REMARKS 
 
 ON THE PRESENT 
 
 SYSTEM OF ROAD MAKING- 
 
 WITH OBSERVATIONS, 
 
 DEDUCED FROM PRACTICE AND EXPERIENCE, 
 
 WITH A VIEW TO A REVISION OF THE EXISTING LAWS, 
 AND THE INTRODUCTION OF IMPROVEMENT IN 
 
 THE METHOD OF MAKING, REPAIRING, 
 AND PRESERVING ROADS, 
 
 AND 
 
 DEFENDING THE ROAD FUNDS FROM MISAPPLICATION. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION, 
 
 CAREFULLY REVISED, WITH CONSIDERABLE ADDITIONS, 
 AND AN 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 BY JOHN LOUDON ^^ADAM, ESQ 
 
 GENERAL SURVEYOR OF THE ROADS IN THE 
 BRISTOL DISTRICT. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND 
 BROWN, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1821. 
 
STACK 
 
 H. Bryer, Printer, 
 Bridewell Hospital, London. 
 
TO THE GENERAL TREASURER, THE TREA- 
 SURERS OF DIVISIONS, AND THE OTHER COM- 
 MISSIONERS FOR THE CARE OF THE TURNPIKE 
 ROADS IN THE BRISTOL DISTRICT, TO WHOSE 
 FIRMNESS AND PATRIOTIC ZEAL IN THE DIS- 
 CHARGE OF THEIR DUTY, THE KINGDOM IS 
 INDEBTED FOR THE FIRST EXAMPLE OF THE 
 PRACTICE OF A NEW AND EFFECTUAL SYSTEM 
 OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE REPAIR OF THE 
 ROADS, AND IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE 
 FUNDS UNDER THEIR CARE; THESE RE- 
 MARKS ARE MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDI- 
 CATED, AS A TESTIMONY OF THE ESTEEM AND 
 GRATITUDE OF THEIR 
 
 OBLIGED AND OBEDIENT SERVANT, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 810 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE present very defective state of the Turn- 
 pike Roads and Highways in the United King- 
 dom, and the continual and apparently unlimited 
 increase of the Toll Duties, are the consider- 
 ations, which have given rise to the publication 
 of the following remarks. 
 
 Of the value of the information contained in 
 them, the intelligent reader will be the most 
 competent judge ; the author can only venture 
 to assure him, that the few facts brought for- 
 ward in the course of the work have been most 
 carefully authenticated ; that the opinions ad- 
 vanced are the result of much thought, and 
 patient investigation ; that whatever may ap- 
 pear theoretical, has, for the most part, been 
 already reduced to practice ; and that where 
 practice has been wanting, a long experience of 
 the evils arising from the present system, and 
 
6 
 
 not the mere love of innovation, has been the 
 motive for the suggestion of the remedies pro- 
 posed. 
 
 These, however, the author gladly submits 
 to the good sense and candour of the public ; only 
 requesting, in the words of a celebrated writer, 
 that whoever favors him with a perusal, will 
 not judge by a few hours reading of the la- 
 bours of nearly thirty years. 
 
 In the following chapters, the subject of 
 Roads will be considered under three principal 
 heads : 
 
 THE MODE OF MAKING ROADS ; 
 
 THE COMMISSIONERS, AND OFFICERS EM- 
 PLOYED UNDER THEM, FOR THIS SERVICE, 
 and 
 
 THE CARE OF THE FINANCES: 
 
 Which has appeared to the Author the most 
 clear and comprehensive arrangement. 
 
REMARKS ON ROADS. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 THE MODE OF MAKING ROADS. 
 
 THE modes of making and repairing Roads 
 are so various in the different parts of the king* 
 dom, that it would be an endless task to attempt 
 a particular account of each. It may, however, 
 be possible to give a general idea of them, ac- 
 cording to the materials produced in each part 
 of the country. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of London, the roads 
 are formed of gravel ; in Essex and Sussex, they 
 are formed of flint; in Wilts, Somerset, and 
 Glocester, limestone is principally used ; in the 
 North of England, and in Scotland, whinstone 
 is the principal material; and in Shropshire 
 and Staffordshire, large pebbles mixed with 
 sand. 
 
 Excellent roads may be made with any of 
 these materials. 
 
The gravel of which the roads round London 
 are formed is the worst ; because it is mixed 
 with a large portion of clay, and because the 
 component parts of gravel are round, and want 
 the angular points of contact, by which broken 
 stone unites, and forms a solid body ; the loose 
 state of the roads near London, is a conse- 
 quence of this quality in the material, and of 
 the entire neglect, or ignorance of the method 
 of amending* it. 
 
 A more careful examination of facts connect- 
 ed with the roads round London, has disco- 
 vered several other causes, from whence proceeds 
 the defective state of these roads. The greatest 
 appears to be, the division of the roads into so 
 many small Trusts, which precludes the possi- 
 bility of any extended plan of operations, for 
 the benefit of the whole. Before any one road 
 round London can be properly reformed, and all 
 wasteful expenditure restrained, a comprehen- 
 sive view of the local situation of the whole 
 district will be requisite. 
 
 Another great impediment to improvement, 
 arises from the laws and regulations, which 
 prevent a supply of good road materials, of 
 several kinds, being brought to London by 
 water, and landed in different places, conveni- 
 ent for the roads. Were these restrictions re- 
 
9 
 
 moved, as far as concerns stone, flint, or any 
 ballast for road-making, London is so favorably 
 situated for water-carriage by the river, and by 
 the canals connected with it, that a supply, 
 equal to the wants of all the roads in the vici- 
 nity of London, might be obtained at a rea- 
 sonable rate, and of good quality, so as to ren- 
 der the use of the bad gravel round the me- 
 tropolis no longer necessary.* But this mea- 
 sure, to be performed in an economical, and 
 efficient manner, must be done upon an ex- 
 tended scale; it must become one interest, di- 
 rected by one select body of men of weight, 
 ability, and character. 
 
 A road near London may be made as smooth, 
 solid, and easy for cattle to draw carriages over, 
 as the road near Bristol ; and the London road 
 so made will last longer, and consequently be 
 less expensive than the Bristol road, because 
 the materials which may be obtained are more 
 durable, and may be procured at less ex pence. 
 
 * This must not be understood as conveying an opinion, that a x>od 
 road may not be constructed with the London gravel, properly prepared 
 and applied. The road at Reading, in Berkshire, has lately been made 
 perfectly smooth, solid, and level, with a gravel inferior to that of London, 
 and at less than it formerly cost. Carriages make no impression on this 
 road, and it has remained good in all changes of weather. Nevertheless,a 
 means having been discovered, by diligent enquiry, for importing flints, 
 from a distance, the Reading road will, in future, be repaired with flint 
 at half the oxpc-ncc- required to prepare the gravel of the neighbourhood. 
 
10 
 
 Flint makes an excellent road, if due atten- 
 tion be paid to the size j but from want of that 
 attention, many of the flint roads are rough, 
 loose, and expensive. 
 
 Limestone, when properly prepared and ap- 
 plied, makes a smooth, solid road, and becomes 
 consolidated sooner than any other material j 
 but from its nature is not the most lasting. 
 
 Whinstone is the most durable of all mate- 
 rials; and wherever it is well and judiciously 
 applied, the roads are comparatively good and 
 cheap. 
 
 The pebbles of Shropshire and Staffordshire, 
 are of a hard substance, and only require a 
 prudent application to be made good road ma- 
 terials. 
 
 On the other hand, the Scottish roads, made of 
 the very best materials, which are abundant and 
 cheap in every part of that country, are the 
 most loose, rough, and expensive roads in the 
 United Kingdom, owing to the unskilful use of 
 the material. 
 
 The formation of roads is defective in most 
 parts of the country ; in particular the roads 
 round London, are made high in the middle, in 
 the form of a roof, by which means a carriage 
 goes upon a dangerous slope, unless kept on the 
 very centre of the road. 
 
11 
 
 These roads are repaired by throwing a large 
 quantity of unprepared gravel in the middle, 
 and trusting that, by its never consolidating, it 
 will in due time move towards the sides. 
 
 When a road has been originally well made, 
 it will be easily repaired. Such a road can 
 never become rough, or loose ; though it will 
 gradually wear thin and weak, in proportion to 
 the use to which it is exposed ; the amendment 
 will then be made, by the addition of a quantity 
 of materials prepared as at first. As there will 
 be no expense on such road, between the first 
 making and each subsequent repair, except the 
 necessary attention to the water ways, and to 
 accidental injuries, the funds will be no longer 
 burdened with the unceasing expenditure, at 
 present experienced, from continual efforts at 
 repairing, without amendment of the roads. 
 
 There cannot be a doubt, that all the roads 
 in the kingdom may be made smooth and solid, 
 in an equal degree, and to continue so at all 
 seasons of the year. Their durability will of 
 course depend on the strength of the materials 
 of which they may be composed, but they will 
 all be good while they last, and the only ques- 
 tion that can arise respecting the kind of mate- 
 rials, is one of time and expence, but never of 
 the immediate condition of the roads. 
 
12 
 
 The anxious provisions of the Legislature for 
 preservation of the roads have unfortunately, 
 taken precedence of measures for making roads 
 fit to be travelled upon, or worth the care of 
 being preserved. Will it be deemed presump- 
 tuous to propose, that some regulations may be 
 adopted, for encouraging and promoting a bet- 
 ter system of making roads., by eliciting the 
 exertion of science, and by creating a set of offi- 
 cers of skill, and reputation, to superintend this 
 most essential branch of domestic economy ? 
 
 When roads are properly made, very few re- 
 gulations are necessary for their preservation. 
 It is certainly useful to make effectual provi- 
 sion for keeping clear the water-courses, for 
 removing nuisances, and for the pruning of trees 
 and hedges; for these purposes ample powers 
 should be given to Commissioners ; but the 
 advantage of many existing regulations respect- 
 ing wheeled carriages may very well be ques- 
 tioned. There can be no doubt that many of 
 those regulations are oppressive to commerce 
 and agriculture, by compelling an inconvenient 
 construction of carriages.* The author has 
 
 * The increase of the breadth of the wheels, though in a greater propor- 
 tion than that of the weights, is by no means a compensation for it ; be- 
 cause the whole breadth in many instances, from the inequality of the 
 ground, or the wheels, will not be brought to bear; "whenever it can, the 
 
IB 
 
 never observed any great difference of effect, on 
 a well made road, by narrow or broad wheels; 
 either of them will pass over a smooth, solid 
 road, without leaving any visible impression : 
 on rough, loose roads, the effect will certainly 
 be different; but whether a loose and rough 
 road can be amended by dragging an unweildy 
 carriage over it, or whether, if it were possible 
 to amend roads by such means, it can be deemed 
 the most economical for the nation at large, can 
 hardly be subject of doubt, f 
 
 It must however be admitted, that the wear 
 of roads is proportioned to the weight and ve- 
 locity of carriages running upon a given breadth 
 of the tire of the wheels, and therefore, it is of 
 
 first impressiou must be made by the nails, where they are prominent, 
 perhaps by a single nail ; or the bearing may happen upon single pieces 
 of materials, or upon the edges of materials, incapable of supporting the 
 weights. See Enquiry into the State of the Public Roads, by the Rev. 
 HENRY HOMER, A. M. Rector ofBirdlingbury, Warwickshire. Published in 
 1767, Page 66. 
 
 It must be observed, that these remarks of Mr. Homer, and of every 
 other writer on the subject of roads, are only applicable to such as are 
 loose, rough, and uneven ; and that no one seems to have contemplated 
 the idea of a road being made at once strong, smooth, and solid. 
 AUTHOR. 
 
 f Broad-wheeled carriages are found to be so unadaptedto the purposes 
 of husbandry, the number of horses requisite for their draught so great, 
 and the beneficial effects of them to the road so questionable, that neither 
 the encouragements on the one hand, nor the discouragements on the 
 oth^h.ave been sufficient to bring them into general use. 
 
 HOMER'S ENQUIKY, Page 25. 
 
14 
 
 consequence that some regulations should be 
 adopted. The best regulations, as regard the 
 breadth of the tire of wheels, will be found in 
 several Acts of the Session of Parliament 1816, 
 where Carts are required to have wheels of a 
 cylindrical form five inches broad ; and Waggon 
 Wheels of the same form six inches broad, 
 with an equal upright bearing. The weights 
 will be best and most easily regulated by the 
 number of horses, or other cattle, drawing the 
 carriages : and this, as a regulation of economy, 
 may be made, by the tolls at present payable 
 on the cattle being levied in a larger ratio as 
 the number increases. 
 
 Waggons and carts with wheels of a cylin- 
 drical form and upright bearing, running on a 
 breadth of tire of five and six inches, cannot 
 injure a well made road, at the slow pace with 
 which such carriages travel ; at least, in any 
 proportion beyond the toll they pay. On the 
 contrary, it is certain, that Stage Coaches, with 
 their present system of loading, and velocity of 
 travelling upon very narrow wheels, damage 
 the roads in a much greater proportion than 
 the compensation derived from the toll. 
 
 Every wheel, propelled by a force applied to 
 its centre of motion, as the axis of a carriage 
 wheel, is disposed by its specific gravity, to be 
 
15 
 
 dragged forwards, instead of turning round; 
 and the rotative motion is occasioned by the 
 resistance presented by the surface over which 
 it passes ; yet this resistance does not entirely 
 prevent dragging ; for every wheel running upon 
 a road drags in some degree. This degree will 
 be proportioned to the weight of the carriage, 
 and the velocity of the wheel upon its axis, and 
 will be opposed by the breadth of the tire 
 coming in contact with the road. 
 
 Stage Coaches, therefore, carrying heavy 
 weights, moving with great velocity, and pre- 
 senting to the road a narrow tire of wheel, 
 must of necessity drag in a greater degree 
 than any other carriage, as combining in them- 
 selves every cause by which dragging is pro- 
 duced.* 
 
 When the Legislature shall have provided 
 the means of putting all the roads in the United 
 Kingdom into the best and fittest state for the 
 accommodation of the agriculture and com- 
 merce of the country, they will naturally con- 
 sider of the most proper modes of protecting 
 them from injury, or for indemnifying the 
 
 * Above fifty Stage Coach journies are made daily between BRISTOL 
 and BATH : the Author's observation leads him to the conclusion, that 
 the toll duty paid by them, does not indemnify the funds for the wearing 
 of the road. 
 
funds for the effects of use which are unavoid- 
 able, by imposing toll duties in a just and 
 equitable proportion on the carriages occasion- 
 ing such injury. 
 
 
PART SECOND. 
 
 COMMISSIONERS AND OFFICERS 
 EMPLOYED UNDER THEM. 
 
 THE care of the Turnpike Roads has been 
 committed by Parliament, into the hands of 
 Commissioners, selected from that class of so- 
 ciety, most capable of executing the duties of 
 superintendance, and from their station most 
 likely to perform the duty with fidelity ; in 
 this respect the expectations of the public has 
 not been disappointed ; and there can be but 
 one opinion, upon the obligations the country 
 owes to this very respectable part of the com- 
 munity. Perhaps the only useful regulation 
 wanted, in respect to Commissioners, would be 
 to confine the qualification of Trustees to landed 
 property. 
 
 The superintending and controuling power, 
 so wisely placed by Parliament in the Com- 
 missioners, has not, however, been sufficient to 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 secure all the objects of the Legislature. A 
 scientific, laborious, executive power is want- 
 ing; and no means having been thought of for 
 this part of the semce, it has been altogether 
 neglected, or at best very unprofitably sup- 
 plied by a set of Surveyors, altogether ignorant 
 of the duties of the office they were called upon 
 to fill* 
 
 General snperintendance and gratuitous ser- 
 vices, such as the law contemplated to receive 
 from the Commissioners of Turnpikes, may be 
 obtained, and have been faithfully and con- 
 scientiously given by the Commissioners ; but 
 that constant and laborious attention, requisite 
 to superintend the executive duties of a turn- 
 pike trust, cannot reasonably be expected from 
 gentlemen engaged in other pursuits. Were 
 they to undertake the task, it must be subject 
 to all the interruptions of their private affairs, or 
 other occupations ; and this alone would render 
 their services nugatory. Some instances of 
 individual zeal and exertion, on the part of 
 Commissioners, in particular parts of the coun- 
 try, have served to show what benefit might be 
 
 * The general laws relating to highways seem sufficiently calculated 
 to answer the purpose intended by them, if Overseers were qualified with 
 a sufficient degree of judgment to execute them properly, and of industry 
 and spirit to do it effectually. HOMER'S ENQUIRY, Page 18. 
 
1.9 
 
 derived from providing- each county with an 
 executive officer, whose sole attention should be 
 given to the business; whose services should 
 be amply remunerated, and of whom the Com- 
 missioners might of right demand an account 
 of the manner in which their orders were car- 
 ried into execution ; who should examine and 
 audit the accounts of the Sub-surveyors ; com- 
 pare them with the work performed, and certify 
 them, if approved, to the Treasurers. 
 
 In a trust or any extent, say about 150 miles 
 of road, the time of such an officer would be 
 very fully employed. He must direct the exe- 
 cution of the repairs, and alterations of the road, 
 when ordered by the Commissioners ; and he 
 must controul the contracts, and other agree- 
 ments entered into by the Sub-surveyors, so as 
 to prevent unnecessary expence ; he must exa- 
 mine all work performed, to see that it is cor- 
 responding with contracts, and generally keep 
 a vigilant superintendance over the persons em- 
 ployed under him. Accounts of all expences 
 incurred should every second week be deli- 
 vered by the Sub-surveyors into his office in 
 duplicate ; after examination, one copy to re- 
 main in the office, the other certified, to be sent 
 to the Treasurer, upon which payment may 
 follow. 
 
 B2 
 
20 
 
 Much must depend on the selection of the 
 officer to whom this charge is committed ; he 
 must have a considerable share of general in- 
 formation respecting country business ; the sub- 
 ject of road-making ought to have been well 
 considered by him ; his station in society should 
 be such, as to secure to him the support and 
 confidence of the Commissioners, while it com- 
 mands the obedience and deference of the sub- 
 ordinate officers. 
 
 The success of the exertions of individual 
 Commissioners, in particular parts of the coun- 
 try first suggested the opinion, that a better 
 system of road-making might be adopted, and 
 the examples of a better practice extended to 
 all parts of the country ; but the benefit can 
 never be rendered thus general, unless accom- 
 panied by the zeal and activity that produced 
 it ; and this can only be supplied by officers, 
 whose sole duty it shall be, and who will be 
 accountable to the Commissioners under whose 
 orders they act for the execution of the trust 
 confided to them. Gratuitous services are ever 
 temporary and local, they are dependant on 
 the residence 5 and life of the party ; and have 
 always disappointed expectation. Skill and 
 executive labour must be adequately paid for, 
 if expected to be constantly and usefully ex- 
 
21 
 
 erted ', and if so exerted, the price is no con- 
 sideration when compared with the advantage 
 to the public. 
 
 From the want of such an officer, the orders 
 of the Commissioners, after having" been ma- 
 turely considered, and wisely given, have fallen, 
 for execution into the hands of Surveyors, se- 
 lected not unfrequently from the lowest class 
 of the community, who have proceeded without 
 plan or method. The consequence is seen in 
 every corner of the country $ want of science 
 in the Surveyor has gone hand in hand with 
 improvident expenditure, to the injury of the 
 roads, and the derangement of the iinances. A 
 vigilant and unremitting superintendance is 
 wanting to ensure an economical and effectual 
 execution. 
 
 Whether it may not be useful to empower 
 Commissioners in the small Trusts into which 
 the roads of England are unfortunately divided, 
 to unite together in sufficient number to enable 
 them to provide a respectable and efficient exe- 
 cutive officer, and for other general purposes of 
 improvement, is humbly submitted to the wisdom 
 of Parliament. 
 
 The effect of an active and efficient controul 
 over the Sub-surveyors, in the executive part of 
 their duties; and in rescuing the funds from 
 
22 
 
 misapplication and depredation, is exemplified 
 in the measures wisely entered into by the Com- 
 missioners for the care of the turnpike roads in 
 the BRISTOL DISTRICT, the success of which 
 has amply justified their adoption, the roads 
 having been entirely reformed and put into the 
 best possible state for use, at an expence con- 
 siderably within the revenue of the Trust. This 
 improved state of the finances has enabled the 
 Commissioners to effect several great permanent 
 improvements, without forgetting the necessary 
 provision for liquidation of the debt, which had 
 accumulated during former years. 
 
PART THIRD. 
 
 CARE OF THE FINANCES. 
 
 THJE funds placed by the Legislature at the 
 disposal of the Commissioners for the care of 
 turnpike roads are very considerable, and might 
 be supposed with proper management, fully 
 equal to the object; they arise principally 
 from toll duties, and a proportion of statute 
 labour. 
 
 As long as it shall be necessary to raise large 
 sums for the maintenance of roads, the present 
 means must continue ; toll duties, although li- 
 able to many objections, are so immediately, 
 and effectually productive, that little hope can 
 be entertained of the possibility of their being 
 reduced, until a continuance of a better system 
 shall have materially amended the roads, and 
 reduced the expence, so as to leave means for 
 extinguishing the heavy debt owing by the 
 country for this branch of the public service. 
 
24 
 
 Statute labour, in kind, was decreed by Par- 
 liament at a time, when no better means could 
 be devised : when a circulating medium was 
 deficient, and when a fair quantum of labour 
 could not, in many parts of the country, be ob- 
 tained for money. 
 
 Personal labour for a public service can never 
 be made profitable, or fairly productive ; at the 
 same time, it is liable to the great objections of 
 being made an instrument of partiality and op- 
 pression under the direction of a class of men 
 with whom such a power should never be lodged, 
 and over whom, in this instance, no adequate 
 controui can be placed. 
 
 The causes, which operated to induce Par- 
 liament to resort to personal service, having 
 ceased, it will be found expedient to commute 
 statute labour for a moderate assessment in 
 money. This has been effected with great ad- 
 vantage in Scotland, by most, if not all of the 
 local and county Acts for turnpike roads.* 
 
 The sum of money annually raised in the 
 kingdom for roads is very great, and would 
 
 * It is impossible not to see that statute labour is a remnant of personal 
 service ; a gentleman might as well argue at the present day, that rents 
 paid in kind, are more easy and equitable than monied rents, as to de- 
 fend the custom of mending highways by compulsory labour. 
 
 EDGEWORTH'S ESSAY ON THE CONSTRUCTION ot 
 ROADS AND CARRIAGES, p. 46. 
 
25 
 
 be found, if carefully examined into, much 
 beyond the general belief. Government have 
 procured information, as to the sum raised an- 
 nually for parish roads (generally denominated 
 highways) but they have not yet enquired into 
 the amount of the much greater sum raised for 
 the maintenance of the turnpike roads, nor into 
 the amount of the debt incurred for the same 
 purpose. 
 
 These funds, considerable as they are, con- 
 tinue to be expended, nominally, under the 
 direction of Commissioners, but effectually and 
 practically under the Surveyors, over whom the 
 Commissioners have very uncertain means of 
 useful controul ; and there is no doubt, that 
 much abuse exists in the expenditure, partly 
 from ignorance, but much more from peculation 
 and patronage very much misplaced. 
 
 Under such circumstances the protection of 
 the funds would be promoted by the inspection 
 and controul of a superior officer ; and finally it 
 might be desirable, that a report from each trust 
 should be made to Parliament of the receipt and 
 expenditure for the year. 
 
 That the funds provided by Parliament fo'r 
 the roads are either insufficient for the object, or 
 that they are improvidently expended, is 
 best proved by the numerous applications to 
 
26 
 
 Parliament in every Session, for extension of 
 powers and increase of tolls ; setting forth that 
 without such aid the debts cannot be paid, nor 
 the roads kept in repair. In the Session of Par- 
 liament 1815, thirty-four such petitions were 
 presented ; and in the Session of 1816, thirty- 
 two ; all which bills were passed as a matter of 
 course; the petitioners being only required to 
 prove the actual necessity to the Committee, but 
 no enquiry seems to have been made as to the 
 cause of that necessity. 
 
 An efficient, uniform and constant controul 
 of the expenditure of road funds, and an an- 
 nual report of the result to Parliament would 
 enable the House of Commons to form a judg- 
 ment, whether the deficiency proceeded from 
 inadequacy of the means, or from improvident 
 expenditure; and thereby that Honourable 
 House would be enabled to use means for pre- 
 venting the growing amount of debt, which 
 the petitions presented each Sessions sufficiently 
 shew to be increasing to an alarming degree ; 
 and which, being incurred under the authority 
 of Parliament, must ultimately become a claim 
 upon the justice of the country. 
 
 Upon consideration of this important subject 
 it appears, that a review of the turnpike laws 
 has become indispensable, for the purpose of 
 
27 
 
 altering and amending obsolete, useless, and 
 oppressive regulations ; and for substituting 
 others more consonant with the present state 
 of society. This review is required by expe- 
 rience of the inadequacy of the present system, 
 to the great object of forming the best and 
 easiest communications through every part of 
 the country, with a due regard to economy ; 
 and for preventing the increase of a debt, which 
 has been allowed, in silence, to accumulate to an 
 extent, that will hardly be credited when pro- 
 perly and accurately ascertained. 
 
 Many and important improvements have 
 originated from the good sense and zeal of in- 
 dividual Commissioners, or from particular 
 district meetings, Ihe good effects of which 
 have been confined to the place of origin ; such 
 improvements have also ceased to operate, on 
 the death or removal of their authors, and have 
 been thereby finally lost, for want of a general 
 superintendance, which would have an interest 
 in the improvement of the whole. 
 
 The defective state of the roads, independaiit 
 of the unnecessary expence, is oppressive on 
 agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, by 
 the increase of the price of transport, by waste 
 of the labour of cattle, and wear of carriages, 
 as well as by causing much delay of time. 
 
28 
 
 Under an efficient and responsible executive 
 department, established and directed by the 
 wisdom of Parliament, this subject would be 
 brought within the means of examination and re- 
 gulation ; and many local improvements, which 
 have been confined to small districts, would be 
 brought forward, and communicated generally 
 for the public benefit.* 
 
 5; hull 
 
 * Since this Essay was written, I have visited England, and have found, 
 on a journey of many hundred miles, scarcely twenty miles of well-made 
 road. In many parts of the country, and especially round London, the 
 roads are iu a shameful condition. This must strike the public ; and 
 sooner or later the good sense of the English nation will feel the necessity 
 of adopting some means of improvement. 
 
 EDGEWORTH'S ESSAY, Preface, p. 7. 
 
 In Ireland, the cross-roads are generally better than the great roads, 
 and comparing all the roads in that country with the roads in England, 
 the shameful inferiority of the latter would evidently appear. 
 
 EDGEWORTH'S ESSAY, p. 4G. 
 
THE Author has abstained from any notice 
 of the parish roads; although their condition 
 and the state of their funds, are more deplorable 
 than that of the turnpike roads. The Legisla- 
 tive enactments for their maintenance and re- 
 pair are so inadequate to the object, that they 
 may be considered as being placed almost out 
 of the protection of the law. 
 
 There can be no apparent good reason, why, 
 such a distinction should be made between the 
 two description of roads ; and their being both 
 placed under the care of the Commissioners, 
 with the benefit o^ the scientific direction of a 
 General Surveyor, would ensure an equal im- 
 provement of the parish roads. 
 
 
30 
 
 The foregoing Remarks on Roads cannot be 
 better concluded than by the following Extract 
 from the Report of the Committee of the House 
 of Commons in 1811. 
 
 fj 1o *iiji>! <)di biff; 
 
 " The many important advantages to be de- 
 rived from amending the highways and turnpike 
 roads of the kingdom need hardly be dwelt 
 upon. Every individual in it would thereby 
 find his comforts materially increased, and his 
 interest greatly promoted. By the improve- 
 ment of our roads, every branch of our agricul- 
 tural, commercial, and manufacturing industry 
 would be materially benefited. Every article 
 brought to market would '"Je diminished iri 
 price; the number of horses would be so much 
 reduced, that by these, and other retrench- 
 ments, the expence of FIVE MILLIONS 
 would be annually saved to the public. The 
 expence of repairing roads, and the wear and 
 tear of carriages and horses, would be essen- 
 tially diminished; and thousands of acres, the 
 produce of which is now wasted in feeding 
 unnecessary horses, would be devoted to the 
 production of food for man. In short, the 
 
31 
 
 public and private advantages, which would 
 result from effecting that great object, the im- 
 provement of our highways and turnpike roads, 
 are incalculable ; though from their being spread 
 over a wide surface, and available in various 
 ways, such advantages will not be so apparent 
 as those derived from other sources of improve- 
 ment, of a more restricted and less general 
 nature." 
 

Extracts from Observations on the Highways of 
 the Kingdom, by JOHN LOUDON M'ADAM, 
 presented to a Committee of the House of 
 Commons, and printed by order of the. House ^ 
 UthJunelZll. 
 
 u In all the Reports of Committees of the 
 *' House of Commons on the subject of Roads, 
 " they seem to have had principally in view the 
 u construction of wheeled carriages, the weights 
 ic they were to draw, and the breadth and form 
 " of their wheels; the nature of the roads on 
 " which these carriages were to travel has not 
 " been so well attended to." 
 
 " The observations I have made in a period 
 " of twenty-six years on the roads of the king- 
 " dom, in which time 1 have travelled over the 
 " greater number in England and Scotland, and 
 " the opportunities I have had of making com- 
 " parisons on the different materials and the 
 " modes of their application, have led me to 
 46 form the following conclusions." 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 " 1st. That the present bad condition of the 
 " roads of the kingdom is owing to the injudi- 
 " cious application of the materials with which 
 " they are repaired, and to the defective form of 
 ?' the roads." 
 
