ROADS, AND THOSE IN TRING

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ENGLISH ROADS:
THE PRE-TURNPIKE ERA

ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN

All roads lead to Rome.

Throughout the Roman Empire there existed a network of well engineered public roads (viae publicae).  Unlike the principal English roads of the medieval period and into the 18th century, which were often impassable in wet weather, a well-drained Roman road provided all-weather use:
 

Although the Roman road network supported commerce, its principal aim was to enable the Empire to maintain control over its widespread provinces by linking them to Rome, [1] and its outlying administrative and military centres (such as, in Britain, London, Chester, York and Hadrian’s Wall) to each other.  By this means, armies, military supplies, government officials and communications could move as swiftly overland as was possible for the age.

Pre-Roman roads in Britain.

From the earliest times, one of the strongest indicators of a society’s level of development has been the extent of its road system.

When the Romans first reached Britain in 55 BC, archaeological evidence in the form of imported wine and olive oil amphorae, and mass-produced Gallo-Belgic pottery suggests that a thriving trade had already developed between south-eastern Britain and the near Continent.  There can be no doubt that the Romans found some form of roads, for the extent to which our Iron Age tribes had developed trading relations would have required them. [2]  Such roads were probably little better than bridleways beaten out by travellers making their way as best they could from place to place, taking lengthy detours en route to cross rivers at fords, choosing high ground to avoid the bogs of the valleys, and deviating from a straight course wherever they encountered an obstacle.  Nevertheless, they were adequate for meeting the meagre trading demands of the age.

In Julius Caesar’s  account of his second visit to Briton in 54 BC, he mentions finding roads.  Following a battle at a ford on the Thames during his campaign against the British king Cassivelaunus, Caesar mentions that Cassivelaunus sent out his chariots from the woods into which he had withdrawn, using all the well-known roads and paths to attack the Romans, who were then plundering the British crops and cattle. [3]  From this and other evidence it is apparent that roads of a standard worthy of Caesar’s description as such did exist, and it is likely that parts of the later Roman-British road network were a consolidation and improvement of what the Romans found when they eventually invaded our shores in force.

Roman roads in Britain.

Julius Caesar did not linger.  It was not until 43 AD that the Roman conquest of Britain under the Emperor Claudius began in earnest, following which the Romans remained masters of the larger part of our island until c.410 AD, when the last of their military forces withdrew to help counter the increasing attacks by Germanic tribes along the Empire’s eastern borders.

During almost four centuries of colonisation, the Romans built cities and erected many private and public works, both civil and military, the remains of which attest to their skill and power as architects and civil/military engineers.  They also constructed our first properly engineered roads, which, judging from archaeological evidence in the form of coins, they constructed mostly during the early period of their occupation.  Features of the Romans’ major roads echo those of today’s motorways, for, unlike our later meandering roads, they followed direct ― but not necessarily straight ― routes, distances along which could be judged from milestones, while fresh horses, food and accommodation might be obtained from way-stations located at intervals. [4]

At its height (c.180 AD) the Roman road network in Britain comprised over 2,000 miles of major roads in addition to thousands of miles of minor roads. [5]  Archaeological evidence demonstrates that Roman roads were well constructed; the engineers who built them appreciated the need for a solid, load-bearing foundation that needed to be kept dry, and thus firm.  Following their departure from our shores these principles were forgotten until rediscovered by our military (for we too built military roads, to subjugate the Jacobite Scots) and civil road builders of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Roman road construction.

The common features of Roman roads were a metalled surface (e.g. gravel, or sometimes paving slabs [6]) laid on a compacted foundation of earth and stone between drainage ditches.  This arrangement varied in width from, for minor roads, some 15 feet, to twice that for major roads.  However, construction did not follow a hard and fast rule, but varied according to the builder, when the road was built, the types of building materials readily available, and the road’s importance.  The author of Robinson Crusoe had occasion to observe Roman road construction during his tours of Britain; he was impressed with what he saw:
 

With the exception of motorways and trunk roads, most British roads today are sinuous, although Chesterton’s poem probably doesn’t reflect the true cause:

In contrast, Roman roads were definitely not of the reeling, rolling and rambling variety, although the common belief that they always followed a perfectly straight line over hill and dale is an exaggeration; it is truer to say that they were direct, rather than straight:
 

Road administration under the Romans.

