The Great North Road, the Old Mail Road to Scotland: London to York. Charles G. Harper

and purchased for them, the new, straight, and level road would have been given up to and largely used by the railways. Telford was the engineer chosen by the Government to execute this work, of which the portion between Morpeth and Edinburgh was actually constructed. The survey of the road between London, York, and Morpeth was begun as early as 1825, and had been not only completed, but the works on the eve of being started, when the Rainhill trials in 1829 stopped them short, and caused the utter waste of the public money spent in the surveying.