The Turnpike and Council Roads of Southern Exmoor

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THE TURNPIKE AND COUNCIL ROADS OF SOUTHERN

EXMOOR

Turnpike roads were built and administered by turnpike trustees. They were designed

as improved roads, which would be maintained with some degree of consistency.

Tolls for their upkeep were collected at turnpike gates by keepers who were often

provided with a home in tollhouses. The houses were often round or multi sided to

give the keeper a view of approaching traffic. The tollhouse at Exebridge survives.

In 1765 part of the Bridgwater—Barnstaple road between Bridgwater and Bampton

was turnpiked by the Minehead trust. The road passed through Dulverton from Hele

Bridge and after crossing the Barle ran through Battleton and Brushford parish to re-

cross the Barle at Exebridge. An extension westwards from Dulverton following the

earlier Bridgwater-Barnstaple route was turnpiked by the Wiveliscombe trust in 1786.

In the 1780s the turnpike road was said to be the only good road in the area. the rest

were described as intolerable.1

Under an Act of 1825 the Wiveliscombe turnpike trustees were authorised to build an

entirely new length of road between Bullaford in Molland across Easter and Wester

1 Bentley, J.B. and Murless, B.J., Somerset Roads: the Legacy of the Turnpikes I, (Taunton, 1985), 51, 59—61; SRO, DD/SY 4, 10; ibid. A/AQP 8. www.EnglandsPastForEveryone.org.uk/Explore Exmoor

New Moor and by Blackerton in East Anstey, providing a route from Wiveliscombe

through Bampton that avoided Dulverton, superseding their older turnpike road.2

The construction of new roads often caused local disruption and the new road from

Highaton in Molland through Bampton was no exception. Thomas James, rector of

East Anstey, described in August 1825 how he went with a local farmer to see the

proceedings of the people who superintend the new road. He noted that it ran outside

a boundary hedge between Blackington and Shapcott farms, that workmen were

already digging from several quarries in an uncut field of oats, thus severely

damaging the crop, and that there were plans to open more quarries, one in a field of

potatoes by Blackington farmyard, another in the farmyard itself, making a courtyard

in front of the farmhouse door impassable and involving the felling of a beech tree.

The workmen claimed that they could enter every part of the farm except the garden

and the house.3

A new road alongside the rivers Quarme and Exe to replace the Minehead turnpike

was opened in 18274 and links from it into Winsford were made in the early 1830s.

Later a more direct route was cut to Exford in 1853. Roads were laid out following the

inclosure of common in Exford in 1847 and 1852, at Twitchen in 1851—3, and at east

Anstey in 18560s and In the 1860s Sir Thomas Dyke Acland completed a fenced and

metalled road over South Hill from Winsford to Dulverton.5

2 George IV, c. 93; NDRO, B415/13. 3 SRO, DD/DP 5/1/50. 4 J. B. Bentley and B. J. Murless, Som. Roads, i. 49. 5 SRO, D/P/wins 4/1/4, 9/1/1, 14/4/1—2, 14/6/2—4; D/P/exf 9/1/1; ibid. SRO, Q/SO 23, f. 271v; 24, f. 59v; DRO, QS/113A/204/1—2, Q/RR1 9, 29, 75. www.EnglandsPastForEveryone.org.uk/Explore Exmoor

Although not turnpike roads, the Knight family laid out over 22 miles of roads were

built in the 1840s providing access to the new farms, often unfenced across open

country. By 1816 the main routes in the royal forest were the Exford—North Molton

road continuing to Barnstaple, and from Simonsbath House to Challacombe, and north

via Prayway Head to Brendon. A road via Exehead to Lynton was planned but never

made. The Knights added roads from Exford and Withypool joining at Withypool

Cross and going to South Molton.6

Following the establishment of county and district councils at the end of the 19th

century further improvements to roads were made, especially in the 1920s. There was

concern at the carriage of iron ore and timber by road. Dulverton rural district council

supported a Roads Union memorial to the prime minister in 1908 deploring the grave

and increasing evils caused by the road motor traffic, and resisted allowing public

transport on local roads. South Molton rural district council accepted the evil and

authorised the creation of passing places and some road widening in East Anstey in

1911. In the 1920s the roads across Molland Common were improved. South Molton

rural district council approached their Dulverton counterparts in 1922 on the grounds

that the proposed road would be of more use to accommodation to the occupiers on

the Somerset side of the common. Reluctantly Dulverton rural district council

contributed £50 towards the cost. The road was completed in 1926. Improvements

were also made to the Winsford—Exford—Simonsbath and Simonsbath—South

6 Acland, T D and Sturge, W, The Farming of Somersetshire (1851), 28; Orwin, C S, and Sellick, R J, The Reclamation of Exmoor Forest (1970 edn), map. www.EnglandsPastForEveryone.org.uk/Explore Exmoor

Molton roads in 1926—31 as unemployment relief work. By the 1920s there were

regular motor charabanc services linking Dulverton with Minehead and petrol filling

stations had been built in many villages as the area became popular with touring

motorists.7 However for most people in southern Exmoor in that area the railway was

more useful than the roads.

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7 SRO, D/R/dul 3/1/2—5; NDRO 2407A/C5, C7; Orwin and Sellick Reclamation of Exmoor Forest, 151.