......well,not exactly Bangor ,as in that song by Fiddler's Dram ,but just across the Menai Strait to Beaumaris, which is on Anglesey of course.

Dateline : August 17th,1831,now almost 200 years ago,and 10 years before Mr Thomas Cook started to make sense of and set standards in the excursion business.
I always knew there had been excursions by 'boat' or 'packet' from Liverpool along the North Wales coast to Llandudno and on to Anglesey.I just didn't know it started so early,I suppose it was just another indicator of the great advances in the Victorian age.Looking back on it,such excursions can't have been cheap and would therefore not have been for the masses...

The Vessel: The wooden paddle steamer ROTHSAY CASTLE,owned by William Watson (Liverpool & North Wales Steam Packet Co.)
She was built in 1816 by A.McLachlan & Co of Dumbarton ;her earlier history is shown in the Infolink,but she was of 75 tons and had D.Macarthur's engines of Glasgow,output of 34n.h.p. giving 10 knots. INFOLINK


The Voyage
'On August 17th,1831 the wooden paddle steamer Rothsay Castle ,Capt Atkinson, and at one time in the Clyde steam packet service,left Liverpool for Beaumaris.The ship was in the worst possible condition and her unseaworthiness was a matter of common knowledge .
On the day in question the weather was bad with a stiff NNW breeze which induced Capt.Atkinson to delay sailing,but by 10 a.m.the wind moderated and at about 11 a.m. the ship put off .
For a time everything went well ,but with the turn of the tide a head wind came up and when about 15 miles out of Liverpool a gale was raging.The Rothsay Castle was blown inshore ,her engines being insufficient to contend with the wind.The passengers became alarmed and they deputed one of their number to approach the captain and induce him to turn back for Liverpool.
The captain and mate were discovered to be drunk and quarrelsome and would listen to no arguments ,and it soon became clear that both officers were incapable of navigating the ship.In addition the engines began to give trouble and the firemen were compelled to leave the stokehold as the fires were swamped.
The ship was badly found and carried no signal gun or rockets .The only boat had a hole in it and was not equipped with oars .The timbers of the ship were so rotten as to come apart with the swing of the seas .Most of the passengers were sea-sick but those of the men who could do so manned the pumps until floating ashes from the fires below choked the suction and rendered them useless.The only light aboard was that of the binnacle lantern.
At about midnight the Rothsay Castle drifted helplessly onto the sandbank at the entrance to the Menai Strait ,known as Dutchman's Bank.Her poop deck was washed overboard and formed a raft for a few people ,while others drifted ashore on wreckage .At daybreak about 50 people were still on the wreck ,but successive seas washed them away until there were only 23 survivors from a total company of about 150.....'