32 
Hollingreave House to the Rochdale and Burnley road at 
Nanheys, then occupied by Mr. Lovat, the well-known surveyor. 
There is a plan for this road, and also a larger plan, which was 
made by Mr. Holden, the surveyor, and which shows the route 
more clearly. Unfortunately the road was never made, I 
suppose for want ot funds, and our town to this day is short of 
necessary means of communication in that quarter. This 
movement for the turnpiking of our roads was the necessary 
result of the great expansion of trade which could no longer 
brook the inconvenience caused by the ruinous condition of the 
roads, and their imperfection as means of communication. The 
preamble to the first Halifax and Burnley Act recites that the 
highways from Halifax, by Todmorden to Burnley, are in many 
parts thereof extremely rough and incommodious, and in many 
other parts thereof not only ruinous and dangerous to travellers, 
but by reason of the height and steepness of many hills, over 
which the same were then carried, almost impassable for wheel 
carriages ; and, besides, were in general so narrow that two 
wheel carriages could not safely pass by each other. Yet by 
deviating in some places from the common road, the height and 
steepness of the hills might be avoided, and by enlarging and 
widening the said roads in other places, a safe, easy and com- 
modious road might be made, and thereby a much more easy, 
extensive, and advantageous communication might be effected 
through that populous and trading country, which in the present 
condition of the said roads was in many parts thereof scarce 
accessible. 
I have been able to obtain several of the Minute Books of the 
trustees of our local turnpikes. One interest which they have 
for us is the names of the men who directed these new under- 
takings. Mr. Peregrine Towneley took a leading part in the 
movement, and so did his son, and the Hargreaves family, the 
Halsteads, and Mr. Webster Fishwick, Mr. Joseph Massey 
(head of the firm of Joseph Massey & Sons, woollen spinners.) 
The minutes are largely records of financial embarrassment. In 
order to raise the necessary means money was subscribed upon 
security of the tolls, and there was constant difficulty in raismg 
funds. In 1811, the Blackburn trustees were engaged upon a 
diversion of the road from Colne to Walsis Hall, and a minute 
of 29th August, 1811, records the distress which was caused by 
want of funds to pay the contractor, and declares that it is the 
duty of the trustees collectively, as well as individually, to exert 
every means in their power to relieve the distresses of these 
people, and to fulfil the engagements which had been entered 
into with them. Then the meeting is adjourned, and so is the 
next, for they could not get a quorum. 
