DRIVES, AVENUES, AND SERVICE ROADS. 



drive to be used by motor traffic, it is particularly desirable that it should be finished 

 with a light steam roller. 



All drives should be " crowned " or raised in the centre and sloped away at the 

 sides in order to throw off rain water, which would otherwise soak into the surface and 

 disintegrate it. Where the drive is hand pitched, by far the best way is to form the 

 crown in the subsoil before commencing the pitching and to keep each layer of material 

 the same thickness throughout, but where it is rough pitched this is not so important. 

 A good general rule is to make the drive with a crown which raises the centre one 

 inch for every two and a half feet of width from crown to side. Thus a drive twelve 

 feet broad would round up to the centre nearly three inches, and one of eighteen feet 

 nearly four inches. Here again, however, local conditions and the relative absorbency 

 of the material used must be taken into consideration. For the sake of cyclists especi- 

 ally, but also for other fast traffic, it is better that, where the drive curves, and especi- 

 ally where the curve is sharp, the camber should be carried straight across the drive, 

 making the inside of the curve the lower and the outside the higher point. This is 

 particularly necessary where the drive curves to the right as one goes down-hill, where 

 it would, of course, necessitate a special arrangement of the catchpits. 



While there are many drives in this country where to provide catchpits would be 

 a waste of money, there are an infinitely greater number which are a perpetual annoyance 

 to the estate workmen and a continual expense to the owner, all for the lack of a few 

 well-placed drains 

 to prevent heavy 

 rains from scour- 

 ing the surface. 

 No hard-and-fast 

 rules can be laid 

 down for the plac- 

 ing of these, but 

 of course, the 

 steeper the drive 

 is, the more will 

 be necessary. The 

 grate should be 

 twelve inches by 

 eight inches with 

 the bars curved to 

 make it hollow 

 towards the cen- 

 tre and with a 

 lip standing above 

 the level of the 

 frame at the lower -- ^ 

 end to check any tendency for the water to shoot right over it. The chamber under 

 the grate may be built of dry bricks, i.e., without mortar or cement, and, to carry the 

 water away, stoneware pipes are better than earthenware, except where laid exceptionally 

 deep, as the latter are more apt to be broken by the traffic passing over. Where the 

 drive is at all steep, they should have channels at the sides to withstand the wash of 

 rapidly running storm water. Undoubtedly the most aesthetic method of providing these 

 is by cobble paving, as in illustration No. 102, where this method would be in keeping 

 with local characteristics, as in a district where flints abound, or where cobble paving 

 is much used in the older building works, while in a brick district a channel constructed 



Crowning. 



CUT THROUGH SOLID ROCK. 



Catchpits . 



