The Age of Bad Roads 69 



was the case in regard to many of the turnpike roads on which 

 alleged improvements had been carried out. 



The following examples of his experiences are taken from 

 his " Six Months' Tour through the North of England " : 



" From Newport Pagnel I took the road to Bedford, if I 

 may venture to call such a cursed string of hills and holes by 

 the name of road ; a causeway is here and there thrown up, 

 but so high, and at the same time so very narrow that it was 

 at the peril of our necks we passed a waggon with a civil and 

 careful driver." 



" From Grinsthorpe to Coltsworth are eight miles, called 

 by the courtesy of the neighbourhood a turnpike ; but in 

 which we were every moment either buried in quagmires of 

 mud or racked to dislocation over pieces of rock which they 

 call mending." 



" From Rotherham to Sheffield the road is execrably bad, 

 very stony and excessively full of holes." 



" Those who go to Methley by Pontefract must be extremely 

 fond of seeing houses, or they will not recompense the fatigue 

 of passing such detestable roads. They are full of ruts, whose 

 gaping jaws threaten to swallow up any carriage less than a 

 waggon. It would be no bad precaution to yoke half a score 

 of oxen to your coach to be ready to encounter such quagmires 

 as you will here meet with." 



" To Coltsworth. Turnpike. Most execrably vile ; a narrow 

 causeway, cut into rutts that threaten to swallow one up." 



" To Castle Howard. Infamous. I was near to being 

 swallowed up by a slough." 



" From Newton to Stokesby, in Cleveland. Cross, 1 and 

 extremely bad. You are obliged to cross the moors they 

 call Black Hambledon, over which the road runs in narrow 

 hollows that admit a south country chaise with such difficulty 

 that I reckon this part of the journey made at the hazard 

 of my neck. The going down into Cleveland is beyond all 

 description terrible, for you go through such steep, rough 

 narrow, rocky precipices that I would sincerely advise any 

 friend to go an hundred miles about to escape it." 



" From Richmond to Darlington, by Croft Bridge. To 

 Croft Bridge, cross, and very indifferent. From thence to 

 Darlington is the great north road and execrably broke into 

 1 Cross = cross road. 



