Turnpike Roads of Buckinghamshire
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TURNPIKE ROADS OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE K. EDMONDS, J. ELDING AND J. MELLOR This study of the physical aspects of Bucking• The increase in traffic eventually, in 1663, hamshire's turnpike* roads stems from the notes of forced the justices of the peace, who were at that many years' research by the late Dr. P. A. Gimson. time responsible for maintaining the roads, to put It has not proved possible in every case to recheck forward a bill establishing the first three toll gates - Dr. Gimson' s research, as not all his sources have on the Great North Road. Between 1695 and 1706 been traced; references are then given to his files several acts of Parliament empowered the justices which will be deposited at the County Record Of• to set up administrative bodies for further turnpike fice. In some areas, additional research has been roads: these bodies became known as justice trusts. necessary. From 1706 a new form of trust began to take over; control was widened to include local landowners The following maps have been consulted for all and others of position and substance. The first tum• roads: pike trust administered the road from Fornhill to Thomas Jefferies Surveyed 1768, Published 1788 I mile to I inch. Stony Stratford (road A, Fig. 1) and was controlled Arthur Bryant Surveyed 1824, Published 1825 I mile to ! 1/2 inch. by 32 trustees. Growth was slow at first but new Ordnance Survey Surveyed c.l833, Published 1835 I mile to I inch. turnpike trusts increased dramatically in the second half of the eighteenth century. Thereafter the num• Where an exact location for a turnpike has been bers of setting-up acts fluctuated. established a precise grid reference has been given. In other cases the grid reference is approximate. Main routes from London were turnpiked early in the eighteenth century. Other roads developed Any further information on the turnpike roads in haphazardly, frequently in isolation, and only Buckinghamshire would be welcome at the Buck• gradually became a countrywide network of roads. inghamshire County Museum. The new turnpike trusts were responsible for the maintenance of particular stretches of road.They Development of turnpike roads were funded by the levying of tolls on certain kinds of traffic - particularly wheeled vehicles, horses, The state of English roads in the sixteenth cen• and cattle going to market. Exemptions could in• tury was such that an act of 1555 1 imposed an clude such items as mail, carriage of road materials, obligation on parishioners to do four, later six, attending divine service, and funerals in the same consecutive days' unpaid work per annum repair• parish. ing the parish roads - known as statute duty and particularly unpopular where local roads were Besides the trustees, who were honorary, paid heavily used by through traffic. Even after roads officials might include a Clerk to the Trustees, a were turnpiked parishioners were still liable to pro• Treasurer and a Surveyor. Toll collectors (or vide statute labour- an obligation which remained pikemen) were employed but were often illiterate until 1835.2 and unable to keep accounts. *The tetm 'tumpike' has its origin in the fiction that the road was barred by a man with a pike, which on payment of a toll was 'tumed' aside to allow passage. In fact the place of the pike was from the outset taken by There were in any case many opportunities for a gate. sharp practice. This being so, some trusts from the 31 t' _,· i l I I j . H ;; ·~ . '- .~. ' N ·~ <(~/N ~AYlEsBu ( · -:.. ·~.\... \ RV H~. "·- •J • N ~ · -·./ ... J . ,._: ·- . ....... \.. J \.. '- - ·\- \. l f ./"• L I ( -~ •""'- ( . '--:"\.. \. ) . \ Mil ? "'\ ~~ Km ! -· <..-•../ Fig. 1 T urnpike roads of B uckmghamsh'. Ire . 32 beginning leased gates for an annual sum, and even• Majesty that it may be enacted ... ". tually it was made compulsory to accept the highest Toll money was intended to ease the movement bid at auction. In time a specialist body of profes• of the increasing volume of trade by improving the sional toll farmers arose who relieved the trustees roads. Nevertheless, methods of repair remained of the day-to-day problems of toll collection. Many crude and haphazard, using locally available mate• of these men operated over a wide area and some rials for filling in and resurfacing piecemeal. became extremely wealthy; they in their turn were notorious for malpractice. In the 1720s Daniel Defoe described the atro• cious conditions in the north of the county aggra• Long-term capital was needed for such things as vated by the widespread clay of the region (road E): road repairs, making new stretches of road, build• ing toll houses and setting up gates. Trustees often "Suppose you take the other northern road, namely, had to mortgage