If you're travelling along the A55, also known as the North Wales Expressway, and cast your eyes out your car window, you may be surprised to see a cycle path on a section of what used to be the A55. Back in 1826, Scottish civil engineer Thomas Telford built a coast road into the headland above Penmaenmawr in Conwy in an attempt to make it easier for post to be transported to Holyhead.
For more than a century, Telford's coast road was the main route between Conwy and Bangor - but now sits beneath landslide barriers. Years prior, the striking Penmaenmawr mountain was a difficult obstacle for travellers to have to get around - and whilst an old route did exist around the headland, it was perilous.
The old path hugged the contours of the mountain and was often blocked by fallen rubble. Numerous travellers tripped over loose rocks and, as there was no guard wall, many plunged to their deaths, as reported by NorthWalesLive. "Nothing could be more terrific or more hazardous than the pass over this mountain, in which one false step was attended with certain destruction," one fearful traveller wrote at the time.
