Llanteg's Milestones and Turnpike Road

---County Boundary Stone---

We are lucky to have at the eastern end of our village a Grade II Listed Boundary Stone set into Castle Ely Bridge - this is just outsde our village.


---Milestones---

We also have two Milestones - one opposite Myrtle Villaa which is at the eastern end of the village and one on a disused loop of road close to Oakland's House.


---Milestone Makers---

The Milestones are marked 'MOSS & SONS 1838'.


---Turnpike Road---

They are on what was the old main turnpike road from Carmarthen to Hobb's Point.
Later to become the A477 trunk road into South Pembrokeshire.


---Llanteg Toll Gate---

Llanteg Tollgate was run by 'Billy the Gate', William Oriel - who was the village cobbler, tollgate keeper and vilage schoolmaster all rolled into one.
William's wife was an invalid and he would puh her around the village in a basket invalid chair.
Nothing remains of our village tollgate but it appears to have been situated at the S.W. corner of Llanteg Crossroads to the west of Llanteg Garage.

Wednesday 1 February 2012

Mail Coaches

From 'Llanteg Turning Back The Clock'.


Mail Coaches
It was on 6th April 1839 that the Royal Mail first travelled through Llanteg on the new Turnpike road from Carmarthen to Hobbs Point.
In Horse Drawn Carriages by D.J.Smith (Shire Publications 1980) the Mail Coach of the 1830s is described. It was a four-wheeled coach adapted to carry His Majesty’s Mails. The coaches were built by John
Vidler & Co. of Millbank, London, and hired out to the Government. They were painted in the royal livery of scarlet, maroon and black with the royal coat of arms on the door panels. The guard-in-charge wore a scarlet livery and sat with the mailbags secured in a special locker under his feet. He was armed to defend the coach with a blunderbuss and pistols, and carried a long stemmed horn for sounding warnings. The regulation horn was 3ft in length and known as the ‘yard of tin’. The four-horse teams, also hired for the purpose, were driven in stages of 7-10 miles, according to gradients and the state of the roads. Timekeeping was so accurate that people would set their clocks by them. 

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