 " 2nd. That the introduction of a better sys- 
 ** tern of making the surface of roads, and the 
 " application of scientific principles, which has 
 " hitherto never been thought of, would remedy 
 the evil." 
 
 <c In illustration of these positions, I beg to 
 " observe, that the object to be attained in a 
 " good road, as far as regards the surface, is to 
 " have it smooth, solid, and so flat as that a car- 
 " riage may stand upright; these objects are 
 " not attained by the present system, because 
 *f no scientific principles are applied ; but it is 
 " presumed they are perfectly attainable in all 
 " parts of the country." 
 
 " Stone is to be procured in some form in al- 
 " most every part of the kingdom, and a road 
 " made of small broken stone to the depth of 
 " ten inches, will be smooth, solid and durable." 
 
 " The materials of which the present roads 
 " are composed, are not worn out 5 but are dis- 
 " placed by the action of the wheels of car- 
 " riages upon stones of too large a size : the 
 *? wheel does not pass over the materials of 
 
36 
 
 ** which the road is formed, but is constantly, 
 <c almost at every step, encountering 1 an obstacle 
 " which must either give way and be removed, 
 " or the carriage must be lifted by the force of 
 " the cattle so as to surmount it 5 in either case 
 " the road is injured, and the carriage impeded, 
 " and the injury and impediment will be great 
 " in the exact proportion to the number and size 
 c< of the obstacles." 
 
 " The size of stones for a road has been de- 
 " scribed in contracts in several different ways, 
 " sometimes as the size of a hen's egg, some- 
 " times at half a pound weight. These descrip- 
 " tions are very vague, the first being an indefi- 
 <e nite size, and the latter depending on the den- 
 u sity of the stone used, and neither being at- 
 " tended to in the execution. The size of stone 
 (< used on a road must be in due proportion to 
 " the space occupied by a wheel of ordinary di- 
 " mensions on a smooth level surface, this point 
 " of contact will be found to be, longitudinally 
 " about an inch, and every piece of stone put 
 *' into a road, which exceeds an inch in any of 
 " its dimensions, is mischievous." 
 
 " The roads in Scotland are worse than those 
 <c in England, although materials are more 
 " abundant, of better quality, and labour at 
 " least as cheap, and the toll duties are nearly 
 
36 
 
 " double; this is because road- making-, that is 
 " the surface, is even worse understood in Scot- 
 " land than in England. By a late discussion 
 " in Parliament on the subject of Mail Coaches 
 " paying toll, it was universally allowed that 
 " the roads in Scotland were in a deplorable 
 " state, and in their circumstances, bankrupt." 
 
 NOTE. It is understood, that the Postmaster- 
 General was obliged to give up the mail-coach 
 from Glasgow to Ayr, on the road towards Ire- 
 land, on account of the expence of tolls 9 and the 
 bad condition of the road ; there being ten turn- 
 pike gates on thirty-four miles of road. 
 
IJURING nearly five years that the writer has 
 given his whole attention to the improvement of 
 the Turnpike J^oads, experience having con- 
 firmed his ideas on the subject, no endeavours 
 have been spared, to extend the benefits which 
 have already resulted to the Bristol district, over 
 the whole country. The very limited means 
 possessed by any individual for influencing this 
 important branch of domestic economy, has oc- 
 casioned frequent attempts to convey instruc- 
 tions for road-making in writing. This method 
 has never been entirely successful; it being im- 
 possible to acquire a mechanical art without 
 actual practice ; or to obtain any just ideas of it, 
 beyond the first principles, from books. 
 > These principles are, that a road ought to be 
 considered as an artificial flooring forming a 
 strong, smooth, solid surface, at once capable of 
 carrying great weight, and over which carriages 
 may pass without meeting any impediment. 
 
38 
 
 Directions for Repair of an old Road, being the substance of 
 a Communication made to a Committee of the Honourable 
 House of Commons in 1811, and published ivith the Report 
 by Order of the House, tvith additions and alterations, 
 deduced from actual practice during the last three years. 
 
 1st February 1819. 
 
 No addition of materials is to be brought upon a road, 
 unless in any part of it be found that there is not a quantity 
 of clean stone equal to ten inches in thickness. 
 
 The stone already in the road is to be loosed up and broken, 
 so as no piece shall exceed six ounces in weight. 
 
 The road is then to be laid as flat as possible, a rise of 
 three inches from the centre to the side is sufficient for a road 
 thirty feet wide. 
 
 The stones when loosened in the road are to be gathered 
 off by means of a strong heavy rake, with teeth two and a 
 half inches in length, to the side of the road, and there 
 broken, and on no account are stones to be broken on the 
 road. 
 
 When the great stones have been removed, and none left 
 in the road exceeding six ounces, the road is to be put in 
 shape and a rake employed to smooth the surface, which will 
 at the same time bring to the surface the remaining stone, 
 and will allow the dirt to go down. 
 
 When the road is so prepared, the stone that has been 
 broken by the side of the road is then to be carefully spread 
 on it this is rather a nice operation, and the future quality 
 of the road will greatly depend on the manner in which it is 
 performed. The stone must not be laid on in shovels fully 
 
.3!) 
 
 but scattered over the surface, one shovel full following 
 another and spreading over a considerable space. 
 
 Only a small space of road should be lifted at once ; five 
 men in a gang should be set to lift it all across : two men 
 should continue to pick up and rake off the large stones and 
 to form the road for receiving the broken stone, the other 
 three should break stones the broken stone to be laid on as 
 soon as the piece of road is prepared to receive it, and then 
 break up another piece ; two or three yards at one lift is 
 enough. 
 
 The proportioning the work among the five men must of 
 course be regulated by the nature of the road ; when there 
 are many very large stones, the three breakers may not be 
 able to keep pace with the two men employed in lifting and 
 forming, and when there are few large stones the contrary 
 may be the case ; of all this the Surveyor must judge and 
 direct. 
 
 But while it is recommended to-lift and relay roads which 
 have been made with large stone, or with large stone mixed 
 with clay, chalk or other mishievous materials, there are 
 many cases in which it would be highly unprofitable to lift 
 and relay a road, even if the materials should have been 
 originally too large. 
 
 The road between Cirencester and Bath is made of stone 
 too large in size, but it is of so friable a nature that in lifting 
 it becomes sand ; in this case I recommended cutting down 
 the high places, keeping the surface smooth and gradually 
 wearing out the materials now in the road, and then replacing 
 them with some stone of a better quality properly prepared. 
 
 In like manner a part of the road in the Bath district is 
 made of freestone which it would be unprofitable to lift. 
 
 At Egham in Surrey, it was necessary to remove the whole 
 road to separate the small portion of valuable materials from 
 the mass of soft matter of which it was principally composed. 
 
40 
 
 which was removed at considerable expence, before a road 
 could be again made upon the site. 
 
 Other cases of several kinds have occurred where a dif- 
 ferent method must be adopted, but which it is impossible to 
 specify, and must be met by the practical skill of the Officer 
 whose duty it may be to superintend the repair of a road, 
 and who must constantly recur to general principles. These 
 principles are uniform, however much circumstances may 
 differ, and they must form the guide by which his judgment 
 must be always directed. 
 
 When additional stone is wanted on a road that has con- 
 solidated by use, the old hardened surface of the road is to 
 be loosened with a pick, in order to make the fresh mate- 
 rials unite with the old. 
 
 Carriages, whatever be the construction of their wheels, 
 will make ruts in a new made road until it consolidates, 
 however well the materials may be prepared, or however 
 judiciously applied ; therefore a careful person must attend 
 for some time after the road is opened for use, to rake in the 
 track made by wheels* 
 
 The only proper method of breaking stones, both for effect 
 and economy, is by persons sitting ; the stones are to be 
 placed in small heaps, and women, boys, or old men past 
 hard labour, must sit down with small hammers and break 
 them, so as none shall exceed six ounces in weight. 
 The Tools to be used are, 
 
 Strong picks, but short from the handle to the point, for 
 lifting the road. 
 
 Small hammers of about one pound weight in the head, 
 the face the size of a new shilling, well steeled, with a short 
 handle. 
 
 Rakes with wooden heads, ten inches in length, and iron 
 teeth about two and a half inches in length, very strong for 
 raking out the large stones when the road is broken up, and 
 
41 
 
 for keeping the road smooth after being relaid, and while it 
 is consolidating. 
 
 Very light broad-mouthed shovels, to spread the broken 
 stone and to form the road. 
 
 Every road is to be made of broken stone without mixture 
 of earth, clay, chalk, or any other matter that will imbibe 
 water, and be affected with frost ; nothing is to be laid on 
 the clean stone on pretence of binding ; broken stone will 
 combine by its own angles into a smooth solid surface that 
 cannot be affected by vicissitudes of weather, or displaced 
 by the action of wheels, which will pass over it without a 
 jolt, and consequently without injury. 
 
 PRICES, 
 
 The price of lifting a rough road, breaking the stones, 
 forming the road, smoothing the surface, cleaning out the 
 water-courses, and replacing the stone, leaving the road in a 
 finished state, has been found in practice to be from one 
 penny to two-pence per superficial yard, lifted four inches 
 deep ; the variation of price depends on the greater or les* 
 ser quantity of stone to be broken. 
 
 At two-pence per yard, a road of six yards wide will cost, 
 therefore, one shilling per running yard, or 881. per mile. 
 
 Any rough road may be rendered smooth a'nd solid at this 
 
42 
 
 price, unless it be weak and require an addition of stone, or 
 require some very material alteration of shape. 
 
 Breaking stone has been reduced in price by the use of 
 more proper hammers, and the sitting posture. 
 
 The Commissioners at Bristol used to pay fifteen pence 
 per ton for limestone from Durdham-Down, for the use of 
 their roads, and broken to a size above twenty ounces. 
 Stone is now procured from the same place, broken so as 
 none exceed six ounces for ten-pence per ton ! and the 
 workmen are very desirous of contracts at that rate, because 
 the heavy work is done by the men, the light work with small 
 hammers by the wives and children, so that whole families 
 are employed. 
 
 In Sussex, the .proportion is greater between former and 
 present prices ; the breaking of flint cost at one time two 
 shillings per ton, and is now done, by introducing a better 
 method and fitter tools at one shilling per ton. 
 
 By a more judicious preparation and application of ma^ 
 terials the quantity of stone consumed in roads is decreased, 
 by which a great saving of expence is made, and with this 
 great advantage, that the saving is in horse labour of cart- 
 age, while the labour price is given to men, and in such a 
 manner as includes boys from the age of ten upwards, wo- 
 men and old men past the age of being able to labour hard. 
 The proportion of men and horse labour in the Bristol dis- 
 trict, under the former management, was 
 
 One-fourth to men's labour, 
 Three-fourths to horse labour. 
 
 Under a better system of management the* proportion has 
 been exactly reversed : during half a year that an exact ac- 
 count was kept, there was paid. 
 
 For men's, women and children's labour, a3088. 
 For horses' labour 1035. 
 
48 
 
 This immense advantage is presented in every part of the 
 country, as roads are confined to no particular place, and are 
 universally in want of repair : ample funds are already pro- 
 vided for every useful and proper purpose, although at pre- 
 sent misapplied in almost every part of the kingdom, while 
 the labourers are in want of that employment which it ought 
 to afford them. 
 
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 THE PRESIDENT, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, 
 
 Having communicated to your Honourable 
 Board, some observations on making and repair- 
 ing roads, in February, 1819, I beg leave to add 
 the following, which have arisen from increased 
 experience on the subject, and also from a desire 
 of calling your attention to the effects of the 
 late severe winter on the roads of the country, 
 and the confirmation afforded to the opinions I 
 have endeavoured to introduce on the construc- 
 tion of roads. 
 
 During the late winter, and particularly in 
 the month of January, 1820, wnen the frost was 
 succeeded by a sudden thaw, accompanied by 
 the melting of snow, the roads of the kingdom 
 broke up in a very alarming manner, and to an 
 extent that created great loss and inconvenience 
 by the interruption of communication, and the 
 
45 
 
 delay of the mails, and also occasioned a very 
 heavy extra expenditure by the Post-office. 
 
 The obvious cause of this defect of the roads, 
 was the admission of water from the loose and 
 unskilful method of their construction. Previous 
 to the severe frost, the roads were filled with 
 water, which had penetrated through the ill- 
 prepared and unskilfully laid materials: this 
 caused an immediate expansion of the whole 
 mass during the frost, and upon a sudden thaw, 
 the roads became quite loose, and the wheels of 
 carriages penetrated to the original soil, which 
 was also saturated with water, from the open 
 state of the road. By this means, many roads 
 became altogether impassable, while the whole 
 were rendered deep and inconvenient to be tra- 
 velled upon. 
 
 In particular, it was observed, that all the 
 roads of which chalk was a component part, 
 became, generally, impassable ; and even, that 
 the roads made over chalk soils gave way in most 
 places. This evidently proceeded from the ab- 
 sorbent quality of chalk, which renders it so 
 tenacious of water, that I consider its use to be 
 one of the most dangerous errors in road making. 
 1 was induced on former occasions to recom- 
 mend particular care in making roads over chalk 
 soils, and to advise a discontinuance of the 
 
46 
 
 practice of mixing 1 chalk, clay, or any other 
 matter that holds water, with the materials of a 
 road. The experience of last winter has con- 
 firmed this opinion, and has shewn the ruinous 
 effects of the former method. 
 
 Of all the roads which have been thoroughly 
 re-made, according to the directions which I 
 had the honour to submit to your Honourable 
 Board last spring, not one has given way, nor 
 has any delay taken place through the severity 
 of the late season. 
 
 As every winter has, in some degree, pre- 
 sented such inconveniences, and as it has been ob- 
 served that very severe winters occur in England 
 every six or seven years, it is of great conse- 
 quence to consider of the means of constructing 
 the roads of the kingdom in such a manner as 
 shall prevent their being in future affected by 
 any change of weather or season. 
 
 The roads can never be rendered thus per- 
 fectly secure, until the following principles be 
 fully understood, admitted, and acted upon: 
 namely, that it is the native soil which really 
 supports the weight of traffic : that while it is 
 preserved in a dry state, it will carry any weight 
 without sinking, and that it does in fact carry 
 the road and the carriages also ; that this native 
 soil must previously^ be* made quite dry, and a 
 
47 
 
 covering impenetrable to rain, must then be 
 placed over it, to preserve it in that dry state ; 
 that the thickness of a road should only be regu- 
 lated by the quantity of material necessary to 
 form such impervious covering, and never by any 
 reference to its own power of carrying weight. 
 
 The erroneous opinion so long acted upon, 
 and so tenaciously adhered to, that by placing 
 a large quantity of stone under the roads, a re- 
 medy will be found for the sinking into wet clay, 
 or other soft soils, or in other words, that a road 
 may be made sufficiently strong, artificially, to 
 carry heavy carriages, though the sub-soil be in 
 a wet state, and by such means to avert the in- 
 conveniences of the natural soil receiving water 
 from rain, or other causes, has produced most of 
 the defects of the roads of Great Britain. 
 
 At one time I had formed the opinion that 
 this practice was only a useless expence, but ex- 
 perience has convinced me that it is likewise po- 
 sitively injurious. 
 
 It is well known to every skilful and observant 
 road-maker, that if strata of stone of various 
 sizes be placed as a road, the largest stones will 
 constantly work up by the shaking and pressure 
 of the traffic, and that the only mode of keeping 
 the stones of a road from motion, is to use mate- 
 rials of a uniform size from the bottom. In 
 
48 
 
 roads made upon large stones as a foundation, 
 the perpetual motion, or change of the position 
 of the materials, keeps open many apertures 
 through which the water passes. 
 
 It has also been found, that roads placed upon 
 a hard bottom, wear away more quickly than 
 those which are placed upon a soft soil. This 
 has been apparent upon roads where motives of 
 economy, or other causes, have prevented the 
 road being lifted to the bottom at once ; the 
 wear has always been found to diminish, as soon 
 as it was possible to remove the hard foundation. 
 It is a known fact, that a road lasts much longer 
 over a morass than when made over rock. The 
 evidence produced before the Committee of the 
 House of Commons, shewed the comparison on 
 the road between Bristol and Bridgwater, to be 
 as five to seven in favour of the wearing on the 
 morass, where the road is laid on the naked sur- 
 face of the soil, against a part of the same road 
 made over rocky ground. 
 
 The practice common in England, and uni- 
 versal in Scotland, on the formation of a new 
 road, is, to dig a trench below the surface of the 
 ground adjoining, and in this trench to deposit 
 a quantity of large stones ; after this, a second 
 quantity of stone, broken smaller, generally to 
 about seven or eight pounds weight ; these pre- 
 
49 
 
 vious beds of stone are called the bottoming of 
 the road, and are of various thickness, accord- 
 ing to the caprice of the maker, and generally 
 in proportion to the sum of money placed at his 
 disposal. On some new roads, made in Scot- 
 land, in the summer of 18J9, the thickness ex- 
 ceeded three feet. 
 
 That which is properly called the road, is 
 then placed on the bottoming, by putting large 
 quantities of broken stone or gravel, generally a 
 foot or eighteen inches thick, at once upon it. 
 
 Were the materials of which the road itself is 
 composed, properly selected, prepared, and laid, 
 some of the inconveniences of this system might 
 be avoided ; but in the careless way in which 
 this service is generally performed, the road is 
 as open as a sieve to receive water ; which pene- 
 trates through the whole mass, is received and 
 retained in the trench, whence the road is liable 
 to give way in all changes of weather. 
 
 A road formed on such principles has never 
 effectually answered the purpose which the road- 
 maker should constantly have in view ; namely, 
 to make a secure, level flooring, over which car- 
 riages may pass with safety, and equal expedi- 
 tion, at all seasons of the year. 
 
 If it be admitted, as I believe it is now very 
 generally, that in this kingdom an artificial road 
 
 JD 
 
50 
 
 is only required to obviate the inconvenience of 
 a very unsettled climate ; and that water with 
 alternate frost and thaw, are the evils to be 
 guarded against, it must be obvious that 
 nothing can be more erroneous than providing 
 a reservoir for water under the road and giving 
 facility to the water to pass through the road 
 into this trench, where it is acted upon by frost 
 to the destruction of the road. 
 
 As no artificial road can ever be made so 
 good, and so useful as the natural soil in a dry 
 state, it is only necessary to procure, and pre- 
 serve this dry state of so much ground as is 
 intended to be occupied by a road. 
 
 The first operation in making a road should 
 be the reverse of digging a trench. The road 
 should not be sunk below, but rather raised 
 above, the ordinary level of the adjacent ground, 
 care should at any rate be taken, that there be 
 a sufficient fall to take off the water, so that it 
 should always be some inches below the level 
 of the ground upon which the road is intended 
 to be placed : this must be done, either by 
 making drains to lower ground, or if that be not 
 practicable, from the nature of the country, then 
 the soil upon which the road is proposed to be 
 laid, must be raised by addition, so as to be 
 some inches above the level of the water. 
 
Having secured the soil from under water, 
 the road-maker is next to secure it from rain 
 water, by a solid road, made of clean, dry stone, 
 or flint, so selected, prepared, and laid, as to be 
 perfectly impervious to water : and this cannot 
 be effected, unless the greatest care be taken, 
 that no earth, clay, chalk, or other matter, that 
 will hold or conduct water, be mixed with the 
 broken stone ; which must be so prepared and 
 laid, as to unite by its own angles into a firm, 
 compact, impenetrable body. 
 
 The thickness of such road is immaterial, as 
 to its strength for carrying weight ; this object 
 is already obtained by providing a dry surface, 
 over which the road is to be placed as a cover- 
 ing, or roof, to preserve it in that state : experi- 
 ence having shewn, that if water passes through 
 a road, and fill the native soil, the road, what- 
 ever may be its thickness, loses its support, and 
 goes to pieces. 
 
 In consequence of an alteration in the line of 
 the turnpike road, near Rownham Ferry, in 
 the parish of Ashton, near Bristol, it has been 
 necessary to remove the old road. This road 
 was lifted and re-laid very skilfully in J816; 
 since which time it has been in contemplation 
 to change the line, and consequently, it has been 
 suffered to wear very thin. At present it is not 
 
 D 2 
 
52 
 
 above three inches thick in most places, and 
 in none more than four : yet on removing the 
 road it was found, that no water had penetrated, 
 nor had the frost affected it during all the late 
 winter; and the natural earth beneath the road 
 was found perfectly dry. 
 
 Several new roads have been constructed on 
 this principle within the last three years. Part 
 of the great north road from London by Hod- 
 desdon in Hertfordshire two pieces of road on 
 Durdham Down, and at Rownham Ferry, near 
 Bristol with several private roads, in the east- 
 ern part of Sussex. 
 
 None of those roads exceed six inches in 
 thickness, and although that on the great north 
 road is subjected to a very heavy traffic, (being 
 only fifteen miles distant from London) it has 
 not given way, nor was it affected by the late 
 severe winter; when the roads between that 
 and London became impassable, by breaking* up 
 to the bottom, and the mails and other coaches 
 were obliged to reach London by circuitous 
 routes. It is worthy of observation, that these 
 bad roads co v st more money per mile for their 
 annual repair, than the original making of this 
 useful new road. 
 
 Improvement of roads, upon the principle I 
 have endeavoured to explain, has been rapidly 
 
53 
 
 extended during- the last four years. It has 
 been carried into effect, on various roads, and 
 with every variety of material, in seventeen dif- 
 ferent counties. These roads being so con- 
 structed as to exclude water, consequently none 
 of them broke up during the late severe winter ; 
 there was no interruption to travelling, nor any 
 additional expense by the Post-office in convey- 
 ing the mails over them, to the extent of up- 
 wards of one thousand miles of road. 
 
 Many new roads, and to a considerable ex- 
 tent, are projected for the ensuing season. Some 
 of them are to be assisted by grants or loans 
 from government, and it will be a great saving 
 of property, and enable government to extend 
 their assistance more effectually, if these roads 
 be made in the most approved and economical 
 manner. 
 
 The unnecessary expense attending the mak- 
 ing of new roads in the manner hitherto prac- 
 tised, is one great cause of the present heavy debt 
 upon the road trusts of the kingdom. The 
 principal part of the large sums originally bor- 
 rowed, have been sunk in the useless, and in 
 my opinion, mischievous preparation, of a foun- 
 dation. This debt presses heavily on the funds 
 of all the roads in England, and, in many cases, 
 absorbs almost their whole revenue in payment 
 
54 
 
 of interest. In Scotland this pressure is stilS 
 more heavily felt : indeed it is not of uncom- 
 mon occurrence in that country, for creditors 
 to lose both principal and interest of their loans 
 to roads. 
 
 This causes not only a great and unnecessary 
 loss in the first instance, and a deficiency of 
 means for ordinary repair, and maintenance of 
 the roads, but it also discourages the formation 
 of new roads. Were a better and more econo- 
 mical system generally adopted and acted upon, 
 many great additions and improvements of the 
 communications of the country would take place, 
 from which, at present, the landholders are 
 deterred, by fear of the extent of the expense, 
 and the difficulty of obtaining loans of money. 
 
 The measure of substituting pavements, for 
 convenient and useful roads, is a kind of des- 
 perate remedy, to which ignorance has had 
 recourse. The badness, or scarcity of materials, 
 cannot be considered a reasonable excuse ; be- 
 cause the same quantity of stone required for 
 paving, is fully sufficient to make an excellent 
 road any where : and it must be evident, that 
 road materials of the best quality may be pro- 
 cured at less cost than paving stone. 
 
 The very bad quality of the gravel round 
 London, combined with want of skiH and exer- 
 
5 
 
 lion, either to obviate its defects, or to procure 
 a better material, has induced several of the 
 small trusts, leading from that city, to have 
 recourse to the plan of paving their roads, as 
 far as their means will admit. Instead of ap- 
 plying their ample funds to obtain good mate- 
 rials for the roads, they have imported stone 
 from Scotland, and have paved their roads, at 
 an expense ten times greater than that of the 
 excellent roads lately made on some of the 
 adjoining trusts. Very few of these pavements 
 have been so laid as to keep in good order for any 
 length of time ; so that a very heavy expense 
 has been incurred without any beneficial result, 
 and it is to be lamented that this wasteful and 
 ineffectual mode is upon the increase in the 
 neighbourhood of London. 
 
 This practice has also been adopted in places 
 where the same motive cannot be adduced : in 
 Lancashire, almost all the roads are paved at 
 an enormous cost, and are, in consequence, pro- 
 verbially bad. At Edinburgh, where they have 
 the best and cheapest materials in the kingdom, 
 the want of science to construct good roads, has 
 led the trustees to adopt the expedient of pave- 
 ments, to a considerable extent ; and at an ex- 
 pense hardly credible, when compared with 
 
56 
 
 what would have been the cost of roads on the 
 best principles. 
 
 The advantages of good roads, when com- 
 pared with pavements, are universally acknow- 
 ledged ; the extension of pavement is therefore 
 to be deprecated as an actual evil, besides the 
 greatness of the expence. Pavements are par- 
 ticularly inconvenient and dangerous on steep 
 ascents, such as the ascent to bridges, &c. A 
 very striking example of this may be observed 
 on the London end of Black-friars Bridge, 
 where heavy loads are drawn up with great 
 difficulty, and where more horses fall and receive 
 injury, than in any other place in the kingdom. 
 The pavement in such places should be lifted, 
 and converted into a good road; which may be 
 done with the same stone, at an expense not 
 exceeding ten-pence per square yard. This 
 road would be more lasting than the pavement, 
 and, when out of Order, may be repaired at les* 
 than one-tenth of the expense which relaying 
 the pavement would require. 
 
 This measure has been adopted with great 
 success, and considerable saving of expense, in 
 the suburbs of Bristol, where the pavements 
 were taken up, and converted into good roads, 
 about three years ago. 
 
57 
 
 The advantages of the system recommended 
 is so obvious to common observation in the re- 
 pair of old roads, and has been practised to an 
 extent so considerable, during the last four 
 years, that the minds of most people have be- 
 come reconciled to it ; and objections, founded 
 on old prejudice and suspicion, have given way 
 to experience, but the application of the same 
 principles to the construction of new roads, has 
 necessarily been much more limited. It will, 
 therefore, require more liberality and con- 
 fidence on the part of country gentlemen, and 
 also more patient investigation of the principles 
 on which the system is founded, before they will 
 allow of its adoption on new lines of road. It 
 is to be hoped, however, that the importance 
 of the subject will recommend it to general 
 consideration. 
 

 ^:>lh'iT. 
 
REPORT 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 SELECT COMMITTEE 
 
 OH THE 
 
 HIGHWAYS OF THE KINGDOM 
 
 TOGETHER WITH THE 
 
 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE 
 TAKEN BEFORE THEM. 
 

REPORT. 
 
 THE SELECT COMMITTEE appointed to take into 
 consideration the Acts now in force regarding the TURN- 
 PIKE, ROADS and HIGHWAYS in ENGLAND and WALKS, 
 and the expediency of additional Regulations for their 
 better repair and preservation, and to report their Obser- 
 vations thereupon from time to time to the House ; and to 
 whom the Petitions of Joseph D. Bassett, John Richards 
 Reed, and John Martin ; and of several Trustees of Turn- 
 pike Roads in the Counties of Middlesex, Kent, Surrey, 
 and Sussex, were referred ; HAVE, pursuant to the 
 Orders of the House, examined the matters to them re- 
 ferred, and have agreed upon the following REPORT: 
 
 ' YOUR Committee considered it their indispen- 
 sable duty to direct their first attention to the 
 Reports of former Committees, appointed to in- 
 vestigate the same important subject ; in these 
 Reports, as well as in the documents subjoined 
 to them, are to be found much scientific infor- 
 mation, and many valuable suggestions, which 
 have doubtless tended to aid the progress of im- 
 provement in the art of making and preserving 
 roads. Still the object of amending the laws 
 which relate to them has been unattained, the 
 
62 
 
 bills introduced with a partial view to that pur- 
 pose having been lost in their progress through 
 Parliament, and the suggestions for more gene- 
 ral improvements having been allowed to remain 
 without further notice. 
 
 If your Committee may be permitted to as- 
 sign the probable reasons of this discouraging 
 result of the labours of their predecessors, they 
 would venture to suggest, that too wide a field 
 of inquiry was taken to lead to immediate prac- 
 tical benefit : that some of the systems most con- 
 fidently recommended were of a novel and spe- 
 culative nature ; that the regulations which it 
 was proposed to found on them too strongly 
 affected the interests of vested property ; and 
 that even the most valuable information commu- 
 nicated to the House rested upon ingenious 
 theories, which had then been very partially, if 
 at all, reduced to practice, or submitted to fair 
 experiment. 
 
 As the considerations which influenced the 
 appointment of the present Committee, avow- 
 edly sprung from the successful trial of an im- 
 proved system of making roads, your Committee 
 have judged it right to institute a particular 
 examination into all the circumstances of that 
 experiment, and the various instances in which 
 the example has been followed. 
 
63 
 
 Mr. John Loudon M'Adam having for many 
 years directed his attention, as a magistrate and 
 a commissioner, to the improvement of roads, 
 was induced to accept the situation of general 
 surveyor of an extensive trust round the city of 
 Bristol. 
 
