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25 
seventeen centuries, and remain to this day as evidences of a 
civilization which was rolled back by the strong barbarism of the 
northern hordes opposed to the enervated power of Rome. 
Of the times which followed the withdrawal of the Romans 
there is little to be said in connection with my subject. The 
work begun by the Romans was certainly not carried on, and we 
can only imagine from the wretched state of the roads, even so 
late as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that travelling 
must have been a weary business in the still earlier periods, 
The construction and maintenance of roads was not part of the 
trinoda necessitas of the Saxons to which every man’s existence 
was by the ancient law subject, though the construction of 
bridges was. The only roads which the early English would 
add to the lines of communication which the Romans had left 
them, would be vicinal ways between the country houses of the 
feudal lords. 
In the dearth of information as to the state of our local roads 
in the middle ages, it may be not without interest to refer to 
some of the statutes whose language and purport show the 
general condition in those times of the highways, and the 
beginnings of our system of parish maintenance of highways. 
In this respect the history of the country at large is the history 
of our own locality. First we have the Statute of Winchester 
13, Edw. I., which commands that highways leading from one 
market town to another shall be enlarged so that there be neither 
dyke, tree, nor bush whereby a man may lurk to do hurt within 
200 feet on either side of the way, but the statute does not 
extend to ‘great trees.” On default by the lord, whereby any 
robberies or murder be done, he is made answerable. Next we 
have the Statute 22, Henry VIII., cap. 5, the foundation of the 
modern law ofcountry bridges. After reciting terrible evils which 
have happened to the king’s subjects through the decayed state of 
the bridges in the highways, and the uncertainty as to who should 
repair them, the statute enacts that those bridges (as to which 
it is not known who ought to repair them) shall be made by the 
inhabitants of the shire or the towns corporate, who are also 
made liable for the repairs of the roads over and 800 feet on each 
side of the bridge. The justices are enabled to tax the inhabi- 
tants through the constables for the necessary expenses. The 
kindness of Mr. Wm. Waddington, our local antiquary, enables 
me tv show to you a precept of the justices in 1683, by virtue of 
this statute directed to the constables for the repair of the 
bridges in the Hundred of Blackburn. You will see that 
Burnley is assessed along with the other townships. A fifteenth 
was originally a parliamentary tax based upon the value of a 
man’s moveable goods, but in time it came to designate the 
local taxes, and then it was applied to the assessable value 
