TELFORD S ROADS. 55 



This certainly was not a very large sum for the 

 road, if, as has been proved, £1000 per mile is the 

 cost of constructing a turnpike road, but Telford goes 

 on to say that "under the power of this Act the com- 

 missioners commenced operations in the autumn of 

 181 5, and further grants were made from time to time." 



As the road when finished was most excellent, it 

 was essential that it should be kept in good order and 

 repair ; consequently, over separate districts, assistant 

 surveyors were appointed, care being taken to select 

 them from practical workmen of long experience. 

 Under these inspectors a working foreman was placed 

 on every four or five miles of road, with a sufficient 

 number of labourers in his charge. These men were 

 employed by task and piece work in quarrying rock, 

 gathering stones in the fields, getting gravel, breaking 

 stones, scraping the road, loading material into carts, 

 and all works that were reducible to measure, or could 

 be estimated by the piece. The duties of the general 

 surveyor and clerk on the Holyhead road were to go 

 along the road every four weeks, the surveyor to 

 examine the practical operations, and settle accounts 

 with each sub-inspector, and give the clerk a certificate 

 showing the money due ; the clerk to collect the tolls 

 at the toll-houses, and to pay every one what he 

 ascertained from the surveyor was properly owing, and 

 lodge the balance of his receipts with the treasurers, 

 who lived at Shrewsbury. 



I here introduce a return of the expenses of 

 constructing the Holyhead road, which I found lying 

 loose amongst some papers connected with road- 

 making, formerly in the possession of the general 

 surveyor of the Isle of Wight roads. These papers 

 give some idea of the cost of a great high-road ; they are 

 dated 1839, one year after the publication of Sir Henry 