 The admirable state of repair into which the 
 roads under his direction were brought, attracted 
 very general attention; and induced the com- 
 missioners of various districts to apply for his 
 assistance or advice. 
 
 The general testimony borne to his complete 
 success wherever he has been employed, and the 
 proof that his improvements have been attended 
 with an actual reduction of expense, while they 
 have afforded the most useful employment to the 
 poor, induce your Committee to attach a high 
 degree of importance to that which he has 
 already accomplished. The imitation of his 
 plans is rendered easy by their simplicity, and 
 by the candour with which he has explained 
 them, though Ability in the surveyor to judge of 
 their application must be understood as an essen- 
 tial requisite. 
 
 Your Committee have dwelt on this improved 
 system of making roads, as a preliminary consi- 
 deration to any alteration of the kws, being per- 
 suaded that it is of essential importance to adapt 
 
64 
 
 the law to new circumstances ; that the first step 
 requisite is to take effectual measures for ensur- 
 ing the formation of good roads ; and that their 
 preservation afterwads, if proper principles for 
 their repair be once adopted, will require fewer 
 legislative regulations than former inquirers have 
 deemed necessary. 
 
 For a full elucidation of the methods pursued 
 by Mr. M'Adam your Committee beg leave to 
 refer to his evidence in the Appendix annexed, as 
 well as to that of his son, and of different Com- 
 missioners who had witnessed the success of his 
 plans. 
 
 But though your Committee have limited 
 their first inquiries to the actual state of the turn- 
 pike roads, and the results of recent plans for 
 their improvement, they have by no means con- 
 fined their researches to the operations or the 
 opinions of one individual. In the evidence 
 which they subjoin will be found, in the first 
 place, a description of the present general de- 
 fects of the turnpike roads, given by those whose 
 employments and interest render them best ac- 
 quainted with the nature and extent of the evil ; 
 and this exposition is followed not only by the 
 detail of Mr. M 'Adam's system, already alluded 
 to, but by the evidence of other eminent survey- 
 ors and civil engineers, under whose superintend- 
 
65 
 
 ence the latest and most perfect improvements 
 have been effected. 
 
 Your Committee consider that high praise is 
 due to the superior science exhibited by Mr. 
 Telford, in tracing and forming 1 the new roads 
 in North Wales ; but they contented themselves 
 with a general inquiry into his plans, aware that 
 their merits would be particularly brought under 
 the eye of the House in the Reports of the 
 Committee on the Holyhead Roads. 
 
 The concurrent testimony of all the witnesses 
 examined by your Committee establishes the fact 
 that the general state of the turnpike roads in 
 England and Wales is extremely defective, but 
 at the same time proves that proper manage- 
 ment is alone wanted to effect the most desira- 
 ble reformation. It is not the least interesting 
 result of the researches of your Committee, that 
 the most improved system is demonstrated to be 
 the most economical ; that even the first effectual 
 repair of a bad road may be accomplished with 
 little, if any, increase of expenditure ; and that 
 its future preservation in good order will, under 
 judicious management, be attended with a con- 
 siderable annual saving to the public. 
 
 There is no point upon which a more decided 
 coincidence of opinion exists amongst all those 
 who profess what may now be called the science 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 of road-making, than that the first effectual step 
 towards general improvement must be the em- 
 ployment of persons of superior ability and ex- 
 perience as superintending 1 surveyors. 
 
 Your Committee, fully concurring in this 
 opinion, have anxiously considered in what man- 
 ner this object can be attained with the least 
 expense to the country, and the least injurious 
 or offensive interference with existing customs 
 and authorities. 
 
 Various are the plans which have been 
 brought under their consideration for altering 
 the general constitution of the laws affecting 
 the management of Turnpike Roads, proposing 
 either to annex the superintendence and patron- 
 age to some of the existing departments of 
 Government, or to constitute a new Board of 
 Commissioners expressly for this object. 
 
 Your Committee forbear to detail the reasons 
 which induce them to withhold their recom- 
 mendation from any of these plans, whatever 
 advantages they might afford in unity or vigour 
 of management. k 
 
 They are of opinion, that many important 
 reasons exist for leaving generally the direction 
 of the affairs of the different turnpike trusts in 
 the hands of their respective Commissioners, 
 whose experience, character and interest, afford 
 
07 
 
 the best pledges of ability, attention and eco- 
 nomy. If your Committee think it necessary 
 to propose, in one respect, an interference with 
 their appointments, it by no means proceeds 
 from any distrust of their judgment or integrity. 
 The duties of a head surveyor demand 
 suitable education and talents. These qualifi- 
 cations must be fairly remunerated ; and it is 
 evident, that the limited extent of the funds of 
 Turnpike Trusts, in general, do not afford the 
 means of paying to such an officer an adequate 
 salary. The difficulty might in many instances 
 be obviated by voluntary associations, but where 
 the system is wished to be universal, it ought 
 not to be left to so precarious a dependence. 
 
 The plan to which your Committee, after 
 full consideration, are disposed to give the 
 preference, is that of empowering the magis- 
 trates of every county, assembled in quarter 
 sessions, to appoint one or more surveyors gene- 
 ral, who shall have the superintendence and 
 management of the turnpike roads within the 
 county, under the authority and direction of the 
 Commissioners of the different trusts. It is 
 not necessary at present to enter on the detailed 
 regulations by which the executive duties of 
 such an officer should be prescribed, so as to 
 keep them under the deliberative control of the 
 jc 2 
 
68 
 
 Commissioners, whose meetings he should at- 
 tend, and to whom he should uniformly report 
 on the improvements and alterations he may 
 wish to recommend within their trusts. 
 
 Your Committee are of opinion, that the 
 most eligible mode of paying the salary of this 
 officer would be by an uniform rate per mile 
 upon all the roads within the county ; to be 
 fixed by the magistrates at quarter sessions, and 
 paid from the funds of the respective trusts. 
 
 The success of this plan of appointing gene- 
 ral county surveyors will, in a great degree, 
 depend upon the firmness evinced by the magis- 
 trates, in laying aside every consideration of 
 personal favour, and impartially looking to in- 
 tegrity, talents, and energy of character, as the 
 recommendations for office; some skill in the 
 science of an engineer should also be regarded 
 as a valuable qualification. 
 
 Your Committee have manifested their gene- 
 ral disinclination to any interference with the 
 honourable and gratuitous discharge of the 
 functions of the Commissioners of Turnpike 
 Trusts ; in one instance, however, they are 
 disposed to depart from the principle which 
 they have recommended. A full consideration of 
 the evidence relative to the defective state, and 
 injudicious management of the roads round the 
 
Metropolis, and of the advantages which would 
 accrue from a consolidation of the numerous 
 small Trusts into which they are most incon- 
 veniently divided, induce your Committee to 
 express to the House their strong recommend- 
 ation, that a special Act of Parliament may be 
 passed for uniting all the Trusts within a dis- 
 tance of about ten miles round London under 
 one set of Commissioners. It is to these roads 
 that the heaviest complaints made by the coach- 
 masters, and the surveyor of mail coaches under 
 the post-office, principally apply ; and whether 
 an improvement is to be effected by the im- 
 portation of flint, and other common materials, 
 or by laying granite pavement in the centre or 
 sides of the roads, it is evident that, " the 
 measure to be performed in an economical and 
 efficient manner, must be done upon an extend- 
 ed scale ; it must become one interest, directed 
 by one select body of men, of weight, ability, 
 and character." 
 
 It is the object of the recommendation of 
 your Committee to render the roads round the 
 Metropolis a pattern for the kingdom, by the 
 introduction of the most judicious system of 
 formation and repair, which will thus be brought 
 under general inspection ; and the spirit of 
 improvement, radiating from this centre, may 
 
70 
 
 be expected to spread with rapidity throughout 
 the country, and to diffuse " those incalculable 
 public and private advantages," which a former 
 Committee anticipated from the accomplishment 
 of this great national object. 
 
 Your Committee are deeply sensible of the 
 consideration due to the persons whose property 
 is invested in the funds of these Trusts, as well 
 as to those who now act as Commissioners. 
 They are perfectly aware of the jealousy with 
 which the House may view any proposition 
 for the creation of new offices of patronage and 
 profit ; and they do not disguise their con- 
 viction, that it will be found expedient to re- 
 munerate those efficient Commissioners who are 
 expected to devote their time to the perform- 
 ance of active duties. 
 
 Your Committee however anticipate, that if 
 the House shall approve the formation of a 
 Board of Commissioners for this object, they 
 will deem it proper to place at its head some 
 persons of eminent station and character, as a 
 security for the independence and respectability 
 of its proceedings. 
 
 All these considerations certainly require cau- 
 tious deliberation, and delicacy in arranging the 
 plan; but your Committee feel confident that 
 the wisdom and judgment of the House will 
 
71 
 
 find the means of surmounting the difficulties, 
 without injustice, or hazardous innovation. 
 
 It is obvious, that the formation of this dis- 
 tinct central authority will be best effected by 
 the introduction of a separate Bill, while the 
 plan of empowering 1 the magistrates to appoint 
 county surveyors would naturally form part of 
 a general Bill for amending the laws relating 
 to Turnpike Roads. 
 
 Your Committee have weighed, with much 
 attention, the comparative advantages of an 
 attempt to amend these laws by supplemental 
 enactments, and of the comprehensive plan of 
 endeavouring to embody in one Act of Parlia- 
 ment all that is valuable in the old laws, with 
 the addition of such new regulations as are 
 acknowledged to be desirable. 
 
 The Committee of 181 1 were impressed with 
 the expedience of " combining the old and 
 new regulations into one general code, divided 
 into two branches, one regarding the High- 
 ways, and the other regarding Turnpike Roads," 
 though they considered that " it would require 
 more time and labour than those who have not 
 had some experience in the drawing up of such 
 laws can be at all aware of." 
 
 Your Committee do not hesitate to avow their 
 opinion, that unless this task, however arduous 
 
72 
 
 be accomplished, the Jaws relating to roads must 
 remain in an incomplete, uncertain, an incon- 
 venient state. They cannot doubt that the 
 House will agree with them that the promotion 
 of such a measure is deserving of legal assistance 
 on the part of his Majesty's government, to 
 those who are disposed to apply their time and 
 attention to the undertaking; and they indulge 
 the hope, that if the House shall think fit to re- 
 appoint a Committee for the same object in the 
 next session of Parliament, much may be found 
 done for the preparation of such a bill. 
 
 Your Committee themselves have not been 
 inattentive to many of the amendments which 
 they think it ought to embrace, some of which 
 they proceed to particularize for the consider- 
 ation of those members whose attention may be 
 drawn to the subject of this Report. 
 
 There is no object which appears more deserv- 
 ing of regulation than the expense attending 
 the passing and renewing of Turnpike Acts. 
 This might be lessened by comprising in a gene- 
 ral Act such customary clauses as are applicable 
 to all trusts, and by dispensing with the attend- 
 ance of witnesses in London to prove the notices 
 required by the orders of the House; but a still 
 greater advantage would be gained by extend- 
 ing the period of the duration of these Acts, and 
 
73 
 
 providing for their renewal without the payment 
 of fees. 
 
 A general commutation for statute labour 
 appears to be required, both for public ad- 
 vantage and private convenience. The amount 
 of composition might be levied as a rate; and it 
 will become a subject of consideration, whether 
 some better principle may not be laid down for 
 apportioning the money thus collected between 
 the highways and turnpike roads. 
 
 The advantage of authorizing parish officerg 
 to contract with the commissioners for the repair 
 of the roads passing through the parish by la- 
 bourers belonging to it, has been strongly press- 
 ed on the attention of your Committee, but 
 though they are disposed to admit that such a 
 system may often afford desirable relief to the 
 parishes, they are not equally satisfied that it 
 will have a tendency to promote the improve- 
 ment of the roads. They think it right to bring 
 the proposition under the consideration of the 
 House, though they are too diffident of its utility 
 to venture to add to it their recommendation. 
 
 It seems generally admitted, that the present 
 exemptions from toll granted to broad-wheeled 
 waggons require to be revised, as the enormous 
 weights which they carry render them more de- 
 structive to the materials of the roads than their 
 
74 
 
 supposed advantage in consolidating them can 
 compensate. Without entering into the yet un- 
 settled controversy respecting the superior utility 
 of conical, barrelled, or cylindrical wheels, for 
 the purpose of draught, it is perfectly evident, 
 that the narrow part of the surface upon which 
 wheels of the two first descriptions meet the 
 ground, cannot give them the advantage of the 
 roller. As soon as impolitic exemptions shall 
 be abolished, and the tolls be regulated upon all 
 carts and waggons, with wheels of a moderate 
 width, in proportion either to the weight carried, 
 or the number of horses, there will no longer be 
 the same temptation to carry excessive loads; 
 and it is probable that a new practice, regulated 
 by private interest, may render it unnecessary 
 to limit the weight allowed to be taken. 
 
 Some regulations appear to be absolutely 
 required in respect to the conduct of toll- 
 keepers, and the liability of renters, for the 
 penalties imposed on their servants. 
 
 Your Committee have thus noticed a few of 
 those objects of amendment which have present- 
 ed themselves to their consideration. To reduce 
 these and other proposed improvements into 
 proper form to digest the various provisions of 
 former Acts to expunge what is useless or in- 
 jurious, to reconcile what is contradictory to 
 
75 
 
 re-model and arrange what is sound and useful, 
 will require the assistance of the best legal 
 judgment. Your Committee however, after 
 having thus availed themselves of the power 
 granted by the house, of reporting the partial 
 result of their investigations, will continue to 
 make such inquiries, and to collect such ma- 
 terials, as may pave the way for the accomplish- 
 ment of that important undertaking. 
 
 It will at once be seen, that they have con- 
 fined themselves to one branch of the work com- 
 mitted to them, having conceived it to be more 
 judicious not to distract their own attention and 
 that of the House by too many subjects of in- 
 quiry, but to pursue that which they first under- 
 took to a practical result. 
 
 Should the House adopt their recommenda- 
 tion of renewing the Committee in another 
 session, the subject of the Highways will natu- 
 rally engage their attention as soon as they shall 
 have fully matured the plan for amending the 
 laws relating to the Turnpike Roads. 
 
 25th June, 1819. 
 
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 
 
WITNESSES: 
 
 Martis, 2 die Martii, 1819: 
 
 Charles Johnson, Esq. . ^ ,^ . * . p. 81 
 
 Mr. William Waterhouse '. "x . - 84 
 
 Mr. William Home '.'"' ' **"' . . . 88 
 
 Mr. John Eames . ..'. 92 
 
 Veneris, 21 die Maij : 
 
 Mr. George Botham . . . . . .94 
 
 Jovis, 4 die Martij : 
 John London M'Adam, Esq. I .* ' ^ *Pf . 96 
 
 Martis, 9 die Martij : 
 John London M t Adam 9 Esq. . . .117 
 
 Uij'c Jo-vis^ 1 1 die Maortij : 
 
 John London M* Adam, Esq. *. . . --l-'uv" 134 
 
 James M'4dam, Esq. . ^ . . , . 196 
 
 Col. Charles Brown . . . . 144 
 
 Ezekiel Harman 9 Esq. . . . .145 
 
 Thomas Bridgeman, Esq. V . - . . 146 
 
 John Martin Cripps t Esq. . . . . ibid. 
 W. Dowdesuell, Esq. ...... 148 
 
 Martis, 23 die Martij : 
 
 Mr. Benjamin Farey . .... 150 
 
 John Farey t Esq. . . 154 
 
Jovis, 25 die Martij : 
 
 John Party, Esq. , . . . . . .157 
 
 James Walker, Esq. . . . . . .165 
 
 Martis, 50 die Martij : 
 James Walker, Esq. ...... 181 
 
 Jovis, 1 die Aprilis : 
 
 Mr. James Dean . . . . 1 82 
 
 Jovis, 6 die Maij : 
 Thomas Telford, Esq. , . . . . . 187 
 
 Martis, 11 die May : 
 Mr. Robert Perry 195 
 
 ABSTRACT of Return of Turnpike Roads round 
 
 London . 190 
 
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 
 
 Martis, 2 die Martij, 1819. 
 EDWARD PROTHEROE, ESQUIRE, 
 
 In the Chair. 
 
 Charles Johnson, Esquire, called in; and Examined. 
 
 YOU are surveyor and superintendent of mail coaches under 
 the Post Master General ? Yes. 
 
 How long have you held that office ? Not twelve months 
 yet. 
 
 Has your attention been directed, in the execution of the du- 
 ties of that office, to the state of the turnpike roads throughout 
 the kingdom ? I have given a general attention to the subject, 
 and I have had occasion, of course, to give particular attention 
 to it, when complaints have been made of loss of time. 
 
 In what state of repair do you consider the turnpike roads to 
 be, generally throughout the kingdom ? I certainly (as far as I 
 have had an opportunity of inspecting them) consider, that al- 
 most all the roads might be improved ; but there are very few 
 instances in which I should have thought it necessary to advise 
 the Post Master General to interfere, except in the more imme- 
 diate neighbourhood of London. 
 
 It is not the practice of the Post-office to interfere in the mode 
 F 
 
you mention, by indictment, unless the evil has arisen to a very 
 great pitch ? Not until it has arisen to a very considerable evil. 
 
 Do you consider that the general defective state of the road 
 arises from any local disadvantages, or from mismanagement in 
 regard to the- funds, or the application of materials ? That 
 question involves so many considerations, that I hardly know 
 how to give an answer to it ; but I think, that in general one 
 may observe a great want of that skill in forming the road and 
 keeping it in repair, which is very obvious in some parts of the 
 country. 
 
 Do you consider that the defects you have mentioned in the 
 neighbourhood of London, arise from any local disadvantages, 
 or from the roads been worse managed? It is generally under- 
 stood that in the neighbourhood of London they have not so 
 good materials to repair the roads with, being chiefly gravel ; 
 but I think I may say, that there is certainly a want of attention 
 and of care. 
 
 Have you known instances in the neighbourhood of London 
 where better roads have been obtained by superior management ? 
 In the early part of the winter we were under such great dif- 
 ficulties with respect to the Exeter mail coach, that I was under 
 the necessity of applying to the Egham trust. It was at that 
 time reported to me, that the whole town of Egham had been 
 covered with gravel unsifted, eight or nine inches deep from side 
 to side ; the consequence of that was, that the mail coach lost 
 ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes every night. We were given 
 afterwards to understand that the commissioners had put that par- 
 ticular road under the care of Mr. MAdam, and at this time I 
 have no sort of occasion whatever to complain of it. 
 
 Generally speaking, do you consider that the mails are detained 
 more by the bad state of the roads in the neighbourhood of Lon- 
 don than elsewhere ? They certainly have more difficulty in 
 passing to and from London for the first fifty or sixty miles, than 
 in almost any other part of the country. It is in the nights we 
 
have the heaviest weights, and therefore it is very desirable 
 that the roads near town should be rather better, than worse than 
 others. 
 
 Has your attention been particularly directed to the state of 
 the roads in other parts of the kingdom lately ? I travelled a 
 considerable distance last autumn in the north of England. Cer- 
 tainly I considered the roads that I passed over there, to be very 
 superior in general to what they are in the first hundred miles 
 from the metropolis. Subsequently to that, I have had occasion 
 to travel throughout North Wales, and I gave particular attention 
 to the Holyhead line of road. 
 
 By what road ? By Coventry. The roads which are found 
 in North Wales are remarkably good, and in my humble opinion, 
 show great science in the formation of them. The new roads I 
 mean. The materials in that country are of course very good. 
 On this side of Birmingham, which is also the road to Liver- 
 pool, there is great occasion to complain, particularly from Dun- 
 church to Daventry. At this time that road is in a very neg- 
 lected state, very heavy, narrow, and blocked up by banks of 
 drift. I have had occasion to apply to that trust, but I do not 
 learn that any thing has been done. 
 
 Have you found the system of indictment afford any effectual 
 remedy for the evils which you have had cause to observe in that 
 way ? I think we have. But there have been very few indict- 
 ments preferred for some years past ; the postmaster general not 
 thinking it right to press upon the districts during the season of 
 agricultural distress. I should say, we do not consider that any 
 reason, at present, for abstaining. 
 
 Have you experienced from the commissioners, a disposition, 
 generally, to attend to such complaints as you have found occa- 
 sion to make ? Such applications as I have had occasion to make 
 appear to have been very well received ; but I cannot say, that in 
 many instances the roads have been much improved. I will add 
 to this answer, that I lately passed over the road from Oxford 
 
 F2 
 
84 
 
 through Henley to London ; and although that is one of tht 
 roads complained much of, it is certainly, at this time, in a very 
 improper state. 
 
 In such cases do you not follow up your measures by stronger 
 proceedings, by indictment ? I think that in this case it would be 
 necessary to renew our applications, and perhaps to proceed by 
 indictment; but I have considered it prudent not to interfere, 
 chiefly in contemplation of the proceedings of this Committee. 
 
 From what you have seen of the new roads in Wales, do you 
 not conceive that nearly all the turnpike roads in England are 
 capable of very considerable improvement, by t an application of 
 equal skill in the disposition of the materials employed upon 
 them ?- I certainly do. 
 
 Mr. William Waterhouse, called in ; and Examined. 
 
 YOU keep the Swan -with-two-Necks in Lad-lane ? I be- 
 long to the premises; I don't keep the house ; I am the coach- 
 master. 
 
 You are the proprietor of many mail and other coaches ? I 
 am. 
 
 As the proprietor of mail and stage coaches, has your atten- 
 tion been directed to the state of the roads over which they 
 travel ? Yes, it has. 
 
 Inform the Committee whether you think the roads are in 
 such a state of repair as they might be, under proper manage- 
 ment, with the advantages they possess ? Taking them gene- 
 rally, I think they are not. 
 
 Do you consider that the amount of the tolls at present 
 received would be sufficient to place them in a state of good re- 
 pair, under proper management? From what information I 
 have been able to obtain of the sums which the gates are let for 
 upon several trusts, it is my opinion that the money so received 
 is quite sufficient to put them in a very good state. For instance, 
 there is one trust, which is called the Daventry. trust, leading 
 
85 
 
 from Old Stratford to Dunchurch; their tolls, 1 understand, 
 produce more than 100/. a mile per annum. Very little improve- 
 ment has been made in that trust ; and the roads are very unsafe, 
 and in a bad condition altogether. 
 
 Do you consider that that arises from want of proper materials, 
 or want of proper skill in making use of them ? From both. 
 The materials that they have in that neighbourhood, in my opi- 
 nion, are not good ; and the people that they employ upon the 
 roads are not equal to the task, and therefore they are very much 
 neglected. The surveyors and the men that work under them 
 are insufficient. 
 
 Do you know of any instances where similar disadvantages 
 have been surmounted by proper skill and ingenuity ? I believe 
 I can state that upon one particular trust that has been the case. 
 I believe they call it the Hockliffe trust. It is but a short 
 distance, but very great improvements have been made upon it. 
 The great improvements that have been made there, I am in- 
 formed by several of the commissioners, have been done through 
 their skilful and attentive surveyors. They have improved that 
 trust very much indeed. I belieye I can mention another road 
 out of London that has been much improved, I mean the Essex 
 road, (their surveyor being a clever man, and competent to un- 
 derstand his business,) between Whitechapel church and Brent- 
 wood. 
 
 Are there any particular defects in the management of the 
 roads generally, which you think might be remedied, that you 
 can point out to the Committee ? In the first place, there may 
 be great improvements by the proper formation of the roads. I 
 know, in some places, particularly from here down to Colaey, 
 where there is a clayey bottom, and upon that line of road there 
 are a great many land springs ; those springs frequently work up 
 through the gravel, and injure the road very materially. When 
 that is the case I consider that they should under-drain the road, 
 and take away these land springs, which would be the means of 
 
86 
 
 having the roads firm and hard, much harder than they arc 
 now. 
 
 Is it not a common defect to place the gravel on the road 
 without being sufficiently sifted or washed. ? Very much so. 
 
 Do you not consider it as a bad system, likewise, to place the 
 gravel so much in the centre of the road, thereby rendering it 
 of too great convexity ? Yes, certainly. I think it is laid 
 generally too thick and too high in the middle. There is no 
 necessity for the roads being rounded so much. 
 
 Have you known any accidents to have arisen from the steep- 
 ness of the road ? Yes ; several accidents with my coaches, as 
 well as those of other people, in consequence of the road being 
 laid so very high in the middle. 
 
 Is not that shape of the road likewise attended with a disad- 
 vantage in the draft of the carriage ? I consider it so, inasmuch 
 as it flings the weight too much on one side. 
 
 Is not a great loss -sustained by the proprietors of stage 
 coaches, in consequence of the badness of the roads, in the 
 wearing out of their horses ? Yes ; particularly so the first fifty 
 or sixty miles from London. 
 
 With regard to the performance of time by the mail coaches, 
 do you find that you labour under greater difficulty on the roads 
 near London, than on those at a greater distance from town ? 
 I am certain we do. It requires a greater quantity of horses to 
 perform the duty, and, in my opinion, it requires ten horses to 
 perform the same number of miles for the first fifty out of Lon- 
 don, that might be done by eight, with the same speed, beyond 
 that distance. 
 
 Is there any difference in the value of the horses used near 
 town and at a distance from it ? I can buy horses at 15/. a piece 
 that will perform the duty, at a distance from London, equal to 
 those that we are obliged to give 307. a piece for, on the ave- 
 rage, for the work near town. 
 
 Are you in the habit of working coaches to a greater distance 
 
87 
 
 <than fifty miles from London ? Not at this time ; I have worked 
 coaches as far as one hundred miles distance from London, and 
 I always found there that eight horses would perform as many 
 miles as ten, the first fifty miles out of London. 
 
 Have not the tolls very much increased of late years under 
 new acts of parliament? It is my opinion that the tolls generally 
 have, doubled within these last fifteen years. 
 
 Have the roads improved in any degree in the same propor- 
 tion ? No, they have not. 
 
 Have you calculated the average rate per mile whieh a, coach 
 with four horses pays for toll ? I have : It is my opinion that 
 the average amount throughout the kingdom is 3%d. per mile ; 
 it was above 3</. when I took them above twelve months ago. 
 
 Do you find that the horses wear out in a much shorter space 
 of time, in working coaches within the first fifty miles from 
 London, than they do lower down ?-^- Yes they do very much. 
 We calculate that our stock of horses, employed in working the 
 first fifty miles out of London, will not last more than four 
 years ; in the country, at a greater distance, I believe they cal- 
 culate that their stock, on an average, will last six years. 
 
 Are you not frequently obliged to put six horses to your 
 coaches, on the roads from London ? Sometimes that is the 
 case; we do work with six horses where the roads are bad and 
 heavy, I may say, from the knowledge I have of one particular 
 road, namely, from London to Birmingham, it requires twelve 
 horses to perform the same number of miles as eight horses will 
 do between Birmingham and Holyhead. 
 
 How many coach-horses do you keep? About four hun- 
 dred. 
 
 Are you acquainted with the new roads in North Wales, made 
 by Mr. Telford ? Yes, I am. 
 
 Do you think that three of your horses would draw the Holy- 
 head mail as easily on those roads as four of them do the same 
 coach on any part of the road from London to Dunchurch ? 
 I have no doubt about it. 
 
Does that aris* from the construction of the road, or nature 
 of the materials, or both ? Both. The construction of the new 
 road is extraordinarily good, and the materials also are very 
 good. 
 
 Can you state what particular construction those roads are of? 
 /They are laid in a form sufficiently round to wash themselves, 
 if there is a shower of rain that comes upon them. They are 
 not very high; and their excellence consists in the smailness of 
 the convexity. They are in the best form I have ever seen roads 
 made. 
 
 Mr. William Home, called in ; and Examined. 
 
 . You keep the Golden Cross Inn, Charing Cross ? Yes. 
 
 You are the proprietor of many mail and stage coaches? 
 I am. 
 
 Your attention of course has been directed to the state of the 
 roads over which they travel ? It has. 
 
 Can you inform the Committee in what state the roads gene- 
 rally are, in point of goodness ? J think in general they have 
 been better for the last seven years than formerly, though they 
 are now bad. They are generally bad, and might be very much 
 improved. 
 
 Can you state to the Committee any particular instances of 
 improvement that have taken place within your own knowledge ? 
 Yes; one between London and Hounslow, which must be 
 known to every body to have been very bad ; that road has been 
 made good, which was extremely bad before. 
 
 Do you consider that the application of the materials upon 
 that road is at present good ? Yes. It is the belter construc- 
 tion of the road, together with the different materials from what 
 they used formerly, which have been the means of making that 
 road better. They have brought chalk and flints from Kent by 
 the canal, and have got them at as small an expense as gravel ; 
 
89 
 
 and these have formed a hard well-bound road, which was for- 
 merly bad. 
 
 Upon what other roads do your coaches travel ?~-I will men- 
 tion one which is precisely the contrary, the Uxbridge road. 
 
 Gravel is usually employed on that ? Solely gravel, and the 
 road is very flat. It is made lower than the fields, which draws 
 the water upon it, and therefore it cannot be drawn off from it, 
 That is the chief cause of the road being so bad. 
 
 Is it not the practice upon that road to pile up the scrapings 
 or drift by the side of the road ? It is. 
 
 Within your experience, do you consider that the goodness 
 of the roads is at all in proportion to the local advantages or dis- 
 advantages ; or have you found that the skill and experience of 
 the surveyors employed upon them have effected particular im- 
 provements ? They chiefly depend upon having good surveyors. 
 The Dover road will show that more than any other road I 
 know of. I can remember that within these seven years, what 
 was then called "The Sun in the Sands" has been made a very 
 good road. That road was all loose and sandy: they have 
 drained it, and it is now a very good road. 
 