Of equal importance to road engineering is that of maintenance and repair.  Much is known about the centralised road administration that existed in Italy, but application of the Italian model to Roman Britain is a matter of conjecture.  If it was followed, it is likely that Roman trunk roads were managed nationally. [7]  Financing public road building would have been a government responsibility, but the responsibility for regular repair and maintenance rested with designated imperial officials, the curatores viarum.  These officials were tasked with fund-raising, for which there were a number of methods available.  The local civitas (county) authorities through whose territory the road passed would be expected to contribute to its repair, as would citizens with an interest in a road; high officials might distribute largesse to be used for roads; and the censors (who were in charge of public morals and public works) were expected to contribute to repairs from their own resources.  In towns, citizens were expected to pay for the maintenance of the road outside their property.

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THE DARK AGES

Decay.

It is impossible to estimate accurately the full extent of our Roman road network, [5] for following the Empire’s departure from our shores, the military and administrative purposes for which their roads had been the essential infrastructure ceased, and in the following centuries our Roman roads fell into decay.  The materials from which they were built were sometimes dug up and used for other purposes, sections of road sank into the ground or were washed away through lack of maintenance, sections were ploughed up for agricultural use, and on those routes leading to Roman outposts that no longer served any purpose, nature soon regained control and vegetation forced its way through the road bed until it was entirely consumed by undergrowth . . . .
 

It is generally accepted that no roads of the solid construction and straight alignments of those of the Roman were built until well into the eighteenth century (see chapter 10).  That said, some Roman roads did continue in use until long after the end of Roman rule, although not in the condition in which the Romans left them: [8]
 

The laws this extract refers to seem chiefly aimed at preventing robbery and establishing these four former Roman roads as public property by extending to them the privileges of pax regis, the King’s Peace. [10]  A further point to mention is that these road names (e.g. Watling Street) are not Roman; in contrast to surviving routes in Italy and in other Roman provinces within Western Europe, the original names of our Roman roads are not known through lack of written and inscribed sources.  The names we have today were acquired during the early Middle Ages, and are of Welsh or Anglo-Saxon derivation.

The Anglo-Saxons: the ‘trinoda necessitas’.

During the two centuries following the Roman departure, England was invaded, first, by Germanic tribes referred to collectively as the Anglo-Saxons; then, towards the end of the 8th Century began further waves of invasion by peoples mainly from Denmark.  Collectively known as the Vikings, these later invaders settled in the north and east of England.

A gradual outcome of the battles fought between Anglo-Saxons and Vikings during the 9th and 10th centuries was that England became unified under one king.  In 927, the Anglo-Saxon Athelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great, became the first king of England.  The line of succession then continued — alternating between Anglo-Saxon and Danish families, and with some disruptions — until ended in 1066 with the Norman conquest of England.  But it is from the late Anglo-Saxon period that English law began to develop.

Under the Anglo-Saxons, landowners were required to yield to the king three services referred to collectively by historians as the trinoda necessitas (or simply trinoda).  These were ‘bridge-bote’ (the repair of bridges and roads), ‘burgh-bote’ (the building and maintenance of fortifications), and ‘fyrd-bote’ (service in the militia, known as the ‘fyrd’ [11]).  Rulers rarely exempted subjects from their obligations under the trinoda necessitas, because the provision of these services was the lifeblood of the kingdom.  Thus, there was an obligation on landowners to maintain bridges and roads, although by this date, in speaking of roads, we must disregard the Roman road with its cambered metalled surface and drainage ditches.  The purpose of a road was no longer to permit distances to be covered as quickly as possible for governmental purposes, as it had been under Roman rule, but to connect the increasing number of inhabited places with each another.  To the people of England in this and succeeding centuries, a ‘highway’ meant nothing more than a legal and customary right of way, from place to place, across the lands of others, what in law today would constitute an ‘easement’.
 

