See John Lee’s biography here.
On 31 July 1806, 21-year-old John Fiott (later known as John Lee) set out on a seven-month walking tour of England, Wales, and Ireland. He walked almost every day and kept a detailed diary of the things he saw and the people he met. Those diaries, totalling over 540 manuscript pages, are now held at the wonderful old library at St John’s College, Cambridge.
The first stop on Lee’s tour was Oxford. He spent two nights admiring his rival university town, comparing the libraries, university residences, rivers, and botanic gardens of Oxford and Cambridge, and found Oxford superior in almost all points of architecture and location. Cambridge won out in respect of its botanic garden, however. Lee made two visits to the botanic garden at Oxford, finding the hothouses “small and not in very good repair” and the library outdated, with “an admirable collection of Botanical Books which were collected an 100 years ago”. He returned for a second visit to witness the opening of the night-blooming Cereus, pictured below, with its heady scent and short-lived blossom.
Lee proceeded to Worcester and from there followed the River Severn through the industrialised Severn valley, with its kilns, collieries, iron works and manufactories. Lee wrote thorough descriptions of these works, and enjoyed watching the blasts at the stoneworks. The danger excited him, and he afterwards learned that part of the roof under which he had been standing collapsed after his visit.
He was interested in local lore and his diaries record information he received in conversation with farmers, labourers and others. He heard memories of the Buildwas landslip of May 1773 and the traditional May Day battles that took place between farmers and colliers on the summit of Wrekin hill. He visited the cave where the sixteenth-century highwayman and outlaw Humphrey Kynaston lived, and heard of his exploits from an elderly woman living nearby.
Lee continued north to the celebrated Vale of Llangollen, where he sent a note requesting permission to visit the home of the ‘ladies of Llangollen’, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby. His request was denied. The area held other attractions, though. Lee enjoyed seeing the nearby Pontcysyllte aqueduct, completed just a year previously and still the longest and highest aqueduct in Britain.
Continuing into northwest Wales, Lee passed through Mostyn. The neighbourhood called to Lee’s mind one of its most famous sons, the naturalist and antiquarian, Thomas Pennant (1726-98). It seems that Lee travelled with a copy of Pennant’s The History of the Parishes of Whiteford, and Holywell (1796), as he referred to Pennant’s description of the reputed Roman Pharos near Mostyn.
He then travelled along or near the coast to Conwy; from there inland to Rhydlanfair and the Talargoch lead mines near Prestatyn; and then to Holyhead. From Holyhead, Lee sailed to Dublin. The Irish portion of his tour will be detailed in an upcoming post.
My critical edition of Lee’s travel diaries will be published soon, by Routledge for the Hakluyt Society.
Sources:
Lee, John. “Diaries and Sketchbooks of Tour from London to Ireland, August 1806–March 1807.” 1806-7. MS. St John’s College, University of Cambridge, U.30 (1-8).