 Can you state under whose superintendence that road is 
 placed? Mr. Oollis's. He is now employed on the Brighton 
 road, effecting the same sort of improvement ; reducing hills, 
 and making the road good. 
 
 Do you find that the roads on. which your coaches travel, are 
 much worse in the neighbourhood of London than the more 
 distant parts ? I find them worse for coaches near London, but 
 it may be attributed partly to the greater quantity of travelling 
 near London to what there is in the country. 
 
 Are the horses that you employ in the stages near London of 
 superior value to those that are employed at a greater distance ? 
 It differs according to the carriage. I think with the stage 
 coaches, the horses out of London are considerably more in 
 value than those employed at a greater distance from London ; 
 
90 
 
 and as to mail coaches, vice versa. In the country, the day 
 stock of the coaches is very good, but in the night they work 
 them very badly. 
 
 Do you find that your horses that are employed in the stages 
 near London, wear out sooner than those at a greater distance ? 
 Much sooner, I should think. I employ about four hundred 
 horses myself, and I am sure I buy one hundred and fifty a year 
 to support the number, and keep the stock in order. I consider 
 that my stock wears out fully in three years. 
 
 How much longer on an average, will horses last at a distance 
 from town ? I should think double the time : for these reasons ; 
 first, the work is lighter, and next, the food is better; besides 
 which, the lodging of them is better ; the stables are airy and 
 more healthy : they have not so often diseases in the country as 
 we have in London. 
 
 Are you in the habit of working coaches to any great distance 
 from London ? I work them half way to Bristol ; with Mr. 
 Pickwick of Bath, I work to Newbury. 
 
 Do you know whether the horses that are employed stilj 
 lower down upon that road, are considered to have lighter or 
 heavier work? I should not keep larger horses for that work 
 myself; I should keep short-legged horses, because of the hills. 
 
 Which are of less value ? Yes. 
 
 Speaking generally, if the same skill and management that 
 .you have mentioned in particular districts were generally em- 
 ployed, do you not think that the roads of England and Wales 
 might be put into a very perfect state of repair ? I think, that 
 with better direction as to management, they might be put into 
 a much better state of repair, at the same cost, than they now 
 are. There is a road, called the North-east Road (the way 
 that the Edinburgh mail comes,) which is much improved 
 lately, and without any great expense. 
 
 Under whose management is that road ? Of a Mr. Clay. 
 It has been done by rolling the road, and breaking the gravel to 
 
91 
 
 a certain size, not putting it on too large or too small; and 
 taking care to turn the road well. If the road is not turned 
 well, it never will be good. 
 
 This roller is a late invention, is it not? It is. It impresses 
 the gravel, or whatever the material is, into the ground, before 
 the road is scraped ; then they proceed to scrape it and take the 
 slush off; this rolls down the ruts as well. 
 
 And from your experience, you have every reason to believe 
 that it is of great advantage to the road ? I have worked the 
 Tyburn road, and the White Cross roads, which were as bad as 
 the Tyburn till this practice has been introduced. 
 
 Do you know any thing of the Reading road, which Mr. 
 M* Adam has had the superintendence of? It is a very fair road ; 
 it is the best piece of road in that direction. 
 
 Can you inform the Committee the weights you are accus- 
 tomed to carry upon the different descriptions of carriages, mail 
 coaches, post coaches, and heavy coaches ? The post coach 
 loaded is 38 cwt. weight ; it is never more than two tons. The 
 mail coach also is not more than two tens, I should think. As 
 to heavy coaches, I only work two of that description out of the 
 4-0 coaches that are in my own yard ; they are so little used, that 
 they don't generally weigh more than the post coach ; they don't 
 carry so much luggage. 
 
 What is the weight of the heavy coach ? Not more than the 
 post, because they don't carry so much luggage as some of the 
 post coaches. I reckon 12 passengers one ton, coach one ton," 
 and luggage half a ton. 
 
 Have you known of any accidents to your coaches arising 
 from the great convexity of the roads in the neighbourhood of 
 London ? I have had accidents, and they have sometimes been 
 attributed to the horses shying, and plunging the coach on one 
 side, so as to cause it to overturn, from the great roundness of 
 the road. 
 
Mr. John Eames, called in ; and Examined. 
 
 You keep the White Horse, Fetter-lane, and are the proprie- 
 tor of the Angel Inn, St. Clement's ? Yes. 
 
 You are the proprietor of several mail and stage coaches ? 
 Yes. 
 
 How many hoeses do you keep ? About three hundred. 
 
 What are the principal roads you are in the habit of working 
 from London ? We work the Canterbury, the Cambridge, the 
 Dover, the Norwich, the Portsmouth, and some others. 
 
 Do you find that you sustain much inconvenience from the 
 State of the roads over which you travel? Yes. As to incon- 
 venience, I find much more in the neighbourhood of London 
 than the more distant parts. 
 
 How long do you find that your horses upon an average last, 
 that are employed in the first stages from London ? My horses, 
 upon an average, don't last above three years in the fast coaches. 
 
 Including the mails ? Yes. 
 
 And those horses in the neighbourhood of London, are of 
 greater value than those employed at a distance ? They are. 
 
 Upon an average, how long do the horses last that are em- 
 ployed in the more distant parts ? They last as long again. 
 
 Do you attribute that in a great degree to the badness of the 
 roads in the neighbourhood of London ? I attribute it to the 
 distress the horse receives from the badness of the roads near 
 town ; but I attribute it also in a great degree to the meeting of 
 different carriages, and crossing the road, which makes it more 
 laborious to the horse, though he does not appear to go so many 
 miles. 
 
 Do you not consider that that particular evil is occasioned in 
 a great degree by the convexity of the roads in the neighbour- 
 hood of London, the materials being generally heaped up in the 
 middle? I do; it " tears their hearts out," as the coachmen ex- 
 
93 
 
 press it. The roads are inconvenient from the quantity and 
 quality of the gravel heaped in the middle. 
 
 Have you known any instances in which a different syitem has 
 been pursued, and the roads greatly improved, in the neighbour- 
 hood of London ? The road from London to Cranford Bridge 
 has been improved of late, and from London to Hounslow more 
 particularly, in consequence of the pavement in the crown of the 
 road, which has done away with the gravelling, or shingle rather. 
 
 Is not the gravel upon that road generally employed without 
 sifting or washing ? It is half clay. 
 
 Have you known instances in which this inconvenience has 
 been remedied by superior skill and experience in the surveyor 
 of the roads ? Yes ; in the same line of road that Mr. Home 
 referred to ; in the Kent road particularly. 
 
 If that same skill was employed in the application of materials 
 to the other roads, do you not think that they might be brought 
 generally to the same state of improvement ? I have no doubt 
 of it; there is no question about it. The Surrey road has been 
 improved on the same principle. 
 
 What do you call the Surrey road? From London to 
 Guildford. 
 
 Do- you know under whose management that is ? I don't 
 know now ; a person named Baker had the management of it. 
 
 Was it under him it was improved ? Yes. 
 
 How many miles of road does that consist of? Thirty miles. 
 
 And it is very much improved ? Yes. 
 
 By what means ? The materials are harder than the gravel. 
 He brings the rag flints and breaks them, but in a different 
 manner from other parts of the road. He has improved it so 
 much, that it does not look the same road at all; I can go now 
 sixteen miles better than I could tweke before. 
 
 Do you consider that the horses which travel these roads that 
 have been improved, last longer than formerly ? Yes, 
 
94 
 
 You need hardly be asked whether these improvements enable 
 you to carry passengers at a lower rate than before ? Of course ; 
 it is the expense of the stock that is the great thing. 
 
 If the roads were generally improved, travelling would be 
 cheaper ? Of course. 
 
 Veneris, 21 die Mail, 1819. 
 
 Mr. George Botham, called in ; and Examined. 
 
 YOU keep the George Inn, at Newbury ? I do. 
 
 Are you a proprietor of mail and other coaches ? Yes. 
 
 To a considerable extent ? Yes, and have been for some 
 time. 
 
 How many horses have you ? More than a hundred. 
 
 Your attention has of course been directed to the state of the 
 road between Newbury and London ? Yes. 
 
 State any improvement that has taken place in that road ? 
 There is a very great improvement between Marlborough and 
 Twyford. 
 
 Under whose directions ? - Mr. M* A.dam. 
 
 In what state was that road before ? It was in a very bad 
 state, and I mentioned it to lord Aylesbury, and he applied to 
 get the materials, and offered to give up any quantity of his land 
 for the widening of the road, which he has done. 
 
 In point of fact the road has been widened ? Much widened 
 and much improved. 
 
 Can you state what improvement it would make in the draught 
 of the carriages ? Not exactly, but I consider it a very great 
 one. 
 
 You cannot state any proportion of the labour of horses in 
 drawing a carriage ? No, not particularly so ; I did not expect 
 to be asked, but it is not very material. 
 
95 
 
 In what state is that road, compared with the road from Twy- 
 ford to London :- I consider the road from Twyford to be a 
 little mended, but it is very bad at present. 
 
 Do you think by the adoption of the same system the road 
 from Twyford to London might be equally improved ? I have 
 no doubt of it ; the materials are better. 
 
 Which of course would make a great difference in the ease of 
 working your coaches ?- Yes ; I should think we could per- 
 form the journey from Newbury to Reading in a quarter of an 
 hour's less time, which is seventeen miles. 
 
 Have you, as proprietor of mail coaches, had occasion to 
 express any dissatisfaction to the Post Office, with regard to 
 your present contracts ? Certainly, with very great reason. 
 
 Do you think that you should be enabled to continue those 
 contracts at the present rate, if the roads are not put into a 
 better state of repair ? That entirely depends upon the price of 
 corn ; we were very great sufferers till lately, that corn has fallen 
 so much : or else my brother, as well as myself, intended to 
 quit the mails, because we were losing a great deal of money. 
 
 Do you consider that the system of repairing roads, which 
 has been adopted in that part of the road which you have de- 
 scribed as under the superintendance of Mr. M'Adam, is su- 
 perior to any other that you have seen adopted ? Certainly, I 
 am sure it is, there is no question about it* 
 
 And that its general adoption would be highly beneficial to 
 the coach proprietors, and to the public ? Most certainly. 
 
 Mr. Fromont being prevented by an accident from attending 
 the Committee, it was resolved that the following Letter be 
 entered on the Minutes : 
 
 Gentlemen, Thatchara, May 1819. 
 
 I think it a duty incumbent on me to present to you my 
 opinion respecting Mr, M'Adam's plan of repairing and im- 
 
96 
 
 proving turnpike roads. From what I have noticed of his im- 
 provement on different parts of the Bath road, on which I am at 
 present working different coaches a distance of above 500 miles 
 per day, I think his plan altogether, i. e. first of screening and 
 cleansing the gravel, and breaking the stones; secondly, of 
 preparing the road to receive it ; and thirdly, of laying it on the 
 road, is the best and safest method I have ever seen in the 
 course of fifty years experience in the coach and waggon busi- 
 ness. I have formerly had several accidents happen from the 
 gravel being laid too thick and very high in the middle of the 
 road ; and have killed some hundreds of horses (extra) in 
 pulling through it ; and I think I may venture to say, that if 
 Mr. M< Adam's plan was adopted generally throughout the 
 kingdom, in the course of a short time the public would be 
 enabled to travel with much greater ease and safety, and at 
 nearly one-third less of expense ; at all events I am convinced 
 that nearly one-third less labour is required to work a fast 
 coach over part of the road between Reading and London-, 
 where M< Adam's plan has been adopted, than there is over 
 other parts of the road where they still continue the old plan. 
 In short, my opinion may be given in a few words j his plan, if 
 adopted generally, will cause the traveller to find easier, safer, 
 and more expeditious travelling, and the owners of horses a dimi- 
 nution of nearly one-third of the original labour. 
 I am, Gentlemen, with respect, 
 
 Your most obedient servant, 
 
 Edward Fromont. 
 
 Jovis, 4 die Martii, 1819. 
 
 John Loudon M l Adam t Esq. called in; and Examined. 
 
 I BELIEVE, Mr. M< Adam, you reside at Bristol ? Ye*, 
 I do. 
 
07 
 
 And have under your care a considerable district of the turn- 
 pike roads in that neighbourhood ? Yes, about one hundred and 
 eighty miles of road in that neighbourhood. 
 
 How long has your attention been particularly directed to the 
 state of the public roads of the kingdom generally, and the means 
 of their improvement ? About twenty-five years. 
 
 Are you a professional civil engineer ? No. 
 
 Be pleased to state to the Committee the general state of the 
 turnpike roads at the time you first directed your attention to 
 them, about tweHty years ago ? I think the state of the roads 
 twenty years ago, was worse generally than at present, and in 
 particular places much worse. If the Committee would indulge 
 me, I would mention what first led me to these considerations. 
 On my first arriving from America in the year 1783, at the 
 time the roads were making in Scotland (their Turnpike Acts 
 being in operation about twenty years at that time,) very many 
 of their roads were unmade. I was then appointed a commis- 
 sioner of the roads, and had occasion in that capacity to aee a 
 great deal of road-work. 
 
 Where ? In Scotland. This first led me to inquire into the 
 general method of road-making, and the expense of it. Since 
 that period, I have been mostly in Bristol, where I was also ap- 
 pointed a commissioner of the roads ; the very defective state of 
 which could not fail to attract my attention. I was induced to 
 offer myself to the commissioners, to take charge of the roads as 
 a surveyor, because I found it impossible for any individual 
 commissioner to get the roads put into a situation of being 
 mended with any prospect of success ; and no individual could 
 incur the expense of making experiments on a great scale. The 
 roads of Bristol were accordingly put under my direction in the 
 month of January 1816. 
 
 That was when you were appointed surveyor ? Yes, I have 
 travelled at various times, during the last twenty years, to 
 ascertain which are the best roads, and which the best means of 
 
 G 
 
road-making ever the whole kingdom, from Inverness in Scot- 
 land to the Land's End in Cornwall. I have obtained all the 
 information that an unauthorized person could expect to receive. 
 In the course of travelling through the country, I have generally 
 found the roads in a very defective state, certainly much worse 
 in particular parts of the country than in others ; and in particu- 
 lar counties I have found some parts of the roads much worse 
 than in other parts of the same county. The defects of the roads 
 appear to me to proceed from various causes, but principally 
 from the large use of a mixture of clay and chalk and other 
 matters, that imbibe water, and are affected by frost. Such 
 roads become loose in wet weather, so as to allow the wheels 
 of carriages to displace the materials, and thereby occasion the 
 the roads to be rough and rutty. More pains, and much more ex- 
 pense, have been bestowed on the roads of late years, but without, in 
 my opinion, producing any adequate effect, from want of skill in 
 the executive department. I consider the roads in South Wales, 
 in Monmouthshire, in Cornwall, in Devonshire, in Hereford- 
 shire, in part of Hampshire, in part of Oxfordshire, and some 
 part of Gloucestershire, are managed with the least skill, and 
 consequently, at the heaviest expense. The paved roads of Lan- 
 cashire appear to be very unprofitable, and very expensive. I 
 shall mention to the Committee a few roads which I think in a 
 better condition and under a better system of management. 
 Eastward of Bridgewater in Somersetshire, near Kendall in 
 Westmoreland, and near North Allerton, in Yorkshire, the 
 roads appear to be in a much better state than in other parts of the 
 kingdom ; and there is a striking difference in the moderate rate 
 of their tolls, which I have always found most moderate where 
 the roads are best managed. I consider the reason of the roads 
 in those parts being in a better condition than in other places, is 
 from greater skill and attention being paid to the preparation of 
 the materials, and the manner of laying them on the roads. 
 Does the superiority of roads, in certain places that you have 
 
99 
 
 mentioned, arise from their better materials in those neighbour- 
 hoods ? No ; the same material is found in many parts of the 
 kingdom with much worse roads. 
 
 Then, in general, you impute the badness of the roads solely 
 to the applying of the materials ? Yes. 
 
 And also to the formation of the roads? That I consider as 
 part of the application of the materials. 
 
 Has there prevailed of late years a general spirit of improve- 
 ment, in different parts of the country, with regard to the roads? 
 * I think there has, and particularly in the west country. 
 
 What instances have come within your own knowledge? 
 The roads immediately round the city of Bristol to the extent of 
 148 miles, round Bath to the extent of 49 miles, between Ciren- 
 cester and Bath to the amount of 32 miles, the roads of nine 
 trusts in the eastern parts of Sussex amounting to 97 miles, at 
 Epsom in Surrey amounting to 20 miles, at Reading in Berk- 
 shire six miles, amounting in the whole to 352 miles, have been 
 put into a very good condition; in addition to which, there are 
 now under repair, five trusts in Wiltshire and Berkshire, amount- 
 ing to 108 miles ; six trusts in Middlesex, Cambridge and 
 Huntingdon, amounting to 91 miles; six trusts in Devonshire, 
 Buckinghamshire and Glamorganshire, amounting to 129 miles; 
 making a total of 328 miles under repair. These are roads that 
 have been mended, or are now mending, under directions which 
 I have given, or which have been given by my family. 
 
 You are not particularly acquainted with the improvements 
 taking place under the management of other persons ? Not par- 
 ticularly; but I have some knowledge of some of them from 
 circumstances. 
 
 You have not taken under observation the great road to 
 Holyhead ? No; that I understand is a new road. You asked 
 me with respect to the spirit of improvement ; I would wish to 
 explain in what way 1 think that is proceeding. I have been 
 sent for and consulted by 34? different sets of commissioners, ai/d 
 
 G 2 
 
100 
 
 as many different trusts, and in 13 counties, to the extent of 637 
 miles, all of whom have been making improvements, and I have 
 had many sub-surveyors instructed and sent to various parts of 
 the country, at the request of commissioners; many survey- 
 ors also in the neighbourhood where improvements are making, 
 have availed themselves of the opportunity of having instruction. 
 Thus the surveyors of Southampton and that neighbourhood have 
 attended to what is doing at Salisbury and Wilton ; thus the sur- 
 veyors at Kingston and Guildford have profited by the im- 
 provements at Epsom in Surrey. 
 
 On which road are the 20 miles that you mentioned at Ep- 
 som ? From Epsom to Tooting, and then across the country 
 to Kingston. Several surveyors near Reading in Berkshire have 
 imitated, with considerable success, the improvements on that 
 road. Mr. Clay, who has contracted for the repair of the 
 Kingsland road near London, engaged a young man who was 
 in my office at Bristol, Mr. Marshal, whom he sent afterwards 
 to Leeds in Yorkshire. It has been my study to give every 
 facility to spread information. 
 
 Has your attention been directed to the roads in the neigh- 
 bourhood of London ; and can you state to the Committee 
 whether any corresponding improvement has taken place in this 
 district? I think less improvement has taken place round Lon- 
 don than in the country. On the new Surrey roads the example 
 set by the pieces of road made at Blackfriars and Westminster 
 bridges has induced a little amendment; the materials have been 
 more carefully broken, and they have continued to use the ham- 
 mers, rakes and other tools which were recommended to them ; 
 but the general improvement is unimportant : and I am not aware 
 that any alteration has taken place in the system of expenditure, 
 and the mode of being upplied with materials, or in employing 
 more competent surveyors. 
 
 From the experience you have had in the improvements that 
 have taken place, have you found that these have been attended 
 
101 
 
 generally, with an increase or diminution of expense ? In gene- 
 ral the expense must be diminished by the improvements. The 
 repairs of one hundred and forty-eight miles round Bristol, and 
 many expensive permanent improvements and alterations, have 
 been made in the last three years, during which a floating debt of 
 upwards 1,4OO/. has been paid off, a considerable reduction of 
 the principal debt has been made, and a balance of a consider- 
 able amount is remaining in the hands of the treasurer, applica- 
 ble to further alterations, or to the payment of part of the debt, 
 at the discretion of the commissioners. 
 
 Can you state what proportion that is? I think the first 
 year, 723/, 
 
 What is the amount of the whole debt ? The whole debt is 
 43,000/. I said a considerable reduction of the principal debt 
 had been made, I did not use the word proportion. I can men- 
 tion that the balance in the hands of the treasurer, on the last 
 settlement of the account amounted to 2,7907. Os. 4*/. in the 
 Bristol district, beside a considerable diminution of the debt, and 
 beside alterations and improvements. 
 
 That applies only to one hundred and forty-eight miles round 
 Bristol ? - Only to the one hundred and forty-eight miles round 
 Bristol. The Bristol district has been under one trust for twenty 
 years, and in that period the debt has increased to 43,000/. 
 
 You will be kind enough to furnish the Committee with a 
 statement similar to that which was supplied by you to the 
 Holyhead Committee, down to the latest period? I will. 
 Bristol is the only district for which I can have precise figures, 
 X have not had the finances in my own management or direction 
 with respect to the others. As I have only advised with respect to 
 them, I cannot give you the items ; and I must say, that my infor- 
 mation with respect to other roads, must be much more general 
 than witfc respect to this road. In Sussex, the roads in nine 
 trusts have been mended with a considerable diminution of the 
 Conner expense, and the thanks of a general meeting of the trustee* 
 
102 
 
 of the Lewes trusts were unanimously voted to Lord Chiches? 
 ter " for the introduction of this system, by which the roads 
 had been so much improved, and the country was likely to 
 derive so much benefit. J * 
 
 Have you found that a similar diminution of expense has 
 taken place where the materials have been bad, as where they 
 have been good ?- Yes, I have. 
 
 Do you find your mode of management equally applicable 
 where the materials are bad as where they are good, and that 
 t he same proportionable benefit arises? 1 am afraid gentlemen 
 suppose that I have some particular mode of management, which 
 is certainly not the case, nor can by any means be the case; and in 
 every road I have been obliged to alter the mode of management, 
 according to the situation of the roads, and sometimes accord- 
 ing to the finances. At Epsom in Surrey, the roads have been 
 put into a good repair, at an expense considerably under the 
 former annual expenditure, by which the trustees have been 
 enabled to lower their tolls on agricultural carriages. The road 
 between Reading and Twyford, in Berkshire, has been made 
 solid and smooth since the beginning of July last, by persons 
 under my directions, at an expense, including the surveyor's 
 salary, not exceeding fifteen pounds per week; and their former 
 expenditure, exclusive of the surveyor's salary, was twenty-two 
 pounds per week. A great part of the road in the neighbour- 
 hood of Bath, which was formed upon the plan laid down in 
 my report to the commissioners, and with the greatest success* 
 is made with freestone, which was always supposed impossible 
 to make a good road of; but it will make a good road. It 
 certainly does not last so long as one made of better materials; 
 but it is equally good whilst it does last. One of the roads out 
 of Bristol towards Old Down has been made good, where it 
 was a received opinion, that from the nature of the materials the 
 road could not be made so; and the commissioners would net 
 consent to my beginning it until the road was threatened to be 
 indicted. It was put into my hands in October 1816, and at 
 
108 
 
 the Christmas following I was able to report that it was one of 
 the best roads in England for a distance of eleven miles, at the 
 expense of first outlay only of 600/. and it has continued so until 
 the present. 
 
 Please to inform the Committee, what are the means, in your 
 opinion, the most eligible to be adopted for the amelioration of 
 the roads throughout the kingdom? That question, I think, 
 divides itself into two branches: The operative part, in making 
 the roads, and the care of the finances, and the mode of their 
 expenditure. I should imagine the operative part of preparing 
 roads cannot be effected without procuring a more skilful set of 
 sub-surveyors ; young men, brought up to agriculture and labour 
 must be sought, and regularly instructed. It is a business that 
 cannot be taught from books, but can only be acquired by a 
 laborious practice of several months, and actual work upon 
 roads, under skilful road-makers. Young men who have been 
 accustomed to agricultural labour are fittest to be made road, 
 surveyors, as their occupations have given them opportunities of 
 being acquainted with the value of labour both of men and 
 horses. But I should greatly mislead the Committee if I did 
 not inform them, that skill in the operative part of road-making 
 cannot alone produce a reformation of the multitude of abuses 
 that are practised in almost every part of the country, in the 
 management of 'roads and road funds. These abuses can only 
 be put down by officers in the situation of gentlemen, who must 
 enjoy the confidence^ and have the support of commissioners, and 
 who must exercise a constant and vigilant inspection over the 
 expenditure made by the sub^-surveyors. They must be enabled 
 to certify to the commissioners that the public money is judi- 
 ciously and usefully, as well as honestly expended ; without this 
 control and superintendence an end cannot be put to the waste 
 of the public money, and all the various modes tkat are injurious 
 to the public interest, the amount of which would appear incre- 
 dible, could it be ascertained; but which, I conscientiously 
 
104 
 
 believe, amount to one-eighth of the road revenue of the king- 
 dom at large, and to a much greater proportion near 
 London. 
 
 Do you mean the frauds amount to one-eighth ? No, not 
 direct frauds, I cdl it mis-application ; it must not be concealed, 
 that the temptations with which, even a superior officer will be 
 assailed, the facility of yielding to them, and the impunity with 
 which transgression may be committed, require great delicacy in 
 the selection of persons to fill the situation ; and encouragement 
 to make this a profession must be in proportion to the quality of 
 the person required 
 
 Do you not consider one of these mis-applications to be the 
 injudicious use of the labour of horses, instead of that of men, 
 women and children ? I do consider that to be a great mis- 
 application of the labour of horses. I am afraid that gentlemen 
 may understand, from what I said, that frauds are committed 
 to the amount of one-eighth, but I meant no such thing ; I meant 
 the loss arising from mis-application generally. I have in gene- 
 ral found a great deal more materials put upon the road than are 
 necessary, and I am of opinion that is one of the chief causes 
 of the waste of the public money. 
 
 Do you think the loss arises, in most instances, from mistake, 
 or from any abuse in regard to the power and patronage which 
 the situation confers ? I think it proceeds from mistakes and 
 ignorance mostly. 
 
 Please to explain to the Committee in what way you think the 
 labour of men, women and children, may be substituted for that 
 of horses ? I have generally found that a much greater quan- 
 tity of materials have been carted to the roads than are necessary, 
 and therefore the increase of horse-labour has been beyond any 
 ustful purpose, and that generally the roads of the kingdom 
 contain a supply of materials sufficient for their use for several 
 years, if they were properly lifted and applied ; this is to be 
 entirely done by men, women and children, men lifting the 
 
105 
 
 roads, and women and boys, and men past labour, breaking the 
 stones which were lifted up. 
 
 By lifting the road, you mean turning it up with the pick- 
 axe ? Yes ; that I consider as man's work ; taking up the 
 materials and breaking stones, I consider the work of women 
 and children, and which indeed ought to have been done before 
 those materials had been laid down. 
 
 How deep do you go in lifting the roads ? That depends 
 upon circumstances, but I have generally gone four inches deep ; 
 I take the materials up four inches deep, and having broken the 
 larger pieces, 1 put them back again. 
 
 Please to explain to the Committee the mode of breaking the 
 stones so as to admit of the labour of men, women and chil- 
 dren ? When the stones of an old road have been taken up, 
 they are generally found of the size that women and boys can 
 break them with small hammers, and therefore I would propose 
 to employ these people to break those stones always before they 
 are laid back in the roads. 
 
 Is it your plan for those people to break those stones stand- 
 ing, or in a sitting posture ? Always in a sitting posture : 
 because I have found that persons sitting will break more stones 
 than persons standing, and with a lighter hammer. 
 
 Does that apply to all materials ? To all materials uni- 
 versally. 
 
 Does the plan which you have mentioned of breaking up the 
 roads, apply to gravel roads, or only to those roads composed of 
 hard stones ? In gravel roads and in some other roads it would 
 be impossible to break them up to any advantage ; and in several 
 places which I will explain, I should think it unprofitable to lift 
 a road at all. There is a discretion of the surveyor, or the 
 person who has the execution of the work, which must be exer- 
 cised. I did not order the road in the neighbourhood of 
 Reading to be lifted, but I directed wherever a large piece of 
 flint was seen, it should be taken up, broken, and put down 
 
106 
 
 again; and I directed the road to be made perfectly clean 1 
 am speaking of a gravel road now and I directed that additional 
 gravel should be prepared in the pits by screening the dirt very 
 clean from it, breaking all the large pieces and bringing that 
 upon the road in very light coats not exceeding two inches at a 
 time; and when those coats were settled, to bring others of very 
 clean materials upon the road, until it settled into a solid smooth 
 hard surface, and which the coachmen in their mode of ex- 
 pression, say " runs true." The wheel runs hard upon it ; it 
 runs upon the nail. 
 
 Uninfluenced by the state of the weather ? Perfectly so. 
 
 In your experience, have you observed that on gravel roads 
 the materials are generally very unskilfully and improperly 
 applied ? Generally so. I think always I may say, for I think 
 I never saw them skilfully or properly managed. 
 
 Have you adopted the mode of washing the gravel ? No ; I 
 think that is a more expensive process than is necessary. 
 
 Do you think it more expensive than screening ? A great 
 deal more so, and I have another reason for objecting to that, 
 with respect to the gravel near London ; the loam adheres so 
 strongly to it that no ordinary washing will clean it. The loam 
 is detached from the gravel by the united effort of the water 
 on the road, and the travelling, by which the roads near London 
 become so excessively dirty ; but it would be impossible to de- 
 tach the loam from the gravel in the pits, by throwing water 
 on it ; I have tried the experiment and know the fact. 
 
