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The History of Britain’s Roads

3 - Portrait tablets

2 - PC/landscape tablets

4 - L/scape smartphone

5 - Portrait smartphone

Section 3:

The Roads

Introduction

The world of long-distance coach travel

Ancient Trackways

The first roads

Celtic Trading Routes

The Celts were trading across Europe and although nothing remains of their roads, they must have followed fixed routes

Roman Roads

The Romans built roads, famously straight. These are the first roads that we in England are familiar with

The Middle Ages

After the Romans left, our roads fell into disrepair. Find out what happened

The Tudors

After the dissolution of the monasteries, even the church’s work ended

The Stuarts

During the Stuart period the first beginnings of improvement appeared

Thomas Mace

The first proposal to improve Britain’s roads

The Blind Roadmaker

The first person to take active steps to improve the roads

Thomas Telford

As pressure for improved transport links grew, this engineer made a real difference

John McAdam

Perhaps the most famous roadmaker, His method is still essentially in use today

Turnpikes

Britain’s roads at last allow fast long-distance travel 

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 Part 1: Living Memories

Anecdotes written by people who actually travelled on the coaches

Part 2: The Age of Coaching

The coachmen, the inns, the coach proprietors - they’re all here. Come in and meet them

Part 3: The Roads

Britain’s roads were pretty impassable for most of our history.  Coach travel was very difficult until they improved

Part 4: The Coaches

Wheeled transport evolved over many years. Find out how coaches developed

Background

Sources and information about how I came to create this website

Home Page

Home Page of the Coaching Website

Introduction - Britain’s Roads through the Ages

These days we take travel for granted. Cars buses, trains and aeroplanes allow us to cross the country and the globe with ease. We travel for many reasons - military, business, social - but also purely for the love of travel itself.

It was not always so . . .

It seems incredible to our modern eyes, but after the Romans withdrew the roads of Britain became all but impassable - and remained so until the 1700s! Only then did long distance travel on anything other than a horse become possible.

It was the Industrial Revolution and the need to move goods that drove improvement. But once it started, things changed relatively rapidly.

This section looks at roads and how they have changed over millennia and will set the Great Age of Coaching in perspective against the panoply of time.


Next: Ancient Trackways