32 History of Inland Transport 



were to view the highways, estimate the cost of the necessary 

 repairs, and, with the help of two or more substantial house- 

 holders, apportion the cost among persons assessed to the poor 

 rate and owners of all classes of property exclusive of " house- 

 hold stuff," the stock of goods in a shop being assessed as well 

 as the shop itself, and the personal belongings of a householder 

 equally with the dwelling he occupied. 



j,jThere was further brought about, in 1663, the definite 

 establishment, by law, of that system of toll-taking, by means 

 of turnpikes, the principle of which had, as we have seen, 

 already been adopted in a few isolated instances. Macpherson 

 speaks of the system as " the more equitable and effectual 

 method of tolls, paying at the toll-gates (called turnpikes) by 

 those who use and wear the roads " ; and this was the view 

 that generally prevailed at the time. He records as follows, 

 under date 1663, the passing of this first English Turnpike 

 Act: 



" The antient fund for keeping the roads of England repaired 

 was a rate levied on the land holders in proportion to their 

 rents, together with the actual service of the men, the carts, 

 and horses of the neighbourhood for a limited number of days. 

 But now, by the increase of inland trade, heavy carriages and 

 packhorses were so exceedingly multiplied that those means 

 of repairing the roads were found totally inadequate ; neither 

 was it just that a neighbourhood should be burdened with 

 the support of roads for the service of a distant quarter of 

 the Kingdom. It was therefore necessary to devise more 

 effective and, at the same time, more equitable means of 

 supporting the public roads, and the present method of 

 making and repairing the roads at the expense of those who 

 actually wear them and reap the benefit of them was now 

 first established by an Act of Parliament (15 Car. II., c. i.) for 

 repairing the highways in the shires of Hartford, Cambridge 

 and Huntingdon, by which three toll-gates (or turn-pikes) 

 were set up at Wadesmill, Caxton and Stilton." 



The highways here in question formed part of the Great 

 North Road to York and Scotland, and the preamble of the 

 Act stated that this " ancient highway and post-road " was, 

 in many places, " by reason of the great and many loads 

 which are weekly drawn in the waggons through the said 

 places, as well as by reason of the great trade of barley and 