Thus, by perpetual use, a well-trodden track was formed; this was the ‘road’, while the ‘highway’ was the legal right of passage along it. [12]  If the track became too bad to be used, the traveller could simply move onto the adjacent land, whether cultivated or in grass.  As the roads of this age were used almost exclusively by man and beast, and as this liberty of changing the path would only need to be exercised during wet weather, when the track became an impassable mire, the practice was not the serious detriment to local farming interests that it would be to-day.  Indeed, it suggests that rather than repair a road by filling in potholes and clearing drains, the problem was simply bypassed in the same way that by-passes were built in more recent times to avoid congested town centres (Tring being an example).

But despite the lack of a hard, well-drained road surface, reasonably fast journeys do appear to have been possible.  In 1066, King Harold’s army in returning from its victory over the Vikings at Stamford Bridge, marched from York to London in a week or less, while in later periods our medieval kings (particularly John) with their large retinues routinely managed twenty miles a day while moving from one royal residence to the next. [13]  Nevertheless, passable roads continued to depend on dry weather.

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THE MIDDLE AGES

The Norman conquest.

Prior to the Norman Conquest, land was considered the absolute property of its owner and not subject to any rent, service (excepting the trinoda necessitas), or acknowledgment to a superior.  But under Norman feudalism the allodial lands that had characterized much of Anglo-Saxon land ownership were removed.  All land became the property of the crown and was held in exchange for whatever services or labour a tyrannical monarch or lord chose to impose on his underlings. [14]

So far as the traveller was concerned, the Norman Conquest brought change.  Under the Anglo-Saxons, the sovereign was considered the guardian of public property; thus, all public roads and bridges were considered his, and he had a duty to enact services for their preservation as part of the trinoda necessitas.  Under the feudal system imposed by the Normans, the emphasis changed from promoting the common good to augmenting crown revenue.  Thus, tolls — known respectively as ‘passage’ and ‘pontage’ — were levied upon travellers and their goods as they passed through certain manors and over certain bridges.  The erection of new bridges built with a view to collecting pontage for purposes other than for its maintenance and repair must have become a particular grievance, for an exemption from it is included in Magna Carta (1215) “. . . . that neither a town, nor particular person, shall be distrained or compelled to build bridges, or embankments to rivers except those which are of old time, and by right of special contract, tenure, or prescription, obliged to it; and that none be compelled to make new bridges, where none ever were before, otherwise than by act of parliament.”

Early road legislation.

The earliest legislation specifically affecting our roads was enacted during the reign of Edward I.  The Statute of Winchester (1285) recognised the upkeep of roads as a manorial obligation, the responsibility for which fell upon the tenants, who could be ordered by the Court Leet to scour their ditches and remove obstructions.  But in other respects the Statute appears to have been aimed more at crime prevention than road maintenance, for it required “that highways leading from one market town to another shall be enlarged where as bushes, woods, or dykes be, so that there be neither dyke nor bush whereby a man may lurk to do hurt within two hundred feet of the one side and two hundred feet of the other side of the way”, so allowing room for detours around ruts and other obstructions.  How well this obligation was discharged — and to what extent it was enforced by the Court Leet when it wasn’t — remains generally obscure.  But from what is known about the extent of travel in this period, the law appears to have been reasonably effective in operation, for . . . .
 

The decline of feudalism.

Economic changes during the 12th and 13th centuries — principally cash payment replacing payment in kind — resulted in the feudal system falling into decline.  Some serfs, by engaging in trade, were able to substitute payment in cash for their feudal obligations, thus becoming tenant farmers.  This gradual change was hastened by the Black Death (1348-50), with its attendant increase in labour costs, and the Wars of the Roses (1455–1485), which weakened the nobility; indeed, the accession of Henry VII in 1485 and the commencement of the strong Tudor monarchy is generally accepted to mark the end of the Middle Ages.

During the two centuries following the Black Death, there was a gradual decline in travelling; as the use of roads diminished, so did the resources applied to their maintenance.  This decline can be attributed to several causes:

i. the Black Death reduced the population of England by upwards of 30%, thereby reducing numbers of road users;

ii. the Wars of the Roses resulted in a redistribution of property and a consolidation of the landed estates, which resulted in less travelling to and fro by the aristocracy and their retainers;

iii. with the dissolution of the monasteries and the break with Rome, pilgrimages and journeys to Rome connected with appeals to the Pope ceased.  Bands of travellers making pilgrimages also gradually declined;

iv. the agricultural revolution, with its substitution of livestock for arable cultivation, meant that less farm produce needed to be carted to market.