 To what particular practice do you allude, when you inform 
 the Committee that gravel is unskilfully applied to the roads 
 in general ? I see that on gravel roads, the gravel is put on 
 after being very imperfectly sifted, and the large pieces not being 
 broken, and the gravel is kid on the middle of the road and 
 allowed to find its own may to the sides. Now th principle of 
 road -making I think the most valuable, is to put broken stone 
 upon a road, which shall unite by its own angles, so as to 
 
107 
 
 form a solid hard surface, and therefore it follows, that when 
 that material is laid upon the road, it must remain in the situation 
 in which it is placed without ever being moved again ; and what 
 I find fault with putting quantities of gravel on the road is, 
 that before it becomes useful it must move its situation and be 
 in constant motion. 
 
 In order to attain the advantage you allude to in the angular 
 materials, I take it for granted, it is your plan to have the larger 
 pieces of gravel well broken? Certainly; but I mean further, 
 that in digging the gravel near London, and places where there 
 are vast quantities of loam, and that loam adhering to every 
 particle of the gravel, however small, I should recommend to 
 leave the very small or fine part of the gravel in the pits, and to 
 make use of the larger part which can be broken, for the double 
 purpose of having the gravel laid on the road in an angular 
 .shape, and that the operation of breaking it is the most effectual 
 operation for beating off the loam that adheres to the pieces of 
 gravel. There are other cases besides that of gravel, in which 
 I should think it unprofitable to lift a road. The road between 
 Cirencester and Bath is made of very soft stone, and is of so 
 brittle a nature, that if it were lifted it would rise in sand, and 
 there would be nothing to lay down again that would be useful. 
 I should not recommend lifting of freestone roads for the same 
 reason, because it would go so much to sand that there would 
 be very little to lay down again. I will explain what I have 
 done to that road between Cirencester and Bath ; I was obliged 
 to lift a little of the sides of the road in order to give it shape, 
 but in the centre of the road, we, what our men call, " shaved 
 it ;" it was before in the state which the country people call 
 ' gridironed," that is, it was in long ridges with long hollows 
 between, and we cut down the high part to a level with the 
 bottom of the furrows, and took the materials and sifted them at 
 the side of the road and returned what was useful to the 
 centre. 
 
108 
 
 Can you state whether the plan adopted on this road has in- 
 creased or diminished the expense ? 1 think the expenses, by 
 the last account, were rather within the expenditure of the former 
 year, even including the new surveyor's wages. They had been 
 in the practice of allowing about 327. a week to the two sur- 
 veyors as the ordinary expenditure ; I directed the new sur- 
 veyors not to exceed that sum upon any account whatever, 
 including their own wages: but formerly they paid that sum, 
 and paid the surveyor his wages at the end of the quarter or 
 half-year in addition : therefore I consider the sum expended 
 upon the road is rather within the former expenditure than 
 otherwise, except with regard to two dangerous slips which 
 took place at Swainswick-hill, which I consider as perfectly 
 extra. 
 
 In the formation of roads under your management, to what 
 shape do you give the preference; I allude to the convex 
 shape or the flat ? I consider a road should be as flat as pos- 
 sible with regard to allowing the water to run off at all, because 
 a carriage ought to stand upright in travelling as much as pos- 
 sible. I have generally made roads three inches higher in the 
 centre than I have at the sides, when they are 18 feet wide; 
 if the road be smooth and well made, the water will run off very 
 easily in such a slope. 
 
 Do you consider a road so made will not be likely to wear 
 hollow in the middle, so as to allow the water to stand, after it 
 has been used for some time ? No ; when a road is made 
 flat, people will not follow the middle of it as they do when it is 
 made extremely convex. Gentlemen will have observed that in 
 roads very convex, travellers generally follow the track in the 
 middle, which is the only place where a carriage can run upright, 
 by which means three furrows are made by the horses and the 
 wheels, and ihe water continually stands there : and I think that 
 more water actually stands upon a very convex road than on one 
 which is reasonably flat* 
 
What width would you in general recommend for laying 
 materials on a turnpike road? That must depend upon the 
 situation* Near great towns roads of course ought to be wider 
 than farther in the country. Roads near great towns ought not 
 to be less than thirty or forty feet wide, but at a distance from 
 great towns it would be a waste of land to make them so 
 wide. 
 
 You mean a breadth of thirty feet actual road ? Yes. The 
 access to Bristol for a distance of about three miles, if we had 
 room between the hedges, I would make about thirty feet wide. 
 Between Bath and Bristol I should wish to see the road wide 
 all the way, because it is only the distance of twelve miles be- 
 tween two large cities. 
 
 In what way do you make the watercourses at the sides of 
 the road ; I ask that question, having observed the farmers, in 
 exercising their power of cleaning out their ditches, dig them to 
 such a depth as to render them dangerous to be passed at night ? 
 I always wished the ditch to be so dug as that the materials 
 of the road should be three or four inches above the level of the 
 water in the ditch, and to that point we endeavour to bring the 
 farmers, but they are very unwilling to clean the ditches at any 
 time when called upon, and when they do it, if they find vege- 
 table mould in any quantity at the bottom of the ditch, they will 
 prosecute their inquiry much deeper than is useful, or proper for 
 safety. 
 
 Do you consider you have power by law, at present, for 
 preventing that ? Yes ; because the law says, they are to clean 
 them out according to the directions of the surveyors. 
 
 In your experience have you found any impediment to the 
 improvement of the roads, from a want of power in the pro- 
 prietors of different navigations to lower their tolls for convey- 
 ing materials ? I have found in the river Lea navigation, that 
 the trustees have no power to lower their tolls, which were im- 
 posed by act of parliament upon merchandise, and therefore, it 
 
110 
 
 operated in a great measure as a prohibition to carry material* 
 upon that river. 
 
 Do you consider it would be to the interest of the pro- 
 prietors to allow materials to be carried on their navigations at 
 a lower rate than they are empowered to allow by law ? Yes, 
 if they could. 
 
 Do you know any similar instance as applicable to canals ? 
 I don't know an instance with respect to canal trusts, but there 
 is an instance with respect to the Bath river at Bristol. No 
 mitigation of the present rate of duty on that river can take place 
 if objected to by any one proprietor, and therefore we have 
 found great difficulty in carrying materials on the Bath river. 
 In one particular place we have been entirely precluded from 
 carrying any. 
 
 Have you found any impediment to the improvement of roads 
 arising from the conditions upon which materials are permitted 
 to be conveyed from one parish to another ? Yes ; I found that 
 in several cases in the Bristol district. One very strong instance 
 occurred near Keynsham ; we had a quarry close to the edge of 
 one parish, and we could not carry the stones from it to the 
 distance of ten yards, without the process of going to the 
 magistrates. 
 
 Did you in that case make application to the magistrates ? - 
 I did intend to make application, but before I made that appli- 
 cation, I found in the very next field, belonging to the same 
 farmer, and in the parish where we required them, the necessary 
 materials, and I was under the necessity of opening both the 
 fields, to the detriment of the farmer's landlord I am persuaded. 
 
 Do you know an instance of such an application as that to 
 which you have alluded, having been made to the magistrates, 
 and having been refused ? No, I do not. 
 
 Do you think that, a great inconvenience and loss of time 
 would be saved if that necessity of application was dispensed 
 with ? It certainly is a great inconvenience, and creates a great 
 
Ill 
 
 deal of heart-burning in the country, and much dispute. I think, 
 the commissioners would very seldom be disposed to carry ma- 
 terials from one parish to another, unless for the general public 
 good. 
 
 What depth of solid materials would you think it right to put 
 upon a road, in order to repair it properly ? I should think that 
 ten inches of well consolidated materials is equal to carry any- 
 thing. 
 
 That is, provided the substratum is sound ? No ; I should 
 not care whether the substratum was soft or hard ; I should 
 rather prefer a soft one to a hard one. 
 
 You don't mean you would prefer a bog ? If it was not such 
 a bog as would not allow a man to walk over, I should prefer it. 
 
 What advantage is derived from the substrata not being per- 
 fectly solid ? I think, when a road is placed upon a hard sub- 
 stance, such as a rock, the road wears much sooner than when 
 placed on a soft substance. 
 
 But must not the draught of a carriage be much greater on a 
 road which has a very soft foundation, than over one which is of 
 a rocky foundation ? I think the difference would be very little 
 indeed, because the yield of a good road on a soft foundation, is 
 not perceptible. 
 
 To use the expression to which you have alluded, as being 
 used by the coachmen, would a carriage run so true upon a road, 
 the foundation of which was soft, as upon one of which the 
 foundation was hard ? If the road be very good, and very well 
 made, it will be so solid, and so hard, as to make no difference. 
 And I will give the Committee a strong instance of that, in the 
 knowledge of many gentlemen here. The road in Somerset- 
 shire, between Bridge water and Cross, is mostly over a morass, 
 which is so extremely soft, that when you ride in a carriage along 
 the road, you see the water tremble in the ditches on each side ; 
 and after there has been a slight frost, the vibration of the 
 water from the carriage on the road, will be so great as to 
 
112 
 
 break the young ice. That road is partly in the Bristol district. 
 I think there is about seven miles of it, and at the end of those 
 seven miles, we come directly on the limestone rock. I think 
 we have about five or six miles of this rocky road immediately 
 succeeding the morass ; and being curious to know what the 
 wear was, I had a very exact account kept, not very lately, but 
 I think the difference is as five to seven in the expenditure of 
 the materials on the soft and hard. 
 
 Do you mean seven on the hard and five on the soft ? Yes. 
 
 And yet the hard road is more open to the effect of the sun 
 and air than the soft road ? It certainly lies higher. 
 
 Have you ever inquired of the coachmen, on which of those 
 two descriptions of roads the carriages run the lightest ? Yes, 
 I have ; and I have found that there is no difference, if the road 
 be equally smooth on the surface, whether it be placed on the 
 soft ground or bard. 
 
 But in forming a road over a morass, would you bottom the 
 road with small or large stones ? I never use large stones on the 
 bottom of a road? I would not put a large stone in any part 
 of it. 
 
 In forming a road across morass, would you not put some sort 
 of intermediate material between the bog and the stone ? No, 
 never. 
 
 Would you not put faggots ? No, no faggots. 
 
 How small would you use the stones ? Not to exceed six 
 ounces in weight. 
 
 Have you not found that a foundation of bog sinks ? No, not 
 a bit of the road sinks ; and we have the same thickness of ma- 
 terials on the one as on the other. 
 
 If a road be made smooth and solid, it will be one mass, and 
 the effect of the substrata, whether clay or sand, can never be 
 felt in effect by carriages going over the road ; because a road 
 well made, unites itself into a body like a piece of timber or a 
 board. 
 
Ira 
 
 In making a road under these circumstances, do you make the 
 Whole of the depth of materials at once ? No, I prefer making 
 a road in three times. 
 
 Three different times ? Yes. 
 
 To what size would you break the hard materials ? To the 
 size of six ounces weight. 
 
 Do you not think that is an indefinite criterion ; had you not 
 better mention the size ? No ; I did imagine myself, that the 
 difference existed to which you allude, and 1 have weighed six 
 ounces of different substances, and am confident there is little 
 difference in appearance and none in effect ; I think that none 
 ought to exceed six ounces ; I hold six ounces to be the maxi- 
 mum size. If you made the road of all six-ounce stones it 
 would be a rough road ; but it is impossible but that the greater 
 part of the stones must be under that size. 
 
 Do you find a measure or ring through which the stones will 
 pass, a good method of regulating their size ? That is a very 
 good way, but I always make my surveyors carry a pair of scales 
 and a six ounce weight in their pocket, and when they come to 
 a heap of stones, they weigh one or two of the largest, and if 
 they are reasonably about that weight they will do ; it is impos- 
 sible to make them come exactly to it. I would beg leave to 
 say, in all cases of laying new materials upon an old road, I re- 
 Commend loosening the surface with a pickaxe a very little, so 
 as to allow the new materials to unite with the old, otherwise 
 the new materials being laid on the hard surface never unite, but 
 get kicked about, and are lost to the roads ; wherever new mate- 
 rials are to be put down upon an old road, I recommend a 
 little loosening ; but that I don't call lifting. 
 
 Have you stated what thickness of new materials you would 
 lay down on an old road ? I should consider an old road would 
 not want new materials if it had ten inches of materials before, 
 but 1 should only pick up the materials, and break the large 
 stones ; and if there were any want of materials, I would lay on 
 as much as would bring it up to somewhere about the ten inches, 
 
 H 
 
U4 
 
 Would you prefer doing that in dry weather or in wet wea- 
 ther ? In wet weather, always ; I always prefer mending a road 
 in weather not very dry. 
 
 Are you of opinion that any alteration of the present law, 
 either in regard to the repeal of the present regulations or the 
 enactment of new ones, could advantageously take place in re- 
 gard to the shape of wheels, and the allowance of weight to be 
 carried in waggons and carts ? I am of opinion that the descrip- 
 t ions of wheels given in all the acts of parliament in the last 
 sessions are the most convenient and useful ; and I have thought 
 of the matter very much, without being able to suggest any alter- 
 ation profitable to the public. With respect to weights, I con- 
 sider there are very great difficulties in that business. We have 
 weighing machines in the neighbourhood I now am in, and I am 
 persuaded in many instances that they are made instruments of 
 oppression, and in a great many cases the means of committing 
 very great fraud on the commissioners and others ; and if some 
 method could be fallen upon by which weighing machines might 
 be dispensed with altogether, and the road reasonably protected, 
 I should think it a very great public advantage. In the new 
 Bristol Act, I have proposed to the commissioners that they 
 should submit to parliament to lay a toll-duty upon the number 
 of horses in a progressive ratio, so as to compel those people who 
 offend to bring in their hands the penalty in the shape of toll ; I 
 think it would prevent a great deal of that system of entering 
 into combinations between the toll collectors and the waggoners, 
 which is carried on to a great extent. 
 
 Do you think, that if horses in narrow-wheeled waggons 
 were obliged to draw otherwise than at length, it would afford 
 any protection to the road ? Yes. 
 
 Has not the practice of making horses draw at length very 
 much a tendency to make the horses follow one track, be the 
 road ever so good ? Yes ; and I must mention to the Com- 
 mittee, that the feet of horses on ill-made roads do full as much 
 
115 
 
 mischief at the wheels. It is driving horses in a string that 
 makes a road what the country people call " gridironed ;" it is 
 an odd expression, but it is a very significant one. 
 
 Do you not believe, that if horses were attached to narrow- 
 wheeled waggons in pairs, it would be found very considerably 
 easier to drive and guide them when abreast, than when placed 
 at length ? I should think it would. 
 
 And would it not tend to prevent accidents ? Horses driven 
 in pairs would provide in a great measure against the accidents 
 that arise from the carelessness of those persons who drive them, 
 which is extremely great. 
 
 Do you think that if horses were put in pairs to waggons, the 
 power of holding back those waggons when going down a hill, 
 would be so much increased as to prevent the necessity of so 
 frequently locking the wheels ? Certainly it would ; because on 
 certain slopes it would not be necessary to lock the wheels ; but 
 there are very steep hills where you cannot do without locking. 
 
 Is not locking wheels an operation extremely injurious to the 
 roads ? I am not prepared to say it is, if the drag-iron, as it is 
 called, be of a proper description. I followed a waggon lately, 
 with seven tons of timber on it, down Park-street, at Bristol, 
 being a very steep road, with both its hind wheels locked ; and 
 this waggon, with this weight of timber on it, and with both 
 the hind wheels locked, did not make the least impression from 
 the top of the street to the bottom. You could discern where 
 the drag-irons had gone, but they had not displaced the mate- 
 rials nor done any mischief. 
 
 Don't you find locking" generally injurious ? -Extremely in- 
 jurious ; on rough roads it is dreadful. 
 
 Would not fewer ruts be made if it were more the custom for 
 horses to draw in pairs ? I believe gentlemen are not generally 
 aware of what a rut consists. There are two kinds of ruts, ge- 
 nerally speaking ; one is a rut produced by displacing ill-prepared 
 materials, and that is the common rut. When a road is made of 
 
 H2 
 
116 
 
 ill-prepared materials, the wheel piles them up one upon another, 
 and that forms a very narrow rut, which just holds the wheel ; 
 but a rut made by wear upon a smooth surface, is rather a con- 
 cave hollow than a rut, and will present no difficulty to a car- 
 riage in travelling, and that is the difference between a rut pro- 
 duced by wear in a very well-made road, and that produced by 
 displacing the materials. 
 
 Is there not much injury done to the roads by the heavy weights 
 both of coaches and waggons ? I am not disposed to think that 
 upon a well-made road the weight of coaches is material, or that 
 it would be judicious to make any legal provisions affecting that 
 subject. In regard to waggons, I conceive that the loads car- 
 ried upon wheels of the description encouraged by recent acts of 
 parliament, whatever their weight, would be very little injurious 
 to well-made roads. I think a waggon wheel of six inches in 
 breadth, if standing fairly on the road with any weight whatever, 
 would do very little material injury to a road well made, and 
 perfectly smooth. The injury done to roads is by these immense 
 weights striking against materials, and in the present mode of 
 shaping the wheels they drive the materials before them, instead 
 of passing over them, because I think if a carriage passes fairly 
 over a smooth surface, that cannot hurt the road, but must rather 
 be an advantage to it, upon the principle of the roller. 
 
 Are you not of opinion that the immense weights carried by 
 the broad-wheeled waggons, even by their perpendicular pres- 
 sure, do injury by crushing the materials ? On a new-made road 
 the crush would do mischief, but on a consolidated old road the 
 mere perpendicular pressure does not do any. But there is a 
 great deal of injury done by the conical form of the broad wheels, 
 which operate like sledging instead of turning fairly. There is 
 a sixteen-inch wheel waggon which comes out of Bristol, that 
 does more injury to our roads than all the travelling of the day 
 besides. 
 
 Are you of opinion that any benefit arises from those broad- 
 
117 
 
 -wheeled waggons, which would justify their total exemption 
 from tolls ? None at all. 
 
 Does the answer you have given to the Committee relative to 
 the effect of great weights, apply equally to roads made with 
 gravel, as well as broken stone ? I mean it to apply to all well- 
 made roads, whether of gravel or of other materials. 
 
 You mean after the road is smooth and solid ? Yes. 
 
 But with regard to a new road, are you not of opinion that the 
 materials are crushed and worn out by a great weight ? Yes ; 
 no doubt that is so on a new-made road, and one of those wag- 
 gons with the wheels made conical, would crush a greater pro- 
 portion of stone than it ought to do. 
 
 Do you not conceive that the state of the turnpike roads would 
 be improved by not allowing any waggons to carry more weight 
 than four ton? I don't know that that would make any great 
 difference, under good management. I think the defect lies in 
 a want of science in road -making. 
 
 Martis, 9 die Marlii, 1819. 
 
 John Loudon M^Adam^ Esquire, called in ; and Examined. 
 
 IN your evidence last week, you stated that less improvement 
 had taken place in the roads in the neighbourhood of London 
 than in any other district, to what causes do you attribute this 
 circumstance I I consider the principal cause to be the small 
 extent of the trusts, and the peculiar situation of London, which 
 increases the bad effects of the division into very small trusts. 
 
 What are the particulars of the situation to which you allude ? 
 The situation of most of the roads near London is very low, 
 difficult to be kept free from water, the traffic is very great both 
 in weight and number, and therefore requiring more skill, as 
 well as more care and attention, than the other roads of the king- 
 dom } the material found near London for making the roads is 
 
118 
 
 gravel of a very bad quality, it is mixed with an adhesive loam 
 that cannot be separated from the gravel, except by the united 
 power of water and friction ; this operation cannot be effectually 
 performed before laying it on the roads, but is done by the rain 
 and the traffic, producing a stiff mud, which is not only in itself 
 an impediment to travelling, but has the effect of keeping the 
 roads loose ; the form of the gravel is also unfavourable, being 
 smooth round masses of flint, without any angles by which the 
 parts might unite. On the other hand, London is placed in a 
 situation peculiarly convenient for being supplied with materials 
 from a distance, by water carriage. The materials that may be 
 so procured are of the very best description, and, under the 
 sanction of parliament, may be procured on very moderate terms. 
 The Thames furnishes gravel of a very good quality and quite 
 clean ; by using this gravel, the navigation of the river will be 
 improved ; the several canals, the Surrey, the Grand Junction, 
 Paddington, and river Lea navigation, present facilities for pro- 
 curing clean flint of the best kind ; the coast of Essex, Kent, 
 and Sussex, can furnish a supply to any extent of beach pebbles, 
 one of the best road materials in the kingdom. Granite chippings 
 might be obtained occasionally from Cornwall, Guernsey and 
 Scotland, as ballast ; two pieces of road were made with these 
 materials near London, without any mixture of land gravel, at 
 Blackfriars Bridge and Westminster Bridge. 
 
 What are the impediments which, in your opinion, prevent 
 the commissioners of the roads near London from availing them- 
 selves of those advantages ? The very small trusts into which 
 the roads in the immediate vicinity of London are divided, is the 
 principal cause ; this renders it impossible for commissioners to 
 enter upon the plan of procuring materials upon an extended 
 scale, and they cannot be obtained with any regard to economy, 
 except in quantity, with a view to a supply for the whole roads, 
 proceeding from the stones of London to a certain distance. 
 There are also some impediments arising from particular laws. 
 
119 
 
 regulations and customs, which can only be removed by parlia- 
 ment. The Ballast Act gives a right of pre-emption to the 
 Trinity House of all stone and other materials brought as ballast 
 into the Thames. The coasting duty on stone operates as a pro- 
 hibition to the importation of stone as merchandize ; the amount 
 of canal duties payable on merchandize prevents the carriage of 
 road materials on all inland navigations ; manure so transported 
 has been protected in most Canal Acts, but road materials have 
 not been considered. Should parliament be pleased to remove 
 these difficulties, the London roads may be rendered independent 
 of the gravel of the country, by a moderate exertion of statisti- 
 cal and mercantile information on the part of the officers em- 
 ployed by the commissioners. 
 
 If the Committee understand you right, you give a decided 
 preference to materials thus imported, over the gravel to be found 
 in the neighbourhood of London ? I do. 
 
 Is it your opinion, that by proper regulations a sufficient supply 
 of those materials to which you have alluded, could be procured 
 for the whole of the roads in the neighbourhood of London ? 
 Yes, I think there might ; because a steady and constant demand, 
 even at a low price, would insure importation, and this demand 
 can only be steady if the roads round London were consolidated 
 under one set of commissioners acting for the whole, and having 
 depots into which they could receive materials at all times at a 
 fixed price, to be distributed wherever wanted, by an assurance of 
 a ready purchaser ; vessels coming in ballast, or not fully loaded, 
 from any place where good road materials were to be procured, 
 would be induced to take on board sufficient to make up their 
 loading ; contracts could also be made for flint by the various 
 canals, and upon terms more moderate than the present price of 
 gravel ; I am unable to lay before the Committee a detailed plan 
 for supplying the London roads with good and cheap materials, 
 which requires a considerable time and attention in the inquiry. 
 
120 
 
 Is there any other information connected with the improvement 
 of the roads in the neighbourhood of London, which you think 
 you could give to the Committee ? I am quite satisfied that the 
 materials to be imported into London would make good roads, 
 because I made two pieces of very excellent road with those ma- 
 terials at the two bridges, without making use of any gravel of 
 the country. 
 
 At what time was this done ? The pieces of road were made 
 in August and September 1817. 
 
 What was the extent r There were about 200 yards of the 
 one, and about 180 yards of the other ; one of them joins the 
 iron pavement at the foot of Blackfriars bridge ; and the otlur 
 joins the Marsh-gate turnpike, an4 goes to the Asylum ; those 
 roads were made with river-gravel and pebbles from the coast. 
 
 From whence did you get the river-gravel ? It was purchased 
 from the steam-engines that raise it in the river, 
 
 Did you lift the old road ? I took up all the stones that were 
 in them that were good for any thing, the flints and other stones> 
 and then made use of a considerable quantity of additional mate- 
 rials to make the surface of the road afterwards. 
 
 Was the expense considerable ? There was no account kept 
 of the expense of the experiment at Westminster bridge, because 
 the commissioners wished me to employ a number of paupers and 
 persons that had been on the road before, without discharging 
 them, who were very indifferent hands ; and they alo wished 
 that the road should be very considerably above the level than I 
 thought necessary, and that brought much more materials than 
 otherwise need have been put on ; but the Blackfriars bridge 
 experiment cost about seven-penie halfpenny per square yard; 
 there was a very correct account kept of it, including the price of 
 materials and labour, and every thing. 
 
 Could you state what that would amount to for a mile r That 
 would depend upon the breadth of the road. 
 
At what rate per mile would be the expense of such an im- 
 provement, supposing the road thirty feet wide ? About 528 J. 
 or 530 /. 
 
 Is not a road constructed with a road-way of sixteen feet 
 breadth of solid materials, and with six feet on each side of that 
 with slighter materials, a sufficient road for the general purposes 
 of country travelling ? Yes ; and generally the roads round 
 Bristol are made with stone, about the breadth of sixteen feet. 
 
 In your former answer respecting materials, you made use ge- 
 nerally of the term roads " round London," to what extent did 
 you mean to convey the idea of that improvement ? I should 
 think that the river, and the facility of the canals, might in all 
 places allow you to carry the improvement ten miles round Lon- 
 don ; and perhaps where the canals or rail-ways come through 
 the country, you might carry the improvement farther. 
 
 Has not the system of road management at present practised, 
 the effect of repressing efforts for acquiring skill and exertions of 
 science, as connected with the business of road-making? I 
 think it has. 
 
 Will you explain in what way ? Because the surveyors at pre- 
 sent appointed are not required to have any particular skill in their 
 business before they are appointed ; but the appointment generally 
 takes place to provide for some person a situation ; and the want 
 of superior officers over the sub-surveyors is the means of prevent- 
 ing those* sub-surveyors from acquiring a knowledge necessary to 
 execute their duties under an officer who would know whether 
 they were able to execute them or not. 
 
 You mean that there is a not a sufficient degree of inspection 
 and control provided by the legislature over the conduct of the 
 surveyor of the roads ? 1 think so. 
 
 Do you conceive that a more scientific system of management 
 of roads is wanted universally ? I do. 
 
 Do not you conceive that the want of this scientific system 
 
122 
 
 leads to a great waste of public money ? - 1 think it leads to a 
 great waste of public money. 
 
 And also to a great waste of property in horses and carriages ? 
 I think it does. 
 
 Has any estimate ever been made of the extent of that loss ? 
 There can be no accurate estimate of a loss so universal as that 
 of the waste of horses and carriages by bad roads ; but the Com- 
 mittee of 1811 estimated the saving which would be made to 
 the country by putting the roads in a proper state of repair* at a 
 sum equal to five millions annually. 
 
 What remedy would you propose to cure the defects of the 
 the general system of road management ? My opinion is, that 
 the only cure would be to have people of a better station of life 
 placed over them in the direction of this business ; that each 
 county or large district in the country ought to have an officer 
 in the character of a gentleman, to oversee the surveyors of the 
 district ; not only to direct them what to do, but to see that the 
 work is judiciously and honestly executed ; and I think a very 
 small proportion of the sum now wasted by bad management 
 would pay for such an establishment. 
 
 Would you alter the trusts ? That would be a great advantage, 
 if the trusts could be consolidated ; but there are objections to 
 that, and very serious objections. 
 
 Local objections ? Yes, such as the debt upon each trust. 
 
 Do you propose the appointment of those overseers* to be with 
 the present commissioners of the roads ? Certainly. 
 
 Do you propose any general inspection to be established over 
 the whole system of road-making ? I should think it a public 
 advantage if there was some inspection or controlling power in 
 some quarter or other, to prevent the general surveyors from 
 being improperly appointed ; but whether that controlling power 
 should emanate from the government, or the authorities in the 
 county, I am not a judge. 
 
123 
 
 Do you think a controlling power established in the metro- 
 polis, to communicate on the subject throughout the kingdom, 
 would be an advantageous establishment ? I think it would be a 
 very profitable and desirable establishment. 
 
 Looking to the revenues and to practical advantages ? Look- 
 ing to the revenues, practical advantages, and to the dissemina- 
 tion of information. 
 
 Would you propose their having a power of suspending officers 
 in certain cases ? Certainly, till the pleasure of the commis- 
 sioners was known ; on any gross instance of misconduct or 
 negligence. 
 
 Would not you propose they should report occasionally the 
 state and condition of the roads, and also the state of the finances 
 of each trust ? I should think the state of the finances ought 
 to be reported in some way every year, that they might reach 
 parliament, either by counties, or by some means the least ex- 
 pensive and least troublesome ; and I think such a report of the 
 finances, annually, would be a great means of preventing mis- 
 application of the public funds ; and it would create a compari- 
 son between one part of the country and another, that would be 
 useful in checking misconduct. 
 
 Then you do not think there is, at present, a sufficient pro- 
 tection of the road revenue of the kingdom against dishonest or 
 ignorant practices ? I think the road revenue is less protected 
 than any other part of the public expenditure ; and, though it is 
 very large, it may be considered, I think, almost unprotected, 
 under the present system of law. 
 
 Have you any loose guess in your own mind, as to the extent 
 of the revenue throughout the kingdom, raised for the purpose 
 of maintaining roads ? I have been led to guess a million and a 
 quarter a year, as the toll revenue ; from the circumstance of 
 there being five-and-twenty thousand miles of turnpike road in 
 England and Wales. 
 
