CHAP. I. <>L1> ROADS. 159 



fco the village of Charing (now Charing Cross), and from 

 the same quarter to near Temple Bar (down Drury- 

 Lane), as well as the highway then called Perpoole (now 

 Gray's Inn Lane). The footway at the entrance of 

 Temple Bar was interrupted by thickets and bushes, 

 and in wet weather was almost impassable. The roads 

 further west were so bad that when the sovereign went 

 to Parliament faggots were thrown into the ruts in 

 King-street, Westminster, to enable the royal cavalcade 

 to pass along. In Henry VIII.'s reign several remark- 

 able statutes were passed relating to certain worn-out 

 and impracticable roads in Sussex and the Weald of 

 Kent. From these it would appear that when the old 

 roads were found too deep and miry to be passed, they 

 were merely abandoned and a new track was selected. 

 This is apparent from the Act 14 Henry VIII., chap. 

 (j, which giveth liberty to every man having highway 

 that is worn deep and incommodious for passage to lay 

 out another way in some such other place of his land as 

 shall be thought meet by the view of two justices of the 

 peace and twelve other men of wisdom and discretion. 

 Another Act passed in the same reign related to the 

 repairs of bridges and of the highways at the ends of 

 bridges. But as these Acts were for the most part 

 merely permissive, they could have had but little prac- 

 tical effect in improving the communications of the 

 kingdom. In the reign of Philip and Mary (in 1555), 

 the Act was passed providing that each parish should 

 elect two surveyors of highways to see to the main- 

 tenance of their repairs by compulsory labour; and to 

 this day parish and cross roads are maintained on the 

 principle of Mary's Act, though the compulsory labour 

 has since been commuted into a compulsory tax. In 

 Elizabeth and James's reigns other Acts were passed, 

 but, from the statements of contemporary writers, it 

 would appear that very little substantial progress was 

 made in consequence, and travelling continued to be 