These factors had the effect of reducing the number of human travellers, while increasing the number of beasts being driven to market, beasts that preferred the soft-going of an otherwise bad road surface for waggoners (the roads used regularly for those particular trades sometimes acquired the names of ‘sheepdrove’ or ‘oxdrove’, while trades in malt and in salt resulted in roads named ‘maltway and ‘saltway’).  Thus, by the sixteenth century, road maintenance that had been carried out by the manorial estates had diminished, while those who acquired the monasteries following their dissolution felt less inclined than their more pious forbears to fulfil that obligation.  To fill the gap, more importance began to be placed on the gifts of individuals and corporate bodies, such as boroughs and craft gilds, but this did not halt the decline in the quality of main roads.

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THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

The highway laws of Henry VIII.

In this period we see the first Acts of Parliament aimed at placing bridge and road maintenance permanently on a  national footing.  Indeed, some of the provisions laid down in these Acts, together with later modifications, applied well into — and when concerning the role of the parish, almost throughout — the nineteenth century.

First came the Bridges Act of 1530.  This was designed to safeguard the upkeep of bridges, which at that time were often of timber construction requiring regular maintenance and repair.  In essence this Act:

i. empowered Justices of the Peace, where necessary, to arrange for the repair or rebuilding by, or at the expense of, those who were responsible for their maintenance; but in cases where the maintainer could not be established . . . .

ii. the cost was to fall on either the inhabitants of the town or city where the bridge was situated, or, if it lay outside a town, then the shire or riding as a whole, and in such cases . . . .

iii. the Justices of the Peace were empowered to take measures for taxing every inhabitant in the area for a reasonable sum to cover the cost of the work required, and to appoint two surveyors to oversee the work.

Then in 1555 came The Highways Act.  This placed the burden of maintaining those sections of roads within parish boundaries that ran to market towns — in effect, main roads — on parishes.  It also placed the supervision of road maintenance on an elected surveyor.

In essence, this Act required every parish, each year (in Easter week), to elect “two honest persons” of the parish to serve as ‘Surveyor of Highways’, and they were to be responsible for putting the Act into effect.  The Surveyors were, in turn, to announce in church on the first Sunday after Easter, four days (which had to fall before the 24th June) on which highway maintenance was to be carried out, and during those four days the entire parish was to work on highway upkeep.  The Act stipulated the contribution that each parishioner was to make:

i. every person, for every ploughland [an area of land] they held in the parish, and every other person keeping a draught [a ploughing team] or plough there, was to provide a cart or wain [a type of horse- or oxen-drawn, load-carrying vehicle, used for agricultural purposes] equipped for the work, and two able-bodied men, on a penalty of 10s per draught.  The Surveyors could, at their discretion, require a further two men instead of the cart;

ii. every other householder, as well as every other cottager and labourer free to labour, was to send themselves or a substitute able-bodied labourer to work for the four days, on a penalty of 12d per day apiece. All labourers were to provide their own equipment, and bound to work for eight hours each day upon the roads.

The highway law of Elizabeth I.

In 1562, under Elizabeth, the provisions of the Highways Act were extended, the statutory period of work being increased from four days labour per person to six. [15]  Surveyors were empowered to take debris from quarries and to dig for gravel without the landowner’s permission, and Justices of the Peace at Quarter Sessions were empowered to investigate and fine surveyors in cases where they were in dereliction of their duties.  But despite the threat of legal sanction there was little incentive for the six days to be spent in useful toil; and, unsurprisingly, the surveyors were rarely up to the task:

Even a cursory study of the history of roads quickly reveals a self-evident truth, that all developments create two crucial administrative problems — who is to do the work and who is to pay for it?  In this respect the law failed to recognise that a road maintenance plan that focused on the parish as the administrative unit, placed the burden on an organisation geared towards addressing parochial problems, not those affecting long-distance travellers passing through the parish on their way to distant towns and cities.  Many rural parishes could not at any rate afford to maintain the sections of main roads within their boundaries, even assuming that those on which the task fell knew how to accomplish it.  This problem only disappeared — and even then, gradually — with developments in central and local government administration, and in taxation and finance, which only took place during the second half of the 19th century.

