The Epping and Ongar Highways Trust

The state of local roads has always given rise to problems. The first attempt to improve the maintenance of roads through legislation dates from 1555⁹. In that year the office of surveyor of the highways was created through an Act of Parliament. Local Justices of the Peace were required to appoint a surveyor each year at Easter and men of the parish were then required to contribute labour and materials towards the restoration of the highways. There were two categories of contribution; broadly, landowners were to supply one cart with oxen, horses etc. and two men four times a year; individual householders and labourers were to provide their own labour also on those days. Defaulters were to be penalised. The labour that was legally required was known as 'statute labour' - it was hardly a passing fad since the law relating to 'statute labour' continued until 1835-36.

In operation, it was clear that this simple division of the supplied effort was only crudely means-tested, in current terminology, and hence was judged to be unfair. A further Highways Act of 1576 extended the labour qualification rules of the earlier Act in the interest of correcting the imbalance. The poor state of the roads continued and this system of maintenance was found wanting.

An alternative scheme was to charge the users of the road. The revenue that was then raised was used to directly maintain the road. The first turnpike¹ was set up in 1663 under the Turnpike Act, and covered a 15 mile stretch of the Great North Road from Wadesmill to Royston. This must have been regarded as experimental in some sense, since it was not until 1696 that a second turnpike was instigated. Thereafter turnpikes were introduced with increasing frequency until by 1750 most major routes had been covered in this manner. The most active period for the formation of turnpike trusts was the period between 1751 and 1772.

A succession of acts followed from the first Turnpike Act. Some of these were required to set up individual Turnpike Trusts, but some attempted to directly restrict the damage done to the road by the traffic. This objective was followed using a number of strategies; limiting the number of horses in draught to six, except up a hill, this number being subsequently reduced to five; requiring 'fellies'¹² typically to be more than nine inches in width; prohibiting the use of horses at length, rather than in pairs; limiting the breadth of a cart, by limiting the width at the wheelbase. These acts allowed full rein to invention; 'bevelled' wheels, which were even more damaging to a road surface, were used to confound the restriction on the width of the fellies; axle-trees were bent, when the wheels were not perpendicular so that a cart could be wider than the width of the wheels at base.

The Act of Parliament, which created the Epping Highway Trust, came into force on the first Monday in May in 1769. The Act specified the repair of "the road from the north part of Harlow Bush Common, in the parish of Harlow to Woodford, in the County of Essex". The Act sought to provide for the incorporation of earlier relevant legislation into the new Act, and was to continue for twenty-one years. Many local Justices of the Peace, appointed to be trustees, are listed in the body of the Act. The qualification of the trustees and their conduct is clearly defined.

The trustees were empowered both to retain existing turnpikes and tollhouses and to construct new ones. The tolls were precisely calculated; in detail they were to be determined as follows:

"For every coach, chariot, chaise or calash¹³, drawn by one pair of horses, mares, geldings, or mules, six pence; and drawn by four horses, mares, geldings, or mules, nine pence; and drawn by six horses, mares, geldings, or mules, one shilling.

For every chaise drawn by one horse, mare, gelding, or mule, three pence;

For every cart drawn by one horse, mare, gelding, or mule, or ass, if a-breast, eight pence; and drawn by more than one horse, mare, gelding, or mule, or ass, at length, six pence;

For every cart drawn by three or more horses, mares, geldings, mules, or asses, nine pence;

Fore every wagon or wain, one shilling;

For every horse, mare, gelding, or mule, or ass, laden or unladen, and not drawing, one penny;

For oxen or neat cattle, ten pence per score; and so in proportion for a greater or less number;

For sheep, calves, and swine, five pence per score; and so in proportion for a greater or less number."

It may be concluded from the above toll listing that a scale had been drawn up where a toll was closely proportionate to the damage done to the highway. Failure to pay a toll would result in the seizing of animals, goods and chattels, with subsequent sale, if the toll is unpaid after four days; any over-recovery of the toll would be refunded, less any costs incurred! Tolls would only be paid once in any day.

The Act was well and comprehensively drafted, but it was not the first such act, of course. Several clauses in the Act refer to reprehensible practices to avoid payment. Such practices include forgery of toll tickets, the taking away or subsequent addition of horses etc. in order to reduce the toll. Assaulting or obstructing the collectors in the levying of the tol! was to be punished by a fine of five pounds over and above any other costs. Other provisions made by the act include permitting the trustees to raise credit against future toll revenues; allowing extraction of gravel and making safe the resulting gravel pit; empowering surveyors to top and lop trees; allowing the building of causeways, bridges and temporary roads; consenting to the undertaking of statute work by persons within the parishes through which the highway passes; levying fines for the defacing of milestones (for which the penalty was two pounds for each incident, with "a moiety" going to any informer).

At a meeting of the Trustees on June 19, 1786, a petition was received from the inhabitants of North Weald Basset "praying the trustees to extend the powers of the said Act [of 1769] and carry the Epping turnpike road through their parish, and so towards Chelmsford ... " At a subsequent meeting the Trustees resolved unanimously to proceed with the request, but apparently the state of the road was likely to result in burdensome maintenance. Accordingly, the Trustees requested the renewal of the Epping Turnpike Act "upon proper terms and conditions" but it was not intended to extend the road past the Four-wants-way in Shelley. However, when intentions were known, the Trustees of Essex Roads made no objections to creating a new turnpike road from Epping through to Chelmsford.

The cost of the new road was anticipated to be high and the provision to make higher tolls was requested. The parish of Writtle was absolved from paying tolls for just the journey into Chelmsford provided that the parish of Writtle maintained the road in good order at parish expense; no toll between Writtle and Chelmsford was to be levied. With other objections satisfied the turnpike was set up. The progressive and piecemeal straightening of the A414 road between North Weald and Chelmsford has masked the original course of the turnpike, which served its purpose for more than 200 years.

By 1829, the number of such trusts had reached over 1,000 and 22,000 miles of road were covered within Britain. Approximately 7,000 gates provided the opportunity to pay a toll. The last turnpike trust was created in 1836 on a short length of road in Hastings.

It may be said that problems associated with the maintenance of roads in the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries have close and interesting parallels with the present. Road congestion, rather than maintenance, now provides the motivation for road pricing. The London congestion charge, with its exemptions, and the introduction of motorway tolls are close echoes of the turnpike system.