tolls or, less frequently, issue by St. Albans, Dunstable, Hockley, Newport Pagnel, bonds or sell annuities. The cost of obtaining a Northampton, Leicester, and Nottingham, or Darby: private act of Parliament was itself considerable. On this road, after you are pass'd Dunstable, which Each setting-up act gave the trustees powers for 21 .. is about 30 miles, you enter the deep clays, which years, at the end of which period they had to obtain are so surprisingly soft, that it is perfectly frightful to a renewal act. In 1831 the Turnpike Renewal Act3 travellers, and it has been the wonder of foreigners, relieved individual trusts of the necessity to seek how, considering the great numbers of carriages renewal, and further such acts were passed annu• which are continually passing with heavy loads, ally. those ways have been made practicable; indeed the great number of horses every year kill' d by the excess of labour in those heavy ways, has been such a charge The countrywide development of the railways to the country, that new building of causeways, as the led to dramatic decreases in the revenue of many Romans did of old, seems to me to be a much easier turnpike trusts, which ceased to function in increas• expence: From Hockley to Northampton, thence to ing numbers, the roads being taken over by the local Harborough, and Leicester, and thence to the very authority. The last stretch of turnpike road (through bank of Trent these terrible clays continue ... ". 4 Anglesey to Holyhead) closed in 1895, being the Even well into the turnpike era, in 1810, the Rev. furthest section of the Fornhill to Stony Stratford St. John Priest could say- road (road A) - the earliest to be controlled by trustees. "In riding from Risborough to Bledlow, I turned my chaise out of the road, to avoid a waggon, and my State of the roads horse fell into a bog up to his chest. "5 The system of using unpaid statute labour, di• It was not until after the advent of John McAdam rected by unpaid, amateur surveyors, resulted in (1756/1836) and Thomas Telford (1757 /1834)- at roads in appalling condition, as instanced by this their most influential in the second and third dec• typical excerpt from the setting-up act of the ades of the nineteenth century- that more scientific Wendover to Buckingham Turnpike Trust in 1721 methods of road construction gradually became (road C): widespread. The only detailed information on the "Whereas the Highway or Road leading from building of a newly-turnpiked stretch of road in Wendover to Buckingham, in the County of Bucks, Bucks. is in the minutes of the Risborough Turn• by reason of the many heavy Carriages frequently pike Road Trust, and relates to the road from passing through the same, is become so ruinous and Princes Risborough via Longwick to Thame. bad, that in the Winter Season the said road is very (Bucks R.O., T. Ms-T/5/1) dangerous to Travellers, and cannot by the ordinary Course appointed by the Laws and Statutes of this Realm be repaired: Wherefore and to the intent the Toll Houses, Gates and Side Bars said Highway or Road may with convenient Speed be Toll houses provided accommodation for the effectually amended, and hereafter kept in good and gate keepers who were responsible for toll collec• sufficient repair, so as that all Persons may travel tion. Even the few surviving toll houses show a through the same with Safety; may it please Your great diversity of design, built with local materials, 33 by local craftsmen. They were invariably small, some engines hoisted vehicles and their contents with side windows angled to give views of ap• off the ground, and there was a complicated tariff proaching traffic from both directions. A board for the assessment of charges payable. attached in a prominent position displayed the table of tolls. The following is a specification by William Sheppard in 1812 for proposed weighing engines at The following estimate6 gives details of a house Aylesbury (N.E.) and Hockliffe gates: and gates for the turnpike N.E. of Aylesbury on the road to Hockliffe (road N): "Should it be the intention of the Trustees to have the Weighing Engine attached to the present Toll House "The House to be 24 foot long .. and 13 foot wide I will undertake to erect an Engine at each of the . .. and 7'/2 foot high from floor to the ceiling with a Turnpike Houses mentioned capable of weighing 10 chimney at each end with a Lean to behind 5 foot Tons with brickwork and all other parts complete and wide. Patent Index to the same in the manner of a clock to decide the weight without scales or weights for the The House to be divided into 2 rooms ... with 9 inch sum of £280. Or an engine at each of the above brick walls and slated, with fine timber and deal mentioned places with proper scales and without !edged doors and floors including glazing and paint• Patent Index for £240.