out of the mills, dirty and slovenly looking, but soon after you see them dressed gaudily, parading the streets till 10 and 11 p.m., so no wonder they look miserable, undersized, premature, and old before their time.

We saw in many of these manufacturing towns at the markets caravan waggons, marked “Clarion Van Nro. . . .” with the device written thereon: “No more poverty, no more landlordism, no more capital!” Great crowds were assembled eagerly listening to the men, who, from the platform of these vans, preached about red-hot radical ideas on socialism, etc. Some respectable citizens, whom we asked about these proceedings, said:—“Yes, we have in England the liberty of speech and press, and are proud of it, sir, and these here men keep on harping on these old social strings for years and years, but—without any effect. We all blame others, but never ourselves.”

Our wheel was bespoken to be ready at 7 a.m., and we were there to time, but no shops were open for any one till 8 o’clock, so we had to cool our heels in the street and wait another hour till the wheel was ready before we could get another start. But now the chain was perfect, and we went gaily off to Manchester, which is, as all our readers know, an enormous manufacturing town, the most populated city in England, after London. The atmosphere is quite awfully filled with smoke, and as we wheeled through the immense long broad streets we found there was nothing so very attractive here to induce us to stay a longer period. We noticed that also in this very large English town the streets were, to their great advantage, paved with Australian hardwood.

We left Manchester after lunch, and soon came into a very pretty country. We saw, to our agreeable surprise, ploughed fields. The fences are here again green hedges, as we found them in the eastern parts of England; in the stony interior of this country they consist of stone walls. Some large patches of ploughed fields were planted with rhubarb, others with strawberries, etc. Hitherto we had in England scarcely seen ploughed fields and vegetable gardens. As we journeyed to Altringham and Knutsford, in Chestershire, the country continued to grow more and more beautiful, till we put up for the night at the little village of Tarvin, about five miles from Chester. This very homely little village inn was an ideal of quaintness. As our kind and pleasant landlady brought us the tea-tray, a large, yellow, very rough cat followed her to us into the room, loudly purring, and soon sprang into the lap of Mrs. Fanny E.R., to be petted. That was the first introduction to the breed of the celebrated Cheshire cats.

We were now weary and tired, having been a week on the way, including that rough sea journey, and we were very pleased that this day would bring us to the end of the first part of our intended great trip through England, France, Switzerland, and Bavaria. We would now comfortably reach Wrexham, where our relations waited for our arrival. We rode slowly through Chester, which is one of the most interesting, old fashioned picturesque towns in England, and can well be compared with venerable Nuremberg in South Germany; but we did not stay long at Chester, as our destined place was now only 11 miles distant. We ran through some lovely little Welsh villages, with houses of quite a different style to any we had seen before, and we reached our dear cousin’s place at 11 o’clock p.m., May 10th, 1905.

After a good Sunday’s rest and lovely walk through Squire York’s Park, adjoining Wrexham, we started next to visit the most interesting city of Chester again. We passed through the villages of Gresfort and Rossit, then turned into Eaton Park, belonging to the Duke of Westminster, and rode four miles through it to Chester. This park is carefully kept, and over-run by rabbits, which are here, as game, nursed and at times hunted and shot. For this purpose are here also flocks of pheasants, of which we saw many. The rabbits are here so very plentiful that they scudded across the roads sometimes just in front of our wheels. We passed close to the Duke of Westminster’s grand residence, Eaton Hall, which is a magnificent pile of buildings, and can be reached from Chester by boat, on the river Dee, and by park road.

This rich nobleman owns thousands of acres of land here, besides many other highly valuable lands and country palaces, also it is said he owns half of London city, and has at this present time just here at Eaton Hall returned from Africa, where he “bought” large areas of land in the Transvaal (from whom?) in speculation to sell or give away on 99 years’ lease to farmers later on.

We reached Chester on this trip from our residence at Wrexham, at the pleasure boat harbour, Grosvenor Place, and started to walk, wheels on hand, around the ancient fortification walls of this venerable and very beautiful city. Also we saw the celebrated rows of terraces or arbours of shops, sheltered by overlapping parts of the buildings, which architectural arrangements are in England only to be seen in this ancient city. Along whole streets are rows of shops, with occasional stone steps leading up to terraces, where one then finds a second row of shops over the first. So one can walk long distances under shelter, and do shopping, and come down again the stone steps at any time into the main street. Next we went to the Cathedral, which is large and grand. One of the side walls was entirely covered by mosaics, representing many events recorded in Scripture, with the quotations in mosaic letters written underneath. Next we visited some ancient houses with carving of five centuries old oak on Stanley Palace and Derby House. We then carried our bicycles up the steps leading to high old stone fortification walls, which still surround this ancient part of the city for about two miles. This wall is about 12 to 20 feet high and has a narrow footpath or promenade about eight feet wide, paved with stone flags, affording a grand walk, overlooking the city and surroundings. While walking along we noticed the street underneath thronged with fashionably and otherwise dressed people, en route for the Chester races; and, as the racecourse is in the direction of our road home, we joined the throng, and enjoyed a rare and funny sight. We passed the grandstand, which was rapidly filling, and from the high bridge of the river Dee we saw one of the most magnificent racecourses possible to imagine: an extensive low, round valley on the River Dee, surrounded by an amphitheatre of ancient walls and grassy hills, with the river running beside. We stayed and watched till a close race of 12 horses sped along, one time within a few feet near us, and we could see both start and finish. This was the Chesterfield Cup. The lawn and grandstand were thronged with people. As we are here quite strange, we have more interest in human life and welfare than in that of horses, therefore, as the sun began to get low, we left this interesting town for home, to be with our relations.

This trip we made on the 10th of May. On the 14th (yesterday) we started, under the guidance of our cousin, Mr. F. Bates, and in company with his 11 years old son Mortie, on a foot tour across the Eglwyseg Ranges, about 1200 feet above sea level, via World’s End Gully, to Llangollen, the birth place of Mrs. Fanny E. Reick’s mother, where we all were hospitably entertained by dear relations and friends. From Llangollan we returned home to Wrexham, and intend to describe this, our Llangollan tour in a later letter in the “C. and R. Examiner,” which, by the kindness of its Editor, gets regularly in our possession.