 That is an increasing revenue ? It is certainly increasing very 
 
124 
 
 much ; I think the revenue has been increased by the increase of 
 travelling, and particularly stage-coaches. 
 
 Has not it been the practice to augment the tolls considerably 
 in all recent turnpike acts ? In the three sessions of parliament 
 preceding the present, I think, there were about ninety petitions 
 to parliament for a renewal of acts, and an increase of their tolls, 
 because they were in a state that they could not pay their debts 
 without the assistance of parliament. 
 
 Does not the great expense attending the renewal of acts of 
 parliament, contribute very much to restrain a proper improve- 
 ment of the roads in the kingdom ? The expense of renewing 
 so many acts of parliament, as is occasioned by the great division 
 of trusts in the country, certainly absorbs a very great sum of the 
 road revenue of the kingdom ; because those acts are every one 
 of them renewed every twenty -one years, and frequently circum- 
 stances oblige the trustees to come oftener to parliament. 
 
 Do you happen to know whether there have been any steps taken 
 by the Post-office, with a view to forming some general arrange- 
 ment with regard to the roads ? I am not acquainted with any. 
 I have had repeated conversations with lord Chichester, the 
 postmaster-general, and he has asked for all the information I 
 could give his lordship ; and, of course, I have given the in- 
 formation pretty much in the manner I have had the honour to 
 do to this Committee; and, I believe, his lordship is satisfied 
 that the consolidation of trusts would be very useful : and he has 
 used his influence in the county of Sussex to have nine trusts 
 consolidated, for the express purpose of mutual assistance in 
 providing a general surveyor. 
 
 Do you know the result ? I gave the result, and a copy of 
 the resolutions of the county, at the last meeting. 
 
 Do you know the result as to the expenditure ? Yes, it goes 
 to that as well as to the amendment of the roads. 
 
 Supposing any insuperable difficulty to exist in placing the 
 management of the roads of the kingdom under a board of ma- 
 
125 
 
 nagement, do you not consider that very great advantage would 
 arise from consolidating the different trusts round London, and 
 placing them under an unity of superintendence and regulation? 
 Certainly so ; I think that that would be a measure of the great- 
 est use in the world ; and I think that no palliative, no other 
 means whatever can be devised to get the London roads improved, 
 except consolidating the trusts under one head, or one set of 
 commissioners, or some body that shall control the whole ; con- 
 solidating the roads round London, would be the means probably 
 of great amelioration in the system or manner of mending the 
 roads, and that would serve as an example to other parts of the 
 country, and might be the means of extending improvement in 
 the mode of road-making, and would form a sort of school or 
 example to other parts of the country. 
 
 Do you think, upon the same principle that you recommend 
 consolidating trusts round London, it would be advisable that 
 powers should be given to consolidate trusts in different parts of 
 the kingdom ? I should think it very advisable that powers were 
 granted by parliament to such trusts as chose to do it, to conso- 
 lidate themselves into one body for the purpose of having a better 
 superintendence, or for any other purposes of general improve- 
 ment ; but upon considering the matter very fully, I am of opi- 
 nion that it would be more profitable that the Legislature should 
 give leave to trusts than that they should make it imperative upon 
 them ; it will be absolutely necessary, before any such measure 
 could come into effect, that parliament should not only give this 
 leave, but that they should make the proceedings of the general 
 meeting of those trusts legal, which at present they would not be 
 as the law stands ; the nine trusts in Sussex, who have now 
 voluntarily associated together, hold what is considered a general 
 meeting of those trusts ; but I by no means think that their pro- 
 ceedings are legal, as the law now stands. 
 
 In many cases where the consolidation would be beneficial, 
 tio not you consider it would be resisted from local motives? 
 
126 
 
 Perhaps it might be resisted ; it will be unfortunate when that 
 happens to be the case, but when the good effects of it begin ta 
 be seen in the countiy, I think those objections would be got 
 rid of. 
 
 Do you believe that the first effects of such consolidation would 
 be a diminution of expense ?- 1 am quite certain of that. 
 
 How is that diminution of expense to arise ? By introducing 
 a much better mode of management, it would occasion more 
 regularity in the mode of keeping accounts, it would introduce 
 a diminution of expense materially in horse labour, and in various 
 other things ; that 1 think, upon the whole, the diminution of 
 expense by such regulation would be found very great indeed. 
 
 Do not you believe that the present system of maintaining roads 
 is the means of a continued increase of expense in the debt and 
 tolls throughout the kingdom ? I think the debt is increasing 
 very much throughout the kingdom, and that the debt is perhaps 
 greater than gentlemen in parliament are aware of; at present tolls 
 are increasing. 
 
 Do you consider that there is a corresponding improvement in 
 the roads, in proportion to the increase of the tolls and debts ? 
 By no means ; my belief is, that where the greatest expense is, 
 there the worst management is, or rather, that tke worst manage- 
 ment produces the greatest expense. 
 
 Then, in your opinion, a great improvement might be effected 
 on the roads in general, which might be accompanied in the end 
 by a gradual diminution of debt aad tolls ? Certainly, I think 
 
 80. 
 
 Can you give any information as to the total amount of gene- 
 ral debt on the roads now existing in England and Wales ? 
 After inquiring by all the means that an unauthorized individual 
 could do in different parts of the country, and ascertaining, as 
 nearly as I could, the amount of debt upon a great number of 
 trusts ; I have been inclined to believe that the debt at present 
 amounts to about seven millions in England and Wales. 
 
127 
 
 Are you of opinion that any considerable advantage might be 
 derived in the management of the roads, by a commutation for 
 the statute labour ? Yes ; I think very great advantage would 
 be derived by the public, if the statute labour were commuted 
 for money, and that, if it were commuted at a very low rate ; 
 if it were one half of the real value of the work, I should think, 
 the roads would be more benefited by it in general through the 
 country. 
 
 Is it the general practice in Scotland, under any act of parlia- 
 ment, to commute statute labour for money ? All the acts of 
 parliament I am acquainted with in Scotland have commuted it ; 
 one in the county I belong to, commuted it twenty years ago 
 with very great advantage. 
 
 You have mentioned that the commissioners of the Westmin- 
 ster bridge road required you to employ a considerable number of 
 paupers ; the Committee wish to know whether it is the general 
 practice, in your observation, to employ paupers upon roads ? -I 
 have always found that in every place where the improvement of 
 the roads has been commenced, under any advice given by me, 
 it has been desired very much by the inhabitants that the people 
 unemployed (not, perhaps, paupers that generally receive parish 
 relief, but those people who come to ask for relief, because they 
 cannot get work) should be employed on the road ; and it has 
 been very much my wish to gratify that desire by giving them 
 work, not by the day, but by the piece, because that has gene- 
 rally put them off the parishes ; the moment they get work to 
 do, by which they can get their bread, and without which they 
 cannot get their bread, they quit the parish. 
 
 Is it not the practice, in trusts where ybu have not been con- 
 cerned, to employ paupers, or very old labourers? I have 
 found in all the trusts that have sent to me to take advice, that 
 the labourers have been a great number of them very inefficient 
 men ; and the excuse generally given for that is, that those peo- 
 
128 
 
 pie would come to the parish if they were not sent to the 
 roads. 
 
 Is the pay of those men proportionably low with their abilities 
 
 to work ? I have not found that to be the case. I have found 
 
 + 
 
 that those poor, miserable men, who can do very little, have 
 been getting considerable wages, and in that way a considerable 
 sum has been wasted. 
 
 In point of practice, then, the road revenue is made to act as 
 a poor fund ? Precisely so ; I think the road revenue has gone 
 to the assistance of the poor in that way. 
 
 In your experience have you found that the common mode of 
 employing paupers by day-work, is inefficient both to the im- 
 provement of the roads and to the object of relieving the parishes ? 
 It may have the effect of relieving the parishes, but I should 
 think it a very bad mode of mending the roads ; inasmuch as 
 these men, when they have got day-wages, will do very little, 
 and for that reason I employ all our men on piece-work ; we have 
 two hundred and eighty labourers in the district of Bristol, and 
 they are almost all on piece-work; it is very seldom we employ 
 men by the day. I was directed by the Committee, at their last 
 meeting, to produce some more detailed accounts respecting the 
 Bristol district : in obedience to that order, I have obtained 
 the report made by me at the end of the first and second year of 
 my administration, which I beg to submit to the Committee, to- 
 gether with the resolution of the commissioners thereon. 
 
 \Thefotto iv ing Papers were delivered in, and read:"} 
 EXPENDITURE on the BRISTOL ROADS. 
 
 In the year 1815, previous to the altera- 
 tion of management, there was paid ..14,285 2 1 
 An unpaid floating debt of . . . 1,400 
 
 Total expense of 1815, to 25th March 1816 . 15,685 2 1 
 
Alteration of management, commenced 16th January, 1816. 
 
 In 1816, eutlay was . . . ..16,127 5 1 
 Deduct accounts of 1815 . . ..1,400 
 
 Paid into 5 per cent, fund, about 340 
 
 1,740 
 
 Total expense of roads, to March 1817 . . 14,387 5 1 
 
 In 1817, outlay was . , . ,.15,830 ill 
 Of which, permanent improve- 
 ments cost . . . . 1 ,500 
 Paid to 5 per cent, fund, about . 200 
 Paid for a general survey and plans 340 
 
 Whitchurch Bridge repairs . . 320 
 
 .. 2,360 
 
 Total expenditure for roads, to 25 March 181 8 . <. 13,470 411 
 
 BRISTOL TURNPIKES. 
 
 Report of Mr. John Loudon M'Adarn, to a General Meeting 
 of Commissioners, 2d June 1817. 
 
 Since I had the honour of reporting to the meeting of com- 
 missioners on the 2d of March last, the amendment of the roads 
 has proceeded with success, and at present there are no parts of 
 the roads of the Bristol district in a bad state. 
 
 Much has been done in partial improvements, which have al- 
 together amounted to a considerable sum, although not of suf- 
 ficient magnitude individually to come within the scope of the 
 regulations of the general meeting, that restrain improvements 
 exceeding 50/. without special order; several such improve- 
 ments are still necessary, and some of the small bridges require to 
 be lengthened in the arches, in order to lead the roads to them 
 more commodiously, and to widen the roadway on the bridge?. 
 
 The statement of the income and expenditure of the year, now 
 made up to the 25th March, presents a very satisfactory result. 
 
 1 
 
130 
 
 In the last year, a turn equal to nearly five times that of the 
 preceding year, has been paid iato the 5 per cent. fund. 
 
 A floating debt, which did not appear in the printed annual 
 account of last year, but which amounted to about 1,400/., ha* 
 been paid off. 
 
 The balances of treasurer's accounts, which last year showed 
 the trust to be indebted on the whole to the treasurer 356 . are 
 now so much on the other side, that your treasurers have on the 
 whole account a balance in hand of 614 /.and this balance is 
 efficient, because the floating debt is now reduced to the 
 smallest sum possible, under the circumstances of a business so 
 extended. 
 
 In addition to which, I have to congratulate the commissioners 
 on a reduction of the principal debt in the sum of 729 /. 10*. 3d. 
 and that turnpike tickets, which were at a discount, are now in 
 demand at par. 
 
 (Signed) John London M'Adam. 
 
 8th March 1819. 
 
 The foregoing is a true copy from the book of proceedings of 
 the trustees of the Bristol turnpike roads. 
 
 Osborne Sf Ward, Clerks. 
 
 BRISTOL TURNPIKES. 
 
 Report of Mr. John Loudon M< Adam, to a General Meeting of 
 Commissioners, 1st June 1818. 
 
 Bristol Office of Roads, 1st June, 1818. 
 
 Since I had the honour to report to the commissioners, in June 
 1817, the business of the roads has gone on successfully, and 
 they have been kept in invariably good repair under the present 
 system of management, notwithstanding the roads having been 
 tried by all vicissitudes of the most unfavourable seasons ever 
 known. 
 
 Several valuable improvements have also been effected in dif- 
 ferent parts of the district ; the very promising state of the 
 
131 
 
 finances having induced the commissioners to employ great part 
 of the savings of their income for that purpose, instead of ap- 
 plying the whole to the liquidation of the principal debt of the 
 trust. This great debt has, however, been diminished nearly 
 5007. while the sum expended on the permanent improvements 
 considerably exceeds 1,5007. 
 
 On the 25th March 181 8, there was a balarice in . s. d. 
 the hands of each of the treasurers, with ex- 
 ception of the Bitton and Toghill roads ; and 
 the balance due to that treasurer has been dimi- 
 nished upon the whole account; there remained 
 in the hands of the treasurers, on the 25th 
 March 1818, the sum of ... 1,987 14 5 
 
 In the hands of the general treasurer, 
 
 from 5 per cent, fund . ,.502 5 11 
 
 Due by the Whitchurch road to the 
 5 per cent, fund, and included in 
 the general debt . . 300 
 
 802 5 11 
 
 Balance in hand, 25th March 1818 . . 2,790 4 
 
 It is very gratifying to report to the commissioners this mate- 
 rial amelioration of the funds during the present year, when the 
 income of the trust has suffered a diminution of 4257. 5s. occa- 
 sioned probably by the depression of trade throughout the 
 country. 
 
 It is to be regretted that the directions of the general meet- 
 ings respecting the payments to the 5 per cent, fund have not been 
 more punctually obeyed ; but without entering into the circum- 
 stances of heavy debt and other difficulties, which have hitherto 
 prevented payments from particular treasurers, I beg. leave to call 
 the attention of the commissioners to a consideration of the 
 
 I 2 
 
importance of this fund, and the use to which it may be most 
 advantageously applied. 
 
 The fund was instituted for the purpose of giving the general 
 meetings the power of extending aid to any division of the 
 roads of the district that might be in distress. As the favour- 
 able state of the funds, arising from the system of management 
 adopted by the commissioneri, gives a very reasonable hope that 
 such occasion of distress may never again occur, it may be ex- 
 pedient to consider of the propriety of converting the 5 per 
 cents, into a sinking fund. 
 
 By application of such a sum, amounting to about 8501. 
 annually, to the gradual extinction of the debt of the trust, the 
 means of continuing several useful and very desirable improve- 
 ments will be diminished only in a small proportion, and the 
 amendment of the general state of the roads will proceed, 
 without entirely losing sight of the justice due to the creditors, 
 and the desirable object of reducing a debt of such magnitude. 
 
 As it may be doubtful whether under the authority of the 
 present act of parliament the trustees may legally apply the 5 
 cent, fund to the purpose of a sinking fund, the committee ap- 
 pointed to prepare the new act may be instructed to consider of 
 this subject, an^ also for better securing the due payment of the 
 5 per cent, fund at stated periods, along with the interest of the 
 debt, to the general treasurer. 
 
 I have great pleasure in being able to continue to give a favour- 
 able report of the conduct of the sub-surveyors. 
 
 (Signed) John London M l Adam. 
 
 8th March 1819. 
 
 The foregoing is a true copy from the book of proceedings of 
 the trustees of the Bristol turnpike roads. 
 
 Osborne Sf Ward, Clerks. 
 
l.V* 
 
 BRISTOL TURNPIKES. 
 
 At a Meeting of the Trustees for the care of the several roads 
 round the city of Bristol, holden on 7th December 1818, at 
 the Guildhall in Bristol. 
 
 THOMAS DANIEL, Esq. in the Chair. 
 
 It appearing that under the triennial appointment of Mr. 
 M'Adam, his office of general surveyor will cease on the 16th 
 day of January next ; 
 
 Ordered unanimously, That he be again appointed to that 
 office for a further term of three years, at the same salary. 
 
 Resolved unanimously, That the thanks of this meeting be 
 given to Mr. M'Adam for the zeal and ability with which he 
 has executed the very arduous duties of his office, from which 
 it appears to this meeting that the most important advantages have 
 resulted to the roads under his care. 
 8th March 1819. 
 
 The foregoing is a true copy from the book of proceedings of 
 the trustees of the Bristol turnpike roads. 
 
 Osborne If Ward, Clerks. 
 
 Does any part of that saving which is stated to have taken 
 place on those roads, arise from an increase of revenue ? There 
 has been a small increase of revenue, but whether arising from 
 tolls or a better collection of the statute labour, I cannot take 
 upon me^to say ; but that increase of revenue must be de- 
 ducted from the saving of 2,700/., which appears in the trea- 
 surer's hands. 
 
134 
 
 Jovis, 1 1 die Martii, 1819. 
 
 John London M'Adam, Esquire, called in ; and Examined. 
 
 IS there any part of your former evidence upon which you 
 wish to give any further explanation to the Committee ?~-In 
 consequence of the surprise and doubt expressed by some 
 members of this honourable Committee, on that part of my 
 evidence respecting the carrying a road over a morass in 
 Somersetshire, and the proportions of the materials used 
 upon that, and the part of the road with a rocky foundation, 
 which I stated from memory, I thought it proper to write 
 down to the treasurer of that road, to request the favour of 
 him to send for the surveyor, and know the facts exactly 
 from him. The treasurer, Mr. Phippen, who is a magistrate, 
 sent a certificate, signed by the surveyor. There was a 
 certificate, also, signed by Mr. Phippen ; and with it there 
 was a letter from Mr. Phippen, of explanation ; both of which 
 I wish to put in. 
 
 [ The papers put in were as follow .*] 
 
 " I do certify that that part of the sixteen miles of the 
 Bristol turnpike road under my care, from Cross, over the 
 marsh lands, towards Bridgewater, is now in the best state 
 I ever knew it, which is wholly owing to having the very large 
 stones laid at the foundation when the road was first made 
 more than fifty years since, lifted and beaten very small. The 
 general strength of the road is from seven inches to nine ; 
 and five tons of stones, I have always considered for the re- 
 pairs of this part of the road equal to seven on the other 
 part over the hills. 
 
 (Signed) < Edward Whitting, Surveyor." 
 
135 
 
 " I, Robert Phippen, Esq. one of His Majesty's jus- 
 tices of the peace for the county of Somerset, and treasurer 
 on the road mentioned in the above certificate, do hereby 
 certify and declare, that the contents are true to the best of 
 my knowledge and belief; and the road in question has 
 been under my constant inspection for five years past; and 
 the surveyor, Edward Whitting, is a person well known to 
 me, and worthy of credit. 
 
 " Dated March 9th, 1819." 
 
 " Letter from Robert Phippen, Esq. to John Loudon 
 M'Adam, Esq. No. 9, Northumberland-street, Strand, 
 London. 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " There cannot, in my opinion, be any necessity to lay 
 the foundation of a road on any ground, even the most soft 
 and peaty, with large stones; daily observation tells me, 
 that this is a great waste of time, materials, and money. 
 I have had, for these five or six years past, a great deal of 
 experience in seeing roads made, one in particular, over a 
 very soft peat-bog, by Wedmore and Glastonbury, in this 
 county. At the time this new line of road was proposed to 
 be made, a great difference of opinion existed as to its prac- 
 ticability, and the method to be pursued to accomplish it. 
 Some of the parties were for laying the whole of the road 
 over the bog with brush- wood, on which were to be put 
 large flat stones, and on those smaller ones. We who were 
 the other party, insisted that a more simple, less expensive, 
 and more permanent method was to make it with stones 
 alone, broken very small. We, at last, prevailed, and the 
 system succeeded even beyond our most sanguine expec- 
 tations ; for this part of the road has stood uncommonly well, 
 though the travelling on it has been very great, and with 
 heavy carriages, and the little repairs wanted have been done 
 
136 
 
 at an inconsiderable expense, compared to the other part of 
 the road made on hard ground over the hills. 
 
 " I remain, dear Sir, your's truly, 
 
 " Rob. PhippenS* 
 
 " Badgvvorth Court, near Axbridge, 
 March 9th, 1819. 
 
 I wish, in reference to the opinion I gave with respect to 
 the statute labour, to state, that I have to transact with 
 sixty-nine parishes, respecting their statute labour, in the 
 counties of Somerset and Gloucester ; and that it is in con- 
 sequence of these transactions, I gave the opinion to the 
 Committee that I had the honour to submit. 
 
 What proportion of the statute duty, by pecuniary pay- 
 ments, instead of the mode at present adopted, do you 
 conceive might be saved? I think, if one third of the 
 present nominal value of the statute labour was to be regu- 
 larly paid into the hands of the treasurer, that it would be 
 more available to the public roads, than the present manner 
 in which the work is done, and certainly less onerous to the 
 agriculture of the country. 
 
 James M t Adam , Esq. called in; and Examined. 
 
 YOU are the son of the last witness ? I am. 
 
 Have you been employed as a general surveyor upon the 
 turnpike roads ? I have. 
 
 Upon what roads have you been employed ? Upon the 
 Epsom and Ewell turnpike roads of twenty-one miles; upon 
 the Reading road of six miles ; upon the eastern division of 
 the Egham road, seven miles and a half; on the western divi- 
 sion of the Egham road, eight miles and a half; on the Ches- 
 hunt turnpike roads, of eighteen miles ; upon the Wades-mill 
 turnpike trust of twenty-nine miles : on the old North road, 
 or Royston road, of fifteen miles ; upon the Huntingdon 
 road of ten miles ; and on the road from Huntingdon to 
 
137 
 
 Somcrsham of ten miles ; being together one hundred and 
 twenty-five miles. 
 
 How long have you been appointed to them ? My first 
 appointment was in December 1817. 
 
 Had you been previously in the habits of making the im- 
 provement of turnpike roads your study ? I had at Bristol, 
 under my father's tuition. 
 
 The information you have acquired, I presume, then, has 
 been entirely under your father's system ? Yes, upon my 
 father's principles of making roads. 
 
 And those plans which you have adopted, have been en- 
 tirely conformable to the evidence which he has given before 
 this Committee ? Entirely conformable to those principles 
 which my father has stated in his evidence before this Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 Can you give the Committee any information with regard 
 to the revenues of the different roads under your manage- 
 ment ? The gross revenue of the trusts I have mentioned, 
 of which I am general surveyor, is about 19,5507. per annum. 
 
 Please to state to the Committee, the state of repair in 
 which these roads were when they first came under your 
 management? The roads in general were in a very loose, 
 rough, and heavy state, much overloaded with materials, the 
 watercourses much stopped up, and the roads in general in 
 a very bad state. 
 
 What improvements have taken place upon them since 
 your undertaking the care of them? The Epsom and 
 Ewell roads were put into a perfect state of repair during the 
 last spring and summer ; the Reading road has also been put 
 into a perfect state of repair during the last summer ; and 
 the Cheshunt turnpike roads have been put into a good state 
 of repair, notwithstanding that the improvements commenced 
 in October, and have been carried on through the whole 
 winter : the improvement is proceeding rapidly in the other 
 districts; but the three roads I have mentioned, arc the only 
 
138 
 
 trusts that are brought into a perfect state of repair. I ven- 
 ture to speak freely and with great confidence, of the good 
 state of repair of these three trusts ; for the reason, that no 
 credit whatever is attached to me, except what may be con- 
 sidered due by the careful attention and zealous execution of 
 my father's commands. The merits of the improvements are 
 wholly his own. 
 
 Can you state to the Committee the expense with which 
 these improvements have been accompanied ? The expense 
 upon the Epsom roads amounted to 1,9291. 8s. Id. in the 
 year 1818 ; that is the only trust upon which I am enabled 
 to state the twelvemonth's expenditure. 
 
 In what proportion has the expenditure been divided be- 
 tween the labour of men, women, and children, and the 
 price of cartage and of materials ? I have paid for labour 
 upon the Epsom roads, 1,1 46/. 1*. 2d. ; for materials, 
 981. 10*. ; for cartage, 227/. 16s. ; for tradesmen's bills, 
 342J. Os. lie?.; for land to widen the roads, 115/.; which 
 makes up the expenditure 1,9291. 8s. Id. I beg here to 
 state, that I did not avail myself of any statute duty upon 
 the Epsom and Ewell roads. 
 
 Can you state to the Committee the expenditure upon 
 these roads, in the years preceding your having the charge 
 of them? I can; in the years 1815, 1816, and 1817, 
 which are the three preceding years to my having the charge 
 of these roads. In the year 1815, there was paid for 
 labour, 3791. 14*. ; for cartage, 1,019J. 14s. ; for gravel, 
 486/. 15*. 5d.\ for tradesmen's bills, 178/. 6s. 3d.; making 
 a total of 2,064-J. 9*. 5d. In the year 1816, there was paid 
 for labour 34-0^. 16*.; for cartage, 1070/.7*. 6d.-, for gravel, 
 563/. Is. lOd. ; for tradesmen's bills, 3821. 4*. 5d. making 
 a total of 2,375/. 19s. 9d. In the year 1817, there was paid 
 for labour, S39/. 16*.: for cartage, 1, 1081. 16s. 3d.; for 
 gravel, 5512. ; for tradesmen's bills, 6811. 6*. ld.\ making a 
 total f 2}675/. 18s. 4d. ; independent of the statute duty 
 
1.39 
 
 upon the several parishes, which were called forth by the 
 former surveyor. 
 
 Do you know the value of that statute duty? Not having 
 had occasion to call it forth, I am unable precisely to an- 
 swer the question; but the parishes are wealthy, and the 
 statute labour must form a very considerable amount. 
 
 I presume the comparative smallness of the expense which 
 you incurred for materials must have arisen from making use 
 of the old materials upon the road, by lifting them according 
 to the plan which your father has described ? That was the 
 case. 
 
 In what state did you find the executive department of 
 these roads when you took charge of them ? I found at 
 Epsom a person as surveyor, who had been an underwriter 
 at Lloyd's Coffee-house, at a salary, as I am informed, of 
 sixty pounds per annum, and who was permitted to keep the 
 carts and horses, and do the cartage for the trust. At 
 Reading, I found an elderly gentleman as the surveyor, who 
 was also one of the commissioners, at a salary of twenty 
 or thirty pounds per annum. I found at Cheshunt three 
 surveyors, the trust being divided into three districts. 
 One of the surveyors was an infirm old man, another a car- 
 penter, and another a coal-merchant. I found on the 
 Wades-mill trust three surveyors also, and the trust divided 
 into three districts ; one of these surveyors was a very old 
 man, another a publican at Buckland, and the other a baker 
 at Backway, with a salary of fourteen shillings a week each. 
 I found on the Royston road a publican as surveyor there ; 
 and I found at Huntingdon a bedridden old man who had 
 not been out of the house for several months, and who had 
 been allowed by the commissioners to apply to a carpenter 
 in the town for assistance, and to whom the commissioners 
 allowed twenty pounds per annum; this person, who 
 accompanied me in the survey of the roads, stated, that he 
 
140 
 
 could give but little attention to the management of the road, 
 the salary being so small ; and the state of those roads bore 
 evidence to the truth of his assertion. 
 
 Without entering into individual cases, do you consider 
 that it was possible, from the nature of the circumstances 
 and engagements of these parties, that they could give that 
 attention to the roads which their improvement required ? 
 I do not consider it was at all likely that they would. 
 
 What arrangements did you make in the executive de- 
 partment of these roads after you took the charge of them ? 
 With the permission of the trustees, I appointed upon each 
 trust an active sub-surveyor, whom I required to keep a 
 horse, and to have no other occupation whatever. 
 
 Can you state to the Committee the expense of employing 
 such sub-surveyors ? The salary of the sub-surveyors in 
 general is one hundred guineas a year ; and where the reve- 
 nues of the trust have been small, as in the case of the 
 Koyston roads and the Huntingdon roads, I have made one 
 surveyor do the duty of both the trusts, in order that that 
 expense might be divided. 
 
 What emoluments have you yourself derived from your 
 employment upon these trusts ? I am unable to state the 
 precise amount to the Committee ; for the reason that I have 
 in every instance requested of the trustees that that con- 
 sideration might be deferred for at least a twelvemonth after 
 I was honoured with the charge of the roads ; Epsom is 
 therefore the only road upon which that period has elapsed ; 
 and with the permission of the Committee, I will read the 
 resolution entered upon the ledger of the Epsom roads upon 
 that subject. 
 
 21st December, 1818. 
 
 We have examined the above accounts of Mr. M'Adam, 
 the surveyor, from its commencement to this date* and find 
 
141 
 
 that the sum of 751. 6s. Id. is due to Mr. M< Adam, by the 
 trust, say - - - - - - - ,.75 6 1 
 
 But as no allowance has been made to the 
 surveyor for his management, and as that ma- 
 nagement has given great satisfaction to the 
 trustees, it was resolved to give the surveyor, 
 to cover all charges, and for his trouble, it 
 being distinctly understood for this year only, 
 the sum of one hundred and fifty guineas 157 10 
 
 ,.232 16 1 
 
 Which sum of 232/. 16*. Id. the treasurer will be pleased to 
 pay t oMr M'Adam. 
 
 (Signed) T. Reid, Thomas Hattiday, 
 
 Edward Archbold, William DotoC&fW#, 
 
 John Webb, J. M. Cripps." 
 Thomas Cahierley, 
 
 With permission of the Committeee I will relate what I 
 stated to the trustees, upon those resolutions being read to 
 me ; that I considered that sum as extremely liberal, and 
 quite sufficient for one small trust to give a general sur- 
 veyor, and were Epsom one trust in a district, such a sum 
 would be quite sufficient for their proportion of the salary of 
 a general surveyor ; but standing alone, and divided from all 
 other trusts of which I had the management, and separated 
 also by the London roads, the necessity of my father's tra- 
 velling from Bristol and residing some time at Epsom, and 
 of so much being required to be done the first year in a new 
 trust, that sum did no more than repay the actual expenses 
 incurred. It will be obvious to the Committee that such a 
 trust as Reading, consisting of six miles only, distant from 
 Bristol eighty miles, and from London forty miles, and 
 anticipating an equal liberality on the part of the commis- 
 
142 
 
 sioners there, no sum smch a trust could be justified in giving 
 to a general surveyor could repay even a moiety of the ex- 
 pense of superintendance ; the reward for my services, then, 
 must be looked for in the convincing proof that my father's 
 principles of road-making are, if possible, more applicable, 
 and more beneficial in a trust where the materials are very 
 bad than where they are good : my only object in troubling 
 the Committee with these observations, is to show that un- 
 less a district of roads are united, the expense of a general 
 superintendance would not be paid by any salary such trust 
 could be justified in giving. 
 
