204 ROADS AND TRAVELLING PART ITT. 



purpose of defraying the needful expenses of their 

 maintenance. This Act, however, only .applied to a 

 portion of the Great North Road between London and 

 York, and authorised the new toll-bars to be erected at 

 Wade's Mill in Hertfordshire, at Caxton in Cambridge- 

 shire, and at Stilton in Huntingdonshire. 1 This Act 

 was not followed by any others for a quarter of a century, 

 and even after that lapse of time the .Acts passed of a 

 similar character were few and far between. For nearly 

 a century more, travellers from Edinburgh to London 

 met with no turnpikes until within about 110 miles of 

 the metropolis. North of that point there was only a 

 narrow causeway fit for pack-horses, flanked with clay 

 sloughs on either side. It is, however, stated that the 

 Duke of Cumberland and the Earl of Albemarle, when 

 on their way to Scotland in pursuit of the rebels in 17 JO, 

 did contrive to reach Durham in a coach and six ; but 

 there the roads were found so wretched that they were 

 under the necessity of taking to horse, and Mr. George 

 Bowes, the county member, made His Royal Highness 

 a present of his nag to enable him to proceed on his 

 journey. 



The rebellion of 1745 gave a great impulse to the 

 construction of roads for military as well as civil pur- 

 poses. The nimble Highlanders, without baggage or 

 waggons, had been able to cross the border and pene- 

 trate almost to the centre of England before any definite 

 knowledge of their proceedings had reached the rest of 



1 The preamble of the Act recites I barley and malt that cometh to Ware, 



that " The ancient highway and post- 

 road leading from London to York, 

 and so into Scotland, and likewise 

 from London into Lincolnshire, lieth 

 for many miles in the counties of 

 Hertford, Cambridge, and Hunting- 

 don, in many of which places the 

 road, by reason of the great and many 



in 



loads which are weekly drawn 

 waggons through the said places, as 

 well as by reason of the great trade of 



and so is conveyed by water to the 

 city of London, as well as other car- 

 riages, both from the north parts as 

 also from the city of Norwich, St. 

 Edmondsbury, and the town of Cam- 

 bridge, to London, is very ruinous 

 and become almost impassable, inso- 

 much that it is become very dangerous 

 to all his Majesty's liege people that 

 pass that way," &c. 



