File NLW MS 24113E. - Cycling tours of England and Wales

Journal of an unidentified writer from Edmonton, North London, recording several cycling tours in south-east England and north Wales, 1916-1918 (ff. 1-27), in particular a tour, entitled 'A Sentimental Journey... to Wales... 1918. The Diary of the Pilgrim of Love', 6-20 July 1918 (ff. 10-27), in which he retraced the route of a tour the previous year (see also ff. 3 verso-4 verso), in the unrealised hope of seeing again his first love Hilda. The journals were written retrospectively based on contemporaneous notes.
Commencing from London and travelling via Shrewsbury (ff. 12 verso-13), the Welsh itinerary included Pentrefoelas, Denbighshire (f. 14 recto-verso), Harlech (ff. 15 verso-19), Betws-y-Coed (f. 21 recto-verso), Conwy (f. 22), Caernarfon (ff. 22 verso-23), Betws-y-Coed again (f. 24 recto-verso), Rhyl (f. 25 recto-verso) and Chester (ff. 25 verso-26). Also included in the volume are accounts of earlier excursions, including tours of East Anglia, 1917 (f. 2 recto-verso, beginning lacking), and Hampshire, Sussex and Surrey, Easter 1918 (ff. 6-7), and journeys to Reading, Berkshire, [11]-[12] May 1918 (ff. 7 verso-8 verso), and Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, [18-20 May] 1918 (f. 9 recto-verso). A few sketches and fragments of prose are to be found at the end of the volume (ff. 108 verso (inverted text), 109 verso). The volume also contains transcripts of poetry, some by the author (ff. 4 verso-5, 10, 13, 17-18, 109 verso). The text is supplemented by fifty-two of the author's own photographs (ff. 3, 7-27 passim), cuttings of twenty-four Frank Patterson illustrations for the magazine Cycling (ff. 1 verso-7 passim, 10 verso-11 verso, 20-25 verso passim) and other cuttings. The writer was born in 1898 (f. 7 verso) and was of conscription age but had received temporary exemption from enlistment (see f. 3).