31 6 History of Inland Transport 



road. The tolls they collected in that year amounted to 

 ^97,482 ; the expenses were ^98,856, and the accumulated 

 debt of the dozen trusts was ^62,658. 



On the Middlesex side of London there were 87 turnpike 

 gates and bars within four miles of Charing Cross, or, including 

 the Surrey side, a total of 100 within a four-mile radius. " Let 

 the traveller drive through the Walworth gate southward," 

 says J. E. Bradfield, in his " Notes on Toll Reform " (1856), 

 " and note how every road, every alley, every passage has its 

 ' bar.' The inhabitants cannot move north, east, south, or 

 west without paying one toll ; and some of them cannot get 

 out of the parish without two tolls. The cry at every corner 

 of Camberwell is ' Toll.' " The position of Walworth and 

 Camberwell does not, however, appear to have been at all 

 exceptional. In Besant's " Survey of London " it is stated that 

 a map of London and its environs, published in 1835, shows 

 that it was then impossible to get away from town without 

 going through turnpikes. On every side they barred the way. 



In the case of a stage-coach with four horses running every 

 day between London and Birmingham, the tolls paid amounted 

 to i 428 in the year. At one gate on the Brighton road the 

 tolls collected came to 2400 in the year, and of this amount 

 ;i6oo was from coaches. The payment of these tolls was a 

 serious tax on the coaches, though an important source of 

 revenue for the turnpike trustees ; and in proportion as the 

 coaches were taken off the roads, owing to the competition 

 of the railways, the financial position of the trusts became 

 still worse. Mail-coaches were exempted from tolls in England, 

 though they had to pay them in Scotland. 



The amount of the tolls varied according to the trusts or the 

 locality. Kearsley Fowler says that in Aylesbury for a horse 

 ridden or led, passing through the gates, the toll was ijd. ; for 

 a vehicle drawn by one horse, 4|d. ; for a carriage and pair, 

 gd., and so on. The tolls, he adds, fell with particular hard- 

 ship on farmers, and became a tax on their trade. When 

 sending away their corn or other produce with a waggon and 

 four horses they paid, in some instances, is. 6d. or 2S. 3d. 

 If, as often occurred, the waggon passed through two gates 

 in eight or nine miles, the payments came to 33. or 43. 6d. 

 If the waggon returned with coal or feeding stuffs it had to 

 pay the same tolls over again. 