 Can you state to the Committee the nature of the materials 
 which you have employed in the different roads under your 
 care ? At Epsom there are flints ; at Reading a very small 
 foul gravel, with a thick adhesive loam attached ; at Wal- 
 tham Cross, on the Cheshunt roads, small foul gravel ; to- 
 wards Ware, flints ; on the Wades-mill trust, flints ; on the 
 Royston trust, flint, gravel, and blue permet stone ; at 
 Huntingdon, flint, and gravel ; Egham, flint and gravel. 
 
 Is there any particular method which you have employed 
 out of the common practice, for making use of these mate- 
 rials ? I have bestowed great labour, care and attention in 
 the preparation of these materials in the pits, and in their 
 separation previous to their being brought upon the roads ; 
 and also much labour and care for a length of time after their 
 being laid upon the road, until it became perfectly smooth, 
 hard and level. 
 
 Can you state to the Committee the probable future ex- 
 pense of keeping these roads in repair, after they have once 
 been put into good order, as compared with the annual out- 
 goings under the old management ? I am of opinion that 
 the expense of maintaining these roads in good condition 
 will be considerably less than the former expenditure ; for 
 the reason, that the better a road is, the less the wear ; and 
 
US 
 
 that there will be a less quantity of materials required, when 
 properly prepared, than were formerly used, when they 
 were brought to the road in a very foul and improper state. 
 
 Can you state generally, whether the proportion of labour, 
 materials and cartage that you have described upon the 
 Epsom trust, agrees with the same proportion upon the 
 other roads under your management ? On some of the 
 other roads, the proportion of labour to cartage will be 
 found greater than upon the Epsom road. At Cheshunt, in 
 five months, during which the roads have been put into 
 good repair, I have expended the sum of 800/. forty of 
 which alone was paid for cartage. Upon the Wades-mill 
 trust, out of 600/. expended, not a sixpence was paid for 
 cartage. Upon the Royston roads, where I have spent 500/. 
 not any of it was paid for cartage. Upon the Huntingdon 
 roads, I have spent 20/. a week, the whole of which has been 
 paid in labour. At Reading, during eight months, 500/. 
 were laid out, 4001. of which were paid for labour. 
 
 Is it your opinion, that the proportion of labour, wages, 
 and cartage, is likely to continue the same, in the future 
 reparation of the roads ? I am of opinion they will ; because 
 there will be an increase of labour, in the preparation of the 
 materials, previous to their being brought to the road ; and 
 also in the formation of the road after they are laid on. By 
 a more careful and proper preparation of the materials, a 
 much less quantity will be required to uphold the roads than 
 formerly ; I am, therefore, of opinion, that the proportion 
 of labour to cartage will continue the same. 
 
 It appears, by your answer to a former question, that the 
 expense of cartage has been much diminished, owing to your 
 making use of the materials of the old road ; will not the 
 proportionate expense of cartage for future years be in- 
 creased in consequence of your no longer having the re- 
 source of breaking up the roads, but being obliged to repair 
 
. 144 
 
 them with fresh materials? In some degree it certainly 
 would. 
 
 In what way is the statute labour at present performed 
 upon these roads ? Upon two of the trusts only, the Roy- 
 ston road and the Huntingdon road, I have had occasion to 
 avail myself of any statute labour ; the fund upon the other 
 trusts being more than sufficient to uphold the roads without 
 having recourse to statute labour. Upon these two trusts 
 I have derived some small advantage from statute labour. 
 
 Colonel Charles Brown, called in; and Examined. 
 
 ARE you one of the commissioners of the turnpike road 
 upon the Cheshunt trust ? I am. 
 
 How long have you acted ? Several years, eight or ten 
 years. 
 
 Be kind enough to explain to the Committee any recent 
 improvements which have taken place in the management 
 and repairs of the roads within that trust ? Since the new 
 method has been adopted by Mr. M'Adara, a very evident 
 advantage has arisen to the roads ; they are now extremely 
 good, and were formerly very indifferent ; I therefore attri- 
 bute it solely to the present mode adopted by Mr. M'Adam 
 for nothing can be better than the roads are at present. 
 
 Can you state to the Committee, whether the improve- 
 ment has taken place with an increase or a diminution of the 
 expense ?- I believe at about one-third less ; At least I un- 
 derstand that it was taken at about one-third less. 
 
 Has there been any increase upon the tolls upon these 
 roads ? Not since Mr. M'Adam has had any thing to do 
 with them. I have every reason to suppose there will be 
 3 diminution, in consequence of the good state of the roads. 
 
 Having heard Mr. M< Adam's evidence, can you give the 
 Committee any further information with regard to the means 
 by which these improvements have been effected ? I con- 
 
145 
 
 ceivc that the mode of Mr. M'Adam has been the means of 
 making the roads so much better, that it is only wonderful 
 when we see it now, that it has not taken place sooner, 
 being founded upon the best principle possible. 
 
 Can you state whether these improvements have taken 
 place by the use of any new materials, or by a better appli- 
 cation of the existing materials ? By the better application 
 of the existing materials, certainly. 
 
 Have you found this improved system attended with any 
 advantages, in regard to the employment of the poor within 
 those parishes ? With regard to the parish where I live, 
 and where my property is situated, I have seen considerable 
 improvement, eince we have had the opportunity of sending 
 our poor to be employed by Mr. M'Adam, who has most 
 readily employed every one we have sent ; and I can state 
 now, that we have not a man unemployed that I know of. 
 
 Exekiel Harman, Esquire, called in and Examined. . 
 
 YOU are a commissioner of the turnpike road upon the 
 Cheshunt trust ? I am. 
 
 Having heard the evidence of the last witness ; can you, 
 upon your own knowledge, confirm the testimony that he 
 has given with regard to improvement of the roads within 
 your trust under Mr. M' Adam's inspection, and the ad- 
 vantages derived therefrom? I can, certainly. It is a 
 matter of surprise to me, that so material an alteration 
 has been already made in the roads, the advantages of 
 which are obvious to every one travelling the road; and, 
 as an additional proof, the coachmen who are in the habit 
 of driving that road have confirmed this statement. I have 
 witnessed also a similar improvement in the Epsom road, 
 where the forward state of the improvement shows an 
 additional proof of the advantages derived from this system. 
 
 K 
 
146 
 
 Thomas Bridgeman, Esquire, called in ; and Examm ed. 
 
 ARE you a commissioner upon the Cheshunt trust ? 
 I am. 
 
 Having heard the evidence of the two last witnesses , 
 does your judgment in all respects confirm the testimony 
 which they have given, in regard to the improvement which 
 has taken place upon your roads, and the advantages de- 
 rived from them? Most assuredly. I have witnessed 
 these roads for more than twenty years, in a variety of 
 forms as a commissioner. I have observed the failure of 
 two or three different sets of coachmen and coach con- 
 cerns down below, all of whom are now saying, that if 
 this system continues they shall require a horse less. All 
 these parties were originally much prejudiced against the 
 new system. 
 
 John Martin Cripps, Esquire, called in ; and Examined. 
 
 YOU are a magistrate of the county of Surrey, and com- 
 missioner of the roads upon the Epsom trust ? I am. 
 
 Can you inform the Committee what was the state of the 
 roads within your trust, previous to the year 1818 ? They 
 were very bad, having no attention paid to the formation of 
 the road ; having the water, in many places, going over the 
 road; and great inattention paid to the breaking of the 
 materials, and to the expense attending the carting of them. 
 
 At what time did you commence the alteration in the 
 system of management ? At the s latter end of December 
 1817, when the roads were put under the superin tendance 
 of Mr. M'Adam, senior, and when his son commenced the 
 management. 
 
 What alterations have sinee taken place in the state of the 
 roads ? By a better formation of the road; the materials 
 
147 
 
 being properly broken ; and the water carried under the 
 road by trunks, or drains, with proper gratings. 
 
 Referring to the particulars of the expenditure giren by 
 Mr. M'Adam, jun. in his evidence this day, can you con- 
 firm the accuracy of those accounts ? Yes ; and I can ex- 
 plain that the items for tradesmen's bills include the wharf- 
 ing and repairs of Bridges in each year ; I can add, that the 
 statute labour for 1815, 1816, and 1817, amounting to one 
 hundred pounds each year, which Mr. M'Adam has not 
 availed himself of in their improvements. 
 
 Has the system of management pursued by Mr. M'Adam 
 proved the means of giving employment to labourers in the 
 district, and thereby lessening the poor's rates ? Very much 
 so ; and they have occasionally employed from twenty to 
 thirty persons, stout able-bodied men, who otherwise would 
 have been obliged to have been supported out of the. parish 
 rates. 
 
 Have you in consequence had any persons who were able 
 to work who have been out of employ ? Between twenty 
 and thirty persons have been employed for the last three 
 months in breaking flints, and in repairing and improving 
 the roads, who otherwise must have come upon the poor's 
 rates ; and all the persons who have been enabled to work 
 have found employment in consequence of this improve- 
 ment ; that has been the means of greatly relieving our 
 poor's rates. 
 
 Has the same system been extended to the private roads 
 in that district ? It has been adopted in some of the private 
 roads of that district, and with the same beneficial effects. 
 Can you state any particulars with regard to the necessity 
 there has been for carting additional materials for these 
 roads ? At present Mr. M'Adam having lifted the roads, 
 has found more than sufficient material for the support of 
 those roads. 
 
 K 2 
 
148 
 
 What have been the materials that have been used ? The 
 materials that have been used are flints chiefly. 
 
 During the state of improvement of these roads, have the 
 tolls been increased or reduced within your trust ? At our 
 last meeting, we agreed, that at the next letting, the tolls 
 should be reduced from May next, for the benefit of agri- 
 culture in general ; and that where two shillings and eight- 
 pence is now paid, they will have now to pay one shilliag ; 
 that with relation to the agricultural interest, will be a re- 
 duction of twenty five pounds per mile. 
 
 Within your own personal observation, have you known 
 any other instance in which a road has been formed upon the 
 same principles as those adopted by Mr. M*Adam ? I had 
 an opportunity of observing in Sweden that the roads were 
 more beautiful than any I ever beheld ; they are formed in 
 the same manner as by Mr. M'Adam, the materials broken 
 extremely small. The material is the best in the world, as 
 it is rocks of Granite ; and so well do they understand the 
 necessity of breaking them small, that you never behold 
 throughout Sweden, a fragment of granite larger than the 
 size of a walnut, for the purposes of the roads. 
 
 What is the shape of these roads ? To the eye they 
 appear perfectly flat ; but upon trial by the spirit level, there 
 is a slight degree of convexity. 
 
 William Dotudestuell, Esquire, called in ; and Examined. 
 
 YOU are a commissioner upon the Epsom trust? 
 lam. 
 
 How long have you been a commissioner ? About four or 
 five years. 
 
 Have you had any opportunity of observing the compa- 
 rative state of the roads since they were put under the care 
 of Mr. M'Adam, compared with that in which they were 
 
149 
 
 fcefore? They were very bad when first put under Mr. 
 M< Adam's care ; they are now, I think, very good. 
 
 Do you attribute this to the improved system of manage, 
 jnent Totally. 
 
 Can you confirm the evidence that has been already given 
 relative to the expenses of repairing the roads previously 
 to that time and since ? From the statement made to me 
 by the former surveyor, and from Mr. M< Adam's statement, 
 I believe the statements delivered in to you are perfectly 
 correct. Considering the advantage which the public has 
 derived from Mr. M* Adam's system, I have adopted the 
 same upon the parish roads. I offered myself to the parish 
 as their surveyor, for the purpose of carrying that system 
 into execution. I have found employment for all persons 
 who wanted employment upon the parish roads, assisted 
 occasionally by persons going to the public roads under 
 Mr. M'Adam. 
 
 How long have you adopted this system upon the private 
 roads ? Ever since October last. 
 
 From that period the whole of the poor have been em- 
 ployed upon the parish roads ? From that period the whole 
 of the poor that wanted employment, have been employed 
 upon the parish roads, or upon the public roads under Mr. 
 M'Adam. 
 
 Have those persons been employed by you, by piece- 
 work or by day-work ? The roads were in such a state, and 
 as I wanted knowledge to employ by piece-work, I have 
 been compelled to employ them by day-work. 
 
 From your experience are you of opinion that these 
 private roads, made upon the new system which has been 
 adopted) can be kept in good repair at a less expense 
 than they formerly cost in their bad state ? At a very 
 considerable less expense than formerly. 
 
150 
 
 Martis, 2V die Martii, 1819. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin Farey, called in; and Examined. 
 
 YOU are, I believe, the surveyor of the Whitechapel 
 road ? I am. 
 
 How long have you been in that office ? Nine years. 
 
 In what situation did you find the road, at the time of your 
 undertaking the management ? I found the Whitechapel 
 road in a dreadful state, partly from the neglect of the sur- 
 veyor, in laying on foul and improper materials. In the 
 autumn of 1809, it was almost impassable. 
 
 Gravel is the only material you have in that neighbour- 
 hood ? Gravel is the only material we find, on or near the 
 spof. 
 
 Is the traffic upon the Whitechapel road so great as to 
 render it impossible to preserve it in good order with the 
 present materials ? It is impossible to preserve it in good 
 order at all times, with the present materials ; it is past the 
 art of man. 
 
 Do you consider the traffic upon that road, as greater 
 than upon any other road out of London ? I believe it is a 
 heavier traffic ; there are not so many light carriages, as on 
 some other roads. 
 
 What species o carriages do you consider do the most 
 injury to your road ?- The carriages that do the most injury, 
 are those with the widest wheels. 
 
 In what way do you consider that they injure the road ? 
 By their great weights destroying the materials. 
 
 Are the carriages you allude to, exempt from the payment 
 of tolls ? They pay much less tolls. The pressure, or 
 crushing of materials by the wide wheels, is owing to the 
 wheels not running fiat. 
 
 Being of a conical shape ?- Being of a barrelled and 
 
151 
 
 conical shape, and the middle tire projecting above the 
 -others, with rough nails. 
 
 Do you consider, that if those wheels were made of a 
 cylindrical or flat shape, it would be good policy to grant 
 them any exemption from tolls ? They would be less in- 
 jurious for being cylindrical; but whenever the road was 
 at all out of the level, and the weight came on one edge 
 of the wheel, the road would be destroyed there. 
 
 Upon the whole, is it your opinion that there are any 
 circumstances which justify an exemption from toll, on 
 account of the breadth of the wheels ? I do not see any 
 at all, for I think they are injurious in every sense, on 
 account of the great weights they carry. 
 
 Do you consider that injury is done to the roads, in 
 consequence of the use of single shafts in waggons ? 
 Very great* 
 
 In what way? In consequence of single shafts, the 
 horses follow in one track, in the centre of the carriage ; 
 and the wheels also follow each other in other tracks, and 
 cut ruts : if there were double shafts, they would naturally 
 avoid former wheel-tracks, which would be less injurious 
 to the road. 
 
 Do you consider it therefore desirable to give encou- 
 ragement to double shafts ? I do. 
 
 Do you consider the watering of that road in any way 
 injurious ? I consider that watering that road in summer, 
 is very injurious. 
 
 In what respect ? The water separates the stones, owing 
 to the softening of the loam, and makes the road spongy 
 and loose. 
 
 At what periods do you consider it injurious to water 
 
 the road for laying the dust ? Before May and after August. 
 
 Have you not a practice of sometimes watering in winter, 
 
 when there is no dust ? After the most careful sifting of the 
 
152 
 
 gravel, a small quantity of loamy dirt will unavoidably still 
 adhere to the stones, and this loam, together with a gluti- 
 nous matter which accumulates in the summer from the 
 dung and urine of the cattle (which accumulation the sum- 
 mer watering has a tendency to increase) occasions the 
 wheels to stick to the materials, in certain states of the 
 road, in spring and autumn, when it is between wet and dry, 
 particularly in heavy foggy weather, and after a frost ; by 
 which sticking of the wheels, the Whitechapel road is often, 
 in a short time, dreadfully torn and loosened up ; and it is 
 for remedying this evil, that I have, for m ore than eight 
 years past, occasionally watered the road in winter. As 
 soon as the sticking and tearing up of the materials is ob- 
 served to have commenced, several water-carts are em- 
 ployed upon these parts of the road, to wet the loamy and 
 glutinous matters so much, that they will no longer adhere 
 to the tire of the wheels, and to allow the wheels and feet of 
 the horses to force down and again fasten the gravel stones ; 
 the traffic, in the course of four to twenty-four hours after 
 watering, forms such a sludge on the surface, as can be 
 easily raked off by wooden scrapers, which is performed as 
 quickly as possible ; after which the road is hard and smooth, 
 the advantages of this practice of occasional winter watering 
 have been great; and it might, I am of opinion, be adopted 
 with like advantages on the other entrances into London, or 
 wherever else the traffic is great, and the gravel stones are 
 at times observed to be torn up by the sticking of the 
 wheels. 
 
 In what state of the road are you in the habit of laying 
 on fresh materials? I prefer laying on materials imme- 
 diately after the road has bad a scraping, in consequence of 
 there being upon the surface of the road a small quantity of 
 dirty matter and broken gravel, which then forms a sort of 
 cement for the gravel to fix in. 
 
153 
 
 You consider it advantageous to lay on the materials when 
 the road is wet ? I do, because the gravel adheres closer. 
 
 Considering the very great traffic upon the Whitechapel 
 road, is it your opinion that it would be advantageous to pave 
 any part of that road ? 1 think it would be desirable to pave 
 it, within some feet of the footpath more particularly. 
 
 What breadth from the sides of that road would you con- 
 sider it desirable to have paved ? About eleven or twelve 
 feet from the footpath. 
 
 You would consider it a desirable plan to pave the sides of 
 that road in preference to the centre ? Certainly. 
 
 For what reasons ? If the centre was paved, the light 
 carriages would be very much annoyed ; when the gravel 
 road was good on the sides, the heavy carriages would go 
 there, and the light carriages would be driven on the stones 
 from the sides again ; if the centre was paved the carters 
 would be obliged to walk on that road to manage their 
 horses, and would be considerably annoyed by carriages, 
 horsemen, &c. passing : but if the sides of that road were 
 paved, the carters would be enabled to walk on the footpath 
 and to manage their horses without annoyance. 
 
 What is the shape of road which, from your experience, 
 you would give the preference to ? I would have the road 
 barrelled, and made so as that it would convey off the water 
 in the severe weather in winter, when the roads are generally 
 bad. 
 
 Which do you give the preference to, a road with a flat 
 surface, or one that gradually declines from the centre ? 
 I think a road which gradually declines from the centre is 
 by far the most preferable, decidedly so. 
 
 What is the degree of the declivity or fall which you 
 would recommend as the most desirable ? I have paid par- 
 ticular attention to the Whitechapel road, where it is of the 
 width of 55 feet, and the fall from the centre to the sides is 
 
154 
 
 12 inches ; but to attain this shape, when the road is worn 
 down, when first covered with gravel, there should be a fall 
 not exceeding from 16 to 18 inches from the centre to the 
 sides. [ The loitness delivered in a cross section of the road.^ 
 
 Is it your opinion that any parliamentary regulation with 
 regard to stage coaches is necessary for preventing injury to 
 the road ? None. 
 
 You think it desirable that they should remain as at 
 present ? Yes. 
 
 What is the state of the Whitechapel road now, as com- 
 pared with what it was some years ago ? During the greater 
 part of the year, it is now one of the most pleasant roads 
 out of London to travel upon ; but from the gravel being 
 small and brittle, it is soon worn down, by the great num- 
 ber of heavy weights passing on it. With the small gravel 
 we have in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel, the road at 
 times breaks up, and becomes in a bad state ; but by the 
 application of water, to stop the sticking of the wheels, and 
 separate the sludge, in two days they are found in a good 
 state again. 
 
 Have you any other suggestion to make to the Committee 
 for the improvement of that road, or of roads in general ? 
 On that road, very great improvement might be made, in 
 not allowing the wide wheels to pass by paying so little toll, 
 or to carry so great weights as at present ; if the narrow- 
 wheeled waggons were to use double shafts, they would be 
 less injurious to the roads : even with narrow-wheeled carts, 
 if the two fore-horses were double, the shafts not being in 
 their track, it would be less injurious to the roads. 
 
 John Farey, Esquire, called in ; and Examined. 
 
 WHAT is your profession ? I am a mineral surveyor and 
 engineer. 
 
165 
 
 Have you turned your attention to the state of the roads 
 in the different districts of the kingdom? I have, very 
 particularly. 
 
 Can you furnish the Committee with any information with 
 regard to the state of those roads, as compared with former 
 years ? I can ; I have particularly attended to that subject . 
 more especially in the time of the late duke of Bedford, for 
 whom I was an agent. I have since been employed in nearly 
 every part of England and Wales, and also in Scotland: 
 and I have statements by me of the various observations I 
 have made. 
 
 You have been employed under the late duke of Bedford, 
 in the improvement of the roads in tjie neighbourhood of 
 Woburn ? In the management of his roads in Bedfordshire, 
 and of all his rural works. 
 
 Describe what improvement of the main road has take 11 
 place under your direction, in Woburn ? The whole of the 
 line of the road through Woburn, except about three hun- 
 dred yards in different .places, is on a very strong alluvial 
 clay : the road passes over naked sand, only for three hun- 
 dred yards ; this road had been rendered so sandy and so 
 bad, entirely by bringing soft sand-stone out of Bucking- 
 hamshire, at three miles carriage, upon the average, in 
 Woburn, and some of that stone was brought almost to the 
 end of Hockliff Town, where the best gravel abounds. It 
 appeared, from the remains of a number of gravel-pits, 
 that there had been formerly a great deal of gravel dug in 
 Wobtirn ; this circumstance I mentioned to the duke of 
 Bedford, and he desired search to be made ; and it was as* 
 certained that Woburn might furnish gravel enough, ade- 
 quate to any purpose. In consequence of which, his Grace 
 directed, when the labourers were much in want of employ- 
 ment, that the poor persons should be employed in pre- 
 paring a great quantity of gravel for the purposes of this 
 
156 
 
 turnpike road. I undertook to direct the taking of this 
 gravel out, and to level the siftings and dirt in a uniform 
 manner, and lay all the soil again upon the top ; by which 
 means the land was in no degree injured, but, in fact, con- 
 siderably benefited, by being loosened to that depth. A 
 great many hundreds of cubic yards of clean-sifted and 
 picked gravel were prepared in numerous square stacks, and 
 the trustees at a meeting, or else their clerk, were informed, 
 that this gravel his Grace offered to the road at the mere 
 cost of labour, without any thing for the gravel, or the 
 temporary damage to the occupiers of the land. After a 
 long time of hesitation, the trustees or their clerk returned 
 an answer, that they did not like that mode, alleging that 
 their surveyor ought to be allowed to dig materials where 
 and how he liked, and they would not have this gravel : it 
 lay there, some of it for two or three years, upon the land. 
 In that time a number of private roads were making of hig 
 Grace's, and a good deal of it was used on these. The 
 main road became progressively worse and worse, and the 
 post-office caused the parish to be indicted. I wag then 
 surveyor, and made an application to the trustees, stating 
 the circumstances the road was under : that road-trust is 
 thirteen miles in length, two of which, or rather more, are 
 in the parish of Woburn ; there is a toll-gate in the parish, 
 which the inhabitants are liable to all the toll of; some of 
 them, even in going and returning to and from their fields : 
 the trustees had exacted very strictly the half of the statute 
 duty, although the parish had, I think, eleven miles of 
 private roads to maintain. I mention this circumstance to 
 show there was no default on the part of the parish ; and it 
 was afterwards proved, that they had done their duty ; the 
 trustees merely laughed at the application, and said, that 
 they had nothing to do with it : we must repair the road, 
 and till we did so, they would not lay out a farthing upon 
 
157 
 
 our road. It happened, very fortunately for the parish of 
 Woburn, that their act was very nearly out, and they applied 
 for a new one ; the parish opposed it, stating, that the trus- 
 tees had misapplied the tolls, and praying, that the part of 
 the road, through Woburn, should be taken out of their 
 management; the act accordingly directed, that two-thir- 
 teenths of the tolls should be paid over to the parish survey- 
 ors of Woburn, and the trustees were not to call for any 
 statute-duty, or interfere in the management of this part of 
 the road ; in consequence of this, the gravel mentioned, 
 which remained, and great quantities dug on purpose, was 
 used upon the road, in a sufficient quantity at once, so as 
 to admit of its settling down together ; for it wanted lining 
 nine inches thick, or more, and the road has since been per- 
 fectly good. 
 
 Jovis, 25 die Martii, 1819. 
 
 John Farcy, Esquire, called in ; and Examined, 
 
 IN effecting the improvement of the Woburn road, did 
 you make use of any particular mode of applying the gravel ? 
 The gravel, before the time of using it, had been very 
 clean sifted, and separated from the dirt and sand ; the great 
 stones had been picked out, and such of the flints which 
 were of a long and irregular shape, in order that they might 
 be broken. After laying the gravel upon the road men were 
 daily employed to rake the gravel into the ruts, and, at the 
 same time, to carefully pick off the surface any stones that 
 were either soft or improperly shaped, like long flints, or too 
 large. 
 
 What is your opinion, in regard to the form the most pre- 
 
158 
 
 ferable for turnpike roads ? A small convexity in the 
 middle. 
 
 Will you state the fall, in any given width of road, that 
 you would prefer? Referring to my brother, Mr. Benjamin 
 Farcy's evidence, I agree with him in wishing that the sec- 
 tion which he produced, might be received by the Com- 
 mittee, as an answer to this question. 
 
 Is there any particular circumstance, in the formation of 
 roads, more particularly applicable to the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of London ? In the neighbourhood of London, 
 and of several other large towns, the "materials that are to 
 be readily procured, are of too tender and brittle a nature 
 to endure the wear of the heavy carriages ; I therefore am 
 of opinion, that it would be proper to pave the sides of all 
 the principal entrances into London ; but not the middle, as 
 has been done on the Commercial road and Borough Stones'- 
 end road. My reasons for preferring the sides being paved 
 are, that it is next to impossible to compel the carters to 
 keep upon the pavement in the middle of the road, in too 
 many instances ; the fear of damage, from the swift going 
 carriages, occasions them, either to draw their carts close to 
 the sides, and walk upon the footpaths, or what is worse to 
 leave their horses in the middle, beyond a train of carriages. 
 The sides being paved, would enable one of those trains of 
 carriages to enter London on one side of the road, and go 
 out of it on the other, without many occasions to turn out 
 of their tracks : which keeping nearly to the same tracks, 
 upon a well-paved road, would not be prejudicial ; but on a 
 road formed of gravel is entirely ruinous. 
 
 Do you consider that the plan of rolling the roads in the 
 neighbourhood of London might be advantageously intro- 
 duced ? The centre of the roads I should recommend to 
 remain covered with clean-sifted and picked gravel, having 
 
159 
 
 as many as possible of its large, roundish and smooth stones 
 broken by means of a hammer before the time of laying it on 
 the road, and that an heavy iron roller, of from four to five 
 feet diameter, and not less, might be advantageously used in 
 the first settling down of this gravel ; a small roller, such as 
 I believe to have been tried in the neighbourhood of London, 
 very heavily loaded on its top, might have a tendency to 
 force the loose gravel before it so as not easily [to be drawn 
 or to mount on to the gravel driven before it without crush- 
 ing the flints. I will add, I am of opinion, that a roller could 
 not be beneficially used upon a road at any other times but 
 after new coating it with gravel, or after a frost or the 
 sticking of materials to the wheels may have loosened up the 
 materials. 
 
 Do you consider that the present regulations in regard to 
 exemptions of tolls to waggons with broad wheels, are jus- 
 tified by sound policy ? In my opinion, those exemptions 
 have wholly originated in mistaken principles, and that no 
 wheels wider than about six inches are now, in fact, used 
 upon the roads, owing to the general and gross deceptions 
 which the waggoners practise as to the breadth of surface 
 that their wheels roll on ; and that if by any more efficient 
 regulations, the users of broad wheels were compelled to roll 
 the breadths of surface, which the laws contemplate, all such 
 wheels would be immediately disused, from the great addi- 
 tional force of draught which broad wheels occasion during 
 the average state of all the roads. 
 
 Are you of opinion that any regulation by statute, for sub- 
 stituting cylindrical for conical wheels, would remedy that 
 evil, or justify an exemption from toll ? As far as I have 
 observed, there are no conical wheels in use : all the wheels 
 are rounding or barrelled, and it is comparatively an imma- 
 terial circumstance whether they approach the form of a cone 
 or a cylinder, while they remain so rounding or barrelled, 
 
160 
 
 because their enormous loads roll on a very small portion of 
 the surface of all those broad wheels. I think that six-inch 
 cylindrical wheels, or under, are the most practicable and 
 useful, provided the projecting nails are most rigidly pro 
 hibited, which I believe can never be done but by a pe- 
 nalty per nail upon the wheelers who put in those nails, and 
 upon the drivers of the carriages who used such roughly- 
 nailed wheels. 
 
