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The State of Britain’s Roads

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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

At the end of the 17th century, British roads were in a terrible state. A law had been passed in 1555 which had instructed local people to maintain the roads in their area. It meant that every parish which had a road passing through it was legally bound to maintain it by six days a year of unpaid labour each year.

There was no outside supervision and so in many places this law was ignored Even where repairs were carried out, it was usually just a case of people putting stones and gravel in the worst holes. No-one paid any attention to drainage so the roads often became a sea of mud in winter.

Back then, coal was the most important cargo in Britain. In the 1670s around two million tons a year were being moved around Britain. about one million tons went by sea and a quarter of a million tons by inland rivers.

Daniel Defoe, in his book, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724) said that collieries needed to be close to water, “for once the rains come in, the road stirs no more that year, and sometimes a whole summer, is not dry enough to make roads passable”. That’s how bad the roads were. 

Horses and carts came to the collieries to collect coal. It’s estimated that it would take ten packhorses or a very large cart, to carry one ton of coal, so even a small colliery producing a few thousand tons a year would create a huge amount of traffic, often along unmade tracks. When bad weather made these tracks or roads impassable, coal was left piled at collieries. 

In 1748 Pehr Kalm, the Swedish explorer visited England. He told a friend that he was very unimpressed with the quality of British roads: “In Sweden the road is higher than the land around, but here exactly the opposite is the case! In England, very large wagons are used with many horses. Over many years’ driving, the wagons seem to have eaten down into the ground... to a depth of two, four, or six feet.”

Between 1700 and 1750, the Industrial Revolution began and resulted in the need for an improved transport system. Whenever possible, factory owners used Britain's network of rivers to transport their goods. However, their customers did not always live by rivers and they therefore had to make use of Britain's roads. This was a major problem for mine-owners as transport costs were crucial. If they could not get their coal to market at a competitive price, they were out of business.

Factory owners also suffered from the appalling state of Britain's roads. Bad weather often made roads impassable and when fresh supplies of raw materials failed to arrive, factory production came to a halt. Transporting the finished goods to their customers was also impossible. 

As you can imagine a rising chorus of protest gained momentum as ironmasters, colliery owners, merchants and factory owners all appealed to Parliament for help.


Next: The Blind Roadmaker