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APPENDIX.

By the King.

A PROCLAMATION To Restrain the Excessive Carriages in Wagons and four-Wheeled Carts, to the destruction of High-ways.

CHARLES R.

Whereas it appertaineth to Us to have special Care, that the common High-ways, and Bridges, leading from place to place within this Realm, might be kept in due repair for the ease and good of Our Loving Subjects;

And observing notwithstanding the good provision of Our Laws in that behalf made, and the conformity and forwardness of Our Subjects in so Publique and Necessary a Work, That Our High-ways and Bridges are at this present grown into great decay, and very dangerous for Passage,

We have upon due examination found, that the said Decays are occasioned by the common Carriers of this Realm, who for their singular and private profit, do now usually Travail with Carts and Wagons with four Wheels, drawn with eight, nine, or ten Horses or more, and do commonly therein carry sixty and seventy hundred weight at one burthen at one time, which burden and weight is so great and excessive, as that the very Foundations of Bridges are in many places thereby shaken, and the High-ways and Cawseys Furrowed and Ploughed up by the Wheels of the said Carts and Wagons so overladen, and made so deep, and full of dangerous Slows and Holes, as neither can Passengers Travail thereby in Safety, nor the Inhabitants or Persons by Law bound to repair them, be able to undergo so great a charge:

Where heretofore all common Carriers usually went with Carts of two Wheels onely, wherewith they could not well carry above twenty hundred weight at once, or there abouts, which the Bridges, Cawseys, and ordinary High-ways, did and might well bear without any great damage to the same:

We therefore intending the Reformation of the Premisses, and it having been resolved by the Advice of the Judges formerly taken herein, That by the Law of this Our Realm, the said excessive and extraordinary kind of Carriages, whereby Our High-ways are thus destroyed, are common Nusances and Annoyances against the Weal-publique, and an offence against Our Crown;

Do hereby streightly charge, require and command, that no common Carrier, or other person or persons whatsoever, shall hereafter use, go, or travail with any Cart or Wagon made with four Wheels, to be drawn with above five Horses at once along their Journey, unless they go all two abrest, in which case they are limited to no number, that the High-ways and Bridges may hereafter receive the less damage thereby, upon pain of incurring Our high Displeasure, and to receive condign punishment, as contemners of Our Royal Will and Commandment, and to be further prosecuted and punished for the said Nusances and Annoyances, by Fine and such other ways, as the Laws of this Our Realm have provided against Offenders in that kind:

To which end, We do hereby expresly charge, as well Our Judges, as Our Atturney-General, to exact and require the extremity of Our Laws in that behalf; And that every Offender contrary to this Our Proclamation shall for his contempt be prosecuted in Our Court of Kings Bench, and other Courts whereunto the Cognisance thereof shall belong, by Information or Indictment, and thereupon be Fined and proceeded against according to their demerit;

Nevertheless, Our Intent, Will, and Commandment is, And we do hereby streightly charge, command, and prohibite, that no common Carrier whatsoever shall by colour hereof take occasion to Inhance or raise the prices of Carriage from any part or place within Our said Realm, under pain of Our Displeasure, and upon complaint thereof to Us, or Our Privy Councel made, to be further punished; as shall be thought fit and just according to Law.

And lastly, We do hereby Will and Require all Mayors, Sheriffs, Justices of Peace, and other Our Officers and Ministers in all Counties and Priviledged Places whatsoever within this Our Realm, that they, and every of them in their several Offices and Places, do from time to time provide and see to the due execution of this Our Pleasure and Royal Commandment; and that they discover and make known all offenders herein, that they may be severely punished for their contempts, as also that they neglect not, but continue the repaire and maintenance of High-ways, Bridges and Cawseys within this Our Realm, according to the Laws, Statutes and Ordinances now in force, as they tender Our Pleasure, and will answer the contrary at their utmost perils.

Given at Our Court at Whitehall, the Sixteenth day of August, 1661, in the Thirteenth year of Our Raign.

God save the KING.

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