 Travel up to this point had been by horse-drawn carriage, but by the 1840s the Shrewsbury to Chester line had been completed, allowing passengers to alight at , and then take a coach towards Holyhead.However, the commercial development of the local mining industry meant that the development of a railway became essential to the regions economic development.A number of schemes were proposed, including one by the LNWR, but it not until 1 August 1859 that scheme engineered by Henry Robertson received Royal Assent.