Toll road fees have never been popular (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Toll road fees have never been popular

2:10pm Friday 23rd December 2011 in Nostalgia By Peter Smith

Historian Peter Holme, of Kendal, recalls the days when motorists using some local roads had to pay a toll

The revelation that Britain’s only road (as opposed to bridges or tunnels) controlled by a toll bar on the M6 in the Midlands is not being used by as many vehicles as its creators would like, brought to mind the time when toll bars controlled most main roads in the country.

Turnpike Roads, as they were known, came into being in the late 1600s as a means of raising money to keep the roads in a reasonable state of repair. Previously the conditions of roads was very hit and miss depending on the parish council and if they could afford repairs.

Trusts were formed under Acts of Parliament that referred to stretches of road. These trusts were then bought and the buyers could charge a fee, depending on the type of transport passing along them.

One such road in Kendal was at the southern end of town by what is now Romney Bridge roundabout.

The house on the junction of Natland Road is an original Toll House. This was the start of the Kendal to Keighley Turnpike. A distance of around 45 miles, it had another seven gates along its length to prevent travellers getting out of paying their dues.

The fees charged varied. For example as advertised in one edition of The Westmorland Gazette: “For every coach, landau, berlin, chariot, curricle, calash, chaise, chair, hearse or chaise marine drawn by six horses or other beasts, cost two shillings.”

If there were only four horses in front it would cost 1s.6d. If there was one horse pulling, then the charge was 3d. A drove or herd of calves, sheep, swine or lambs would cost 5d per score (20).

Woe betide you if you tried to avoid paying. In December 1821 a paragraph in the Gazette reported a case against John Pritt and Johnathan Dunn, coach proprietors of Lancaster, who were charged with passing a gate near Sedbergh in a post chaise without paying the toll.

“They were fined a penalty of £3 and costs having pleaded guilty and being in a state of inebriety.”

Although the charges did a great deal to improve the roads – John McAdam was employed to enhance what is now the A6 over Shap – they were not popular.

A letter in a Gazette of January 1867 complained that in order to get to the Milnthorpe railway station the writer had to pay 6d or double the omnibus fare in order to pass through the toll-bar and claimed it cost him £10 per annum at this ‘Stand and Deliver Gate’.

With the coming of the railways the income of the toll roads dropped hugely. The annual income for the Shap & Bannisdale toll gate in 1841 was £240 (£10,600 in today’s money) but by 1875 it had dropped to £48 (£2,200).

In 1888 a new act came into being which made all the turnpike roads into ‘main roads’, half the maintainance to be paid by the government and half by the local highways districts, and in this country the era of the toll bar was over.