 Are you of opinion that the penalties now fixed by law 
 upon over-weights are regulated upon good principles ? I 
 consider the whole system as to penalties upon over-weights 
 generally bad ; the present regulations seem to me framed 
 upon mistaken principles, and are the source of very great 
 impositions. 
 
 In what manner might the penalties and tolls upon carts 
 and waggons be best fixed ? It is not practicable to very 
 simply or in this way state any one scale that would be ge- 
 nerally applicable for each breadth of wheels : below six 
 inches, there should be a rate fixed, which would apply to 
 ordinary or gate-tolls, and at the weighing machines addi- 
 tional tolls, which I will call machine-tells, should be levied 
 upon all carriages which exceeded the weight, to be regu- 
 lated in an increasing scale for each breadth of wheel, so as 
 very greatly to discourage, but not ruinously to prohibit the 
 occasional carrying of large weights upon any wheels. 
 
 You are not, then, of opinion that it would be right to do 
 away the regulations altogether in respect to the weights, 
 and apportion the tolls only to the number of horses ? By 
 no means. 
 
 Are you acquainted with any particular weighing machine, 
 which obviates the common objection in regard to imposi- 
 tions by the machine-keepers ? I am ; Mr. Salmon, of Wo- 
 burn, many years ago, contrived, and had a patent (which 
 has expired) for a weighing machine, intended to prevent 
 
161 
 
 impositions on the carters ^ the machine being so contrived 
 as to be locked up from the machine-keeper, and accessible 
 only to the surveyor, and so as to exhibit the exact weight by 
 a revolving index, like the hands of a clock, which are called 
 clock-face indexes a great number of these weighing machines 
 have long been in use in the kingdom, some in the immediate 
 environs of London : by looking at the index of which ma- 
 chine, the carter, or any passer by, may see that the ma- 
 chine, before the carriage is drawn upon its weigh-bridge, is 
 in just balance ; and all the time the carnage remains upon 
 the weigh-bridge, the index exhibits the weight, so that the 
 carter can take it down ; and at the same time the dial-plate 
 is made an abstract of the law, by there being written against 
 each of the weights fixed, the breadth of the carriage-wheel, 
 and the season to which that weight is applicable at the com- 
 mencement of penalties for over-weights. 
 
 Can you inform the Committee of the expense of a ma- 
 chine of this description ? I cannot ; but it is trifling, com- 
 pared with its advantages, and an index may be added to a 
 machine upon the common principle, using weights, placed 
 in a scale 5 they may be applied to any good machine already 
 in use. 
 
 Are you of opinion there exists any necessity for limiting 
 the number of horses in carts and waggons, upon roads 
 where there are weighing-machines ? I am of opinion not ; 
 and even doubt the propriety of calculating the gate-toll by 
 the number of horses which draw the carriage. Upon pri- 
 vate or parish roads, where no machines are erected, there 
 seems, however, no other mode of regulating or preventing 
 excessive loads being carried, to the ruin of the roads, than 
 limiting the number of horses ; but in case of the practice 
 becoming general, which already prevails in many of the 
 towns in the middle of England, of there being a weighing- 
 
 L 
 
162 
 
 machine, kept by a cottager, at all fehe principal entrances of 
 the town, at which he is authorized (by the local magistrates, 
 I believe,) to collect a small toll for each weighing, for those 
 who voluntarily apply to him, by which means all loads 
 passing into and out of such towns, may be, and the greater 
 part of them are now, weighed ; and if this were adopted in 
 the environs of London, (with the addition of a yard and 
 a warehouse, where a carter who has inadvertently taken up 
 too large a load, either of dung, furniture, or other articles, 
 of the weights of which he could not be accurately informed, 
 may learn the same ; and where, upon the result of this 
 weighing, if it should be discovered that he had much too 
 large a load, he could there throw off and deposit a part of 
 it, either to abandon it if of small value like dung, or to 
 take it up from the warehouse, at a future time,) these en- 
 trance weighing-machines would remove the only valid ob- 
 jection to weighing the loads of manure going out of London, 
 by which the roads are at present more cut up and de- 
 stroyed, than by any other description of carriages. 
 
 Will you have the goodness to state the principle upon 
 which you prefer that the tolls should be regulated entirely 
 by weights and breadth of wheels, without regard to the 
 number of horses drawing ? Because nothing can be more 
 vague or unsatisfactory, than the latter mode of defining 
 weights, or preventing the carrying of excessive loads, 
 because horses are of such very different degrees of size, 
 condition and strength, and the humanity or otherwise of 
 their drivers are so very different ; but more on account of 
 the very great inequality of the different roads of the king- 
 dom, which this general regulation is now made to apply to, 
 as to the number and steepness of the hills ; the precautions 
 that have been used, of setting up posts upon the tops and 
 bottoms of those steeps, to define where extra horses raa-> 
 
163 
 
 be used, are entirely become useless, comparatively, none of 
 the hills now remain, to any length, with so great a degree 
 of steepness, as to cause it to be worth any one's while to 
 keep horses stationed there, for the purpose of assisting 
 heavy carriages up those hills for hire ; still less has it oc- 
 curred that any waggoner has spare horses following his 
 waggon, for which he must pay tolls, in order to avail him- 
 self of this useless permission, to use any number of horses 
 up the steep hills. 
 
 Are you of opinion that stage-coaches require, or would 
 admit of any regulation with respect to their wheels or 
 weights ? I am clearly of opinion, that they would not ; for 
 in travelling, when it has happened that I could not get a 
 seat on the front of the coach, I have, through many long 
 days, carefully attended to the impression made by the 
 wheels of the carriages upon which I have been travelling 
 (when they have been among the heaviest loaded coaches) 
 and have compared these impressions with those of the carts 
 and waggons, particularly broad-wheeled ones, which we 
 met; from which observations, and other more particular 
 ones, I am of opinion, that the injury done to the roads by 
 the coaches, compared with their utility and the tolls they 
 pay, is not such as to justify any legal restraint on their 
 wheels or weights. 
 
 Are you of opinion, that it would be attended with any 
 advantage to the roads, to encourage, by any regulation or 
 exemption from tolls, the use of carriages, varying the length 
 of their axles, so es to prevent their running in the same 
 tracks ? I am of opinion it would be very beneficial, and 
 have particularly so stated to the Board of Agriculture, with 
 an example of the tolls over a new road, which are so regu- 
 lated ^Derbyshire : in addition to which, some inducement 
 in the abatement of tolls, might be made to those carriages? 
 
 L % 
 
164 
 
 which now generally use single shafts, like the farmers' carts 
 and waggons, on their adopting double shafts, so that all 
 their horses may draw in pairs ; this being applicable even to 
 three-horse carts, as far as concerns the two foremost. 
 Stage-coaches, for the reasons here alluded to, as they do 
 all draw in pairs, and very seldom follow in any previous 
 and deep rut, do far less damage to the roads than otherwise 
 would happen ; their springs also, and swiftness of motion, 
 contributing, very materially, to lessening their wear of the 
 road. 
 
 Are you of opinion that any advantage would be derived 
 from the general commutation of statute duty ? I have long 
 been of opinion that the whole principle of statute duty, as 
 now regulated, is erroneous ; labour in kind should entirely 
 cease : and the surveyor collect a more equable rate on all 
 property in his township ; the present regulations for calling 
 out the teams and making of a road-rate, are so complicated, 
 as to be above the capacity of the majority of parish survey- 
 ors, who in most or all instances collect the rates for the 
 turnpike roads as well as the private roads. 
 
 Will you state your opinion of the statute labour, as it 
 particularly applies to turnpike roads ? In all the local road 
 acts which I have examined, one half of the statute duty of 
 each township is apportioned to each toll road which passes 
 through any part or corner of that township, which in innu- 
 merable instances, is very highly prejudicial; a due pro- 
 portion of the fair road rate, as already mentioned, should be 
 payable to each toll road, where there are more than one in 
 the township, in proportion (or nearly so, as tlje quarter 
 sessions might order) to all the lengths of all the roads 
 within the township which it contributes to repair. 
 
 Prom your observation of the different roads throughout 
 the kingdom, do you think that important advantages would 
 
165 
 
 be derived from their being placed under skilful surveyors, 
 acting for large districts ? At present, the separate trusts 
 are so exceedingly different in extent, many of them extend- 
 ing only three, four and five miles, while others have fifty or 
 a hundred miles of road under their trusts, that it seems 
 impracticable, in many trusts, to employ a very skilful and 
 competent surveyor, on account of the great and unnecessary 
 expense that would be incurred on the short lengths of road ; 
 but if the legislature should see it right to enact the 
 appointment of thoroughly competent district surveyors, who 
 might have the superintendence and control, to a defined 
 extent, over the officers of the local trustees of turnpike 
 roads, as well as over the surveyors of the parish roads within 
 their districts, the most important advantages would result. 
 
 Do you not think great inconvenience arises from the great 
 numbers generally found forming commissioners of turnpike 
 trusts ? From my own experience, I cannot say that I have 
 seen any evil from the great number of trustees, on the con- 
 trary, the greatest mis-management that I have seen in any 
 roads, has arisen from the clergymen of the districts being 
 almost the only acting trustees ; the greatest and most active 
 land owners frequently having no share in such trusts : the 
 late duke of Bedford, for instance, not being a trustee in the 
 vicinity of Woburn for many years after he took an active 
 part in improving the district. 
 
 James Walker 9 Esq. called in ; and Examined. 
 
 YOU are a civil engineer ? I am. 
 
 In the course of your experience have you turned your 
 attention to the making and repairing of roads ? I have 
 been employed in the making and repairing of several roads, 
 and the regulation of others. 
 
166 
 
 In what part of the kingdom have you been employed,, 
 and what observations have occurred to you upon this sub- 
 ject ? The whole of the works executed under the Com- 
 mercial Road, the East India Road, the Barking Road, 
 and the Tilbury Road Acts, have been under my direction, 
 as well as the roads made under the Bridge and Dock Com- 
 panies, for which I have been engineer. The Commercial 
 Road, which is between the West India Docks and London 
 is referred to in the report of a former Committee on high- 
 ways, as particularly well fitted for heavy traffic ; that road 
 is seventy feet wide, and is divided into two footways, each 
 ten feet, and a carriage road fifty feet wide, of which 
 twenty feet in the middle is paved with granite. I have 
 a section of the form of this road (No. 1, in the an- 
 nexed plan.) The East India Dock branch of the Com- 
 mercial Road is also seventy feet wide, ten feet of which 
 is paved with granite. I have prepared also a section 
 of that road (No. 2, in the plan.) The traffic upon the 
 Commercial Road, both up and down, is very great, and 
 necessarily required a width of paving sufficient for two 
 carriages to pass upon it. I am quite sure that the 
 expense of this road would have been very much greater, 
 probably much more than doubled if it had not been paved, 
 and that the carriage of goods would also Jiave been much 
 more expensive ; indeed it would have been next to impos- 
 sible to have carried the present loads upon a gravelled road. 
 The road has been paved for about sixteen years, and the 
 expense of supporting it has been small, although the stage- 
 coaches generally, as well as almost all the carts and wag- 
 gons, go upon it ; while the expense of the gravelled part 
 has been comparatively great. During the thirteen years 
 that the East India Dock branch has been paved, the paving 
 has not cost 201. in repairs, although the waggons, each 
 
16? 
 
 weighing about five tons, with the whole of the East India 
 produce, which is brought from the docks by land, have 
 passed all that time in one track upon it, and a great deal of 
 heavy country traffic for the last eight years, when a com- 
 munication was formed with the county of Essex. The 
 advantage of paving part of a road where the traffic is 
 great, and the materials of making roads bad or expensive^ 
 is not confined to improving the conveyance for heavy goods 
 and reducing the horses' labour ; but as the paving is always 
 preferred for heavy carriages, the sides of a road are left 
 for light carriages, and are kept in much better repair than 
 otherwise they could possibly be. It is not, I am sure* 
 overstating the advantage of the paving, but rather other- 
 wise, to say, that taking the year through, two horses will 
 do more work, with the same labour to themselves, upon 
 a paved road than three upon a good gravelled road, if the 
 traffic upon the gravelled road is at all considerable, and* if 
 the effect of this, in point of expense, is brought into 
 figures, the saving of the expense of carriage will be found 
 to be very great when compared with the cost of the paving. 
 If the annual tonnage upon the Commercial Road is taken 
 at 250,000 tons, and at the rate of only 3s. per ton from the 
 Docks, it could not upon a gravelled road be done under 
 4*. 6d. say however 4s. or Is. per ton difference, making a 
 saving of 12,500/., or nearly the whole expense of the 
 paving in one year. I think I am under the mark in all 
 these figures, and I am convinced therefore that the intro- 
 duction of paving would, in many cases, be productive of 
 great advantage, by improving the gravel road, reducing 
 the expense of repairs, and causing a saving of horses' 
 labour much beyond what there is, I believe, any idea of. 
 The expense of a ton of Aberdeen granite paving-stones laid 
 in London, or in any similar situation, including laying, and 
 every expense, is about 25s. ; the cost of the same weight of 
 
168 
 
 gravel is from 3s. 6d. to 5s. The cost of granite paving, 
 9 inches deep, is from 8s. 6d* to 10s. 6d. per superficial 
 yard, or from 750/, to 92o. per mile for every yard in width. 
 Guernsey granite is harder and more durable than Aberdeen 
 granite, but is more expensive by about 10 per cent, and 
 I think is this much better. Some stone of very good 
 quality from near Greenock, has been used lately upon the 
 Commercial Road, it is cheaper than Aberdeen, and appears 
 to be very durable. The requisites for forming a good 
 paving are to have the stones properly squared and shaped, 
 not as wedges, but nearly as rectangular prisms ; to sort 
 them into classes according to their sizes, so as to prevent 
 unequal sinking, which is always the effect of stones, or 
 rows of stones, of unequal sizes being mixed together ; to 
 have a foundation properly consolidated before the road is 
 begun to be paved, and to have the stones laid with a close 
 joint, the courses being kept at right angles from the direc- 
 tion of the sides, and in perfectly straight lines, the joints 
 carefully broken, that is, so that the joint between two 
 stones in any one course shall not be in a line with, or op- 
 posite to a joint in any of the two courses adjoining. After 
 the stones are laid they are to be well rammed, and such of 
 the stones as appear to ram loose, should be taken out and 
 replaced by others ; after this the joints are to be filled with 
 fine gravel, and if it can be done conveniently, the stability 
 of the work will be increased by well watering at night the 
 part that has been done during the day, and ramming it over 
 again next morning. The surface of the pavement is then 
 to be covered with an inch or so of fine gravel, that the 
 joints may be always kept full, and that the wheels may not 
 come in contact with the stones while they are at all loose in 
 their places. Attention to these points will very much in- 
 crease both the smoothness and durability of the paving. 
 I have found great advantage from filling up, or, as it is 
 
169 
 
 called, grouting the joints with lime-water, which finds its 
 way into the gravel between and under the stones, and 
 forms the whole into a solid concreted mass. The purpose 
 served by the lime might also be effectually answered 
 by mixing a little of the borings or chippings of iron, or 
 small scraps of iron hoop, with the gravel used in filling up 
 the joints of the paving. The water would very soon create 
 an oxide of iron, and form the gravel into a species of rock. 
 I have seen a piece of rusty hoop taken from under water, 
 to which the gravel had so connected itself, for four or five 
 inches round the hoop, as not to be separated without a 
 small blow of a hammer. And the cast-iron pipes which are 
 laid in moist gravel soon exhibit the same tendency. 
 
 It has occurred to me, as I stated to the chairman of this 
 honourable Committee some weeks since, that considerable 
 improvement would be found from paving the sides of a road, 
 upon which the heavy traffic is great, in both directions, and 
 leaving the middle for light carriages, the carmen walking 
 upon the footpaths or sides of the road, would then be close 
 to their horses, without interrupting, or being in danger of 
 accidents from light carriages, which is the case when they 
 are driving upon the middle of the road ; and the unpaved 
 part being in the middle or highest part of the road, would 
 be more easily kept in good repair. I have prepared a sec- 
 tion of a road formed in this way (No. 3 in the plan), hut 
 unless the heavy traffic in both directions is great, one 
 width (say ten or twelve feet, if very well paved,) will be 
 found sufficient ; and in this case, I think the paving ought 
 to be in the middle of the road. The width of many of the 
 present roads is, besides, such, that ten or twelve feet can 
 be spared for paving, while twice that width would leave too 
 little for the gravelled part. Although the first cost of 
 paving is so great, I do not think that any other plan can 
 
170 
 
 be adopted so good and so cheap in those places where the 
 materials got in the neighbourhood are not sufficient for 
 supporting the roads. A coating of whinstone is, for in- 
 stance, more durable than the gravel with which the roads 
 round London are made and repaired; but much less so 
 than paving ; although the freight and carriage of the whin- 
 stone, and of the paving-stones, which form the principal 
 items of the expense, are nearly the same. Scotch whin- 
 stone, or the granite rubble (that is, rough chippings of 
 granite,) could not, I should think, be delivered into barges 
 in the river, at less than from 14s. to 15s. per ton, the 
 freight alone being from 11*. to 12s., while the price of 
 Aberdeen granite, in the same situation, is only from 19s. to 
 21 s. and 22^. Maidstone ragstone in the rubble state, costs 
 about 7s. per ton : it is a limestone, and much less durable 
 than the whin. The carriage from the river to the road, of 
 all these, is of course the same. Flint, again, is so much 
 less durable than whin, that it will not bear the expense of 
 carriage (which may be taken at from Is. 6d. to 2*. per 
 ton per mile) from any distance, to make it preferable to the 
 gravel, or paving, in point of cost, for the roads near 
 London. A double iron rail-road, to suit the London 
 waggons, which some have recommended, would cost about 
 4,500/. per mile, and would be fitted for waggons only of 
 one precise width, and for waggons or heavy carts only ; 
 while, from the difficulty of crossing it, it would form 
 rather an obstacle to light carriages. Blocks of Aberdeen 
 granite, twelve inches wide and fifteen inches deep, laid in 
 the way of the wheels (as recommended by others,) would 
 be nearly as expensive ; and the eight joints, which would 
 be formed between the stone and the gravel, by four rows 
 of stone, would be found extremely troublesome and incon- 
 venient. Both these substitutes for paving, therefore, 
 
171 
 
 though equally expensive as paving, have peculiar disad- 
 vantages ; and they have this besides, which is common to 
 them both, that they make no provision for preventing the 
 great wear upon gravelled roads, which is caused by the 
 horses' feet, particularly if (as is the case in a rail-road) they 
 are confined in one track. 
 
 Attention in the forming and repairing of roads, will in 
 all cases do much to compensate for the inferiority of the 
 material used for that purpose, of which the improvements 
 in the general state of the highways within the last twenty 
 years affords the best proof. To form the road upon a good 
 foundation, and to keep the surface clear of water after it is 
 formed, are the two most essential points towards having the 
 best roads possible, upon a given country, and with given 
 materials. For obtaining the first of these objects, it is es- 
 sential that the line for the road be taken so that the foun- 
 dation can be kept dry either by avoiding low ground by 
 raising the surface of the road above the level of the ground 
 on each side of it, or by drawing off the water by means of 
 side drains. The other object, viz. that of clearing the 
 road of water, is best secured by selecting a course for the 
 road which is not horizontally level, so that the surface of 
 the road may in its longitudinal section, form in some degree 
 an inclined plane ; and when this cannot be obtained, owing 
 to the extreme flatness of the country, an artificial incli- 
 nation may generally be made. When a road is so formed, 
 every wheel-track that is made, being in the line of the in- 
 clination, becomes a channel for carrying off the water, much 
 more effectually than can be done by a curvature in the cross 
 section or rise in the middle of the road, without the danger, 
 or other disadvantages which necessarily attend the round- 
 ing a road much in the middle. I consider a fall of about 
 one inch and a half in ten feet, to be a minimum in this 
 
172 
 
 case, if it is attainable without a great deal of extra ex- 
 pense. It is in the knowledge of the above points, and of 
 the application of them in practice, that what may be called 
 the science of road-making consists, as the observations 
 apply in every case. When a road is to be formed, accurate 
 sections of the rises and falls of the ground should always 
 be taken, in the same way as is done for a canal, before the 
 line is determined, or the levels of the road fixed upon, and 
 when the course and levels of the road are laid down, the 
 detail of the work ought to be particularly explained by a 
 specification and plan, describing the manner in which each 
 particular length is to be formed and completed. 
 
 The quantity of materials necessary to form the road de- 
 pends so much upon the soil and the nature of the materials 
 themselves, that it is impossible to lay down any general 
 rules for them. The thickness ought to be such that the 
 greatest weight will not affect more than the surface of the 
 shell, and it is for this purpose chiefly, that thickness is requir- 
 ed, in order to spread the weight which comes upon a small 
 part only of the road over a large portion of the foundation. 
 When the ground is very soft, trees, bavins or bushes, are 
 applied to answer the same purpose, and to carry off the 
 water previous to the materials of the road being so con- 
 solidated as to form a solid body, and to be impervious to 
 water. Bushes are, however, not advisable to be used, un- 
 less they are so low as always to be completely moist. When 
 they are dry and excluded from the air they decay in a very 
 few years, and produce a sinking in place of preserving the 
 road ; a thickness of chalk is useful for the same purpose in 
 cases where bushes are improper, the chalk mixing with the 
 gravel or stones becomes concreted, and presents a larger 
 surface to the pressure. If the material for making the 
 roads is gravel, the common way is to lay it as it comes from 
 
173 
 
 the pit, excepting the upper foot, or 18 inches or so, which 
 is screened ; but if whin or other stone is to be used, the 
 size of the pieces into which it is broken should decrease as 
 we approach the surface, the superficial coating not exceed- 
 ing a cube from 1 inch to If inch. If the foundation is 
 bad, breaking the bottom stone into small pieces is expen- 
 sive and injurious, upon the principle I have above de- 
 scribed, and also for the same reason that an arch formed 
 of whole bricks or of deep stones is to be preferred to one 
 of the same materials broken into smaller pieces, for in 
 some counties the materials will admit of the foundation of 
 the road being considered as of the nature of a flat arch, as 
 well as of being supported by the strata directly under it : 
 but the error in laying the stone in large pieces upon the 
 surface is more common and more injurious. In all cases, 
 whether the material is gravel or hard stone, the interstices 
 between the pieces should be filled up solid with smaller 
 pieces, and the finishing made by a thin covering of very 
 small pieces, or road-sand or rubbish, for those interstices 
 must be filled up before the road becomes solid, either in this 
 way or by a portion of the materials of the road being ground 
 down, which last mode occasions a waste of the material, and 
 keeps the road unnecessarily heavy and loose. This observation, 
 applies to the repairing as well as the original making of 
 roads, and the effect of this covering, or as it is called in 
 the country, blinding the loose stones, is so evident, that 
 I have often wondered to see so little attention paid to it. 
 If the material is soft, as some lime-stone, this is less ne- 
 cessary, and the quantity ought never to be more than is 
 just sufficient for the purpose I have described. In the 
 original making or effectually repairing of a road, it is, I 
 think, best that the whole of the proposed thickness be laid 
 on at once, for the sake of the road as well as of the tra? 
 
174 
 
 veiler ; the materials of the road then form a more solid 
 compact mass than when they are laid in thin strata, at dif- 
 ferent times, for the same reason that a deep arch of uniform 
 materials is preferable to a number of separate rings. Though 
 I state that an inclination in the longitudinal section of the 
 road is always desirable for the purpose of clearing it of 
 water, I am not of the opinion of those who recommend the 
 road to be made and kept flat or level in its gross section. 
 The variety of opinions and practice upon this point are 
 very great ; both extremes appear to me to be bad. A road 
 much rounded is dangerous, particularly if the cross section 
 approaches towards the segment of a circle, the slope in 
 the case not being uniform, but increasing rapidly from the 
 nature of the curve, as we depart from the middle or ver- 
 tical line. The over rounding of roads is also injurious to 
 them, by either confining the heavy carriages to one track 
 in the' crown of the road, or if they go upon the sides, by 
 the great wear they produce, from their constant tendency 
 to move down the inclined plane, owing to the angle which 
 the surface of the road and the line of gravity of the load 
 form with each other, and as this tendency is perpendicular 
 to the line of draught, the labour of the horse and the 
 wear of the carriage wheels, are both much increased 
 by it. 
 
 It is not altogether foreign to the subject to notice here, 
 the error of forming the inclination of the road-way upon 
 bridges, in the direction of their length, or across the 
 river, from a section of a curve for the whole length, rather 
 than from two lines joined together by a curve, as I have 
 recommended for the cross section of a road. It is to this 
 cause that the very heavy pull is owing, which must have 
 been noticed in just getting upon a bridge, which decreases 
 as we advance towards the middle of the bridge, and which 
 
175 
 
 would not have been so much felt, had it been spread regu- 
 larly over the whole length (see No. 5, in the plan.) 
 
 The disadvantages of a flat road again are, that even if it 
 is supposed to continue so, it is bad in principle, by doing 
 away the tendency which a road ought to have, in every 
 direction, to clear itself of water ; but as the greatest wear 
 will always be in the middle of the road, a level or flat road 
 will very soon be concave ; the middle of the road then be- 
 comes the watercourse, and the consequence, if the road 
 is upon level ground, is, that the water and mud lie 
 upon it, and injure the foundation and materials; or, if 
 otherwise, that the stones or materials of the road are 
 washed bare, and liable to be loosened and thrown up by 
 the wheels coming into contact with their exposed angular 
 surfaces. Many of the roads in the country afford examples 
 of this, particularly after heavy rains, and if the country is 
 at all hilly. 
 
 The best form for a road, in order to avoid those evils, is, 
 in my opinion, to form it, and to keep it with just a suffi- 
 cient rise towards the middle, to incline the water towards 
 the sides ; and in place of making the whole width the sec- 
 tion of one curve, to form it by two straight lines, forming 
 inclined planes, and joined by a curve towards the middle. 
 I have prepared a section of a road in the manner I have 
 described (No. 4.) and as the lines, excepting at the centre, 
 are straight, the section may be made to suit almost any 
 greater or less width, by merely extending them. The 
 section is taken nearly from a part of a road made under my 
 direction in the country. The dotted line drawn upon it 
 shows the form I alluded to when speaking of the circular 
 road that ought to be avoided. I have seen ridges formed 
 in what I thought well formed land, much after what I 
 }vould recommend for the form of a road. The object of 
 
176 
 
 forming the land into ridges, raised a little in the middle, is 
 the same as that of raising the middle of a road to prevent 
 the water from settling upon it, and what is sufficient for the 
 ploughed land is certainly enough for a road. If the road 
 is of good stone, four to five inches rise in ten feet is suffi- 
 cient, gravel, and other inferior material, will allow a little 
 more. In this section it may be worth while to notice the 
 situation of the hedge and ditch, or rill on each side of the 
 road, a more common, but I think a more dangerous and 
 worse way, is to form the ditch close to the road, and to 
 plant the quick upon a raised bank beyond it. I have 
 dotted this mode also upon the section. The advantage of 
 having the hedge next the road, consists in its greater safety 
 to the traveller, particularly if a ditch of any considerable 
 depth is necessary, and in the hedge being supported in its 
 growth from the ground under the road, without drawing 
 upon the farmer's side of the ditch ; and it is I believe, this 
 last advantage, which has led the author of an article in 
 the Edinburgh Farmer's Magazine, with whom I am ac- 
 quainted, to make nearly the same observations. In a length 
 of road, made eight or ten years since, over a marsh, 
 partly a bog, considerably under high water, where, from 
 the level of the ground, and of the drainage, the ditches 
 were obliged to be deep and wide, and therefore dangerous ; 
 I ordered some cuttings of willow to be stuck into the road- 
 side of the ditch. In about two years they formed a blind 
 to the ditch, and are now so thick and strong as to be a 
 complete security from all danger. I may here take the 
 liberty to say, that nothing is more injurious to roads than 
 the permitting high hedges and plantations near them, their 
 effect in keeping the rain suspended and dripping upon the 
 road longer than otherwise it would, and in preventing the 
 air and sun from drying the roads, is most destructive and 
 
177 
 
 VGry general : and as the commissioners or principal men of 
 the district are often the greatest offenders in this respect, 
 the evil is one in which both the enactments and the appli- 
 cation of them require the strictest attention and impartiality. 
 After a road is properly made, the comfort of the traveller 
 and the principle of economy on the part of the road- trust, 
 both demand that it be not allowed to get much out of 
 repair ; the adage of " a stitch in time," applies particularly 
 to the repairing of roads, and though not universally prac- 
 tised, is so well known, that it is, I presume, unnecessary 
 to state reasons, for what no one acquainted with the subject 
 at all doubts. The best season for repairing roads is, I 
 think, the spring or very early in the summer, when the 
 weather is likely neither to be very wet nor dry, for both of 
 these extremes prevent the materials from consolidating, 
 and therefore cause a waste of them, and at the same time, 
 either a heavy or a dusty road ; but if done at the time I 
 have recommended, the roads are left in good state for the 
 summer, and become consolidated and hard to resist the 
 work of the ensuing winter. 
 
 When I remarked the great improvement in many of the 
 highways during the last twenty years, I by no means meant 
 to say that they are not still capable of much greater, or 
 that many of them have not been much neglected. In many 
 districts this is notoriously the case, and when the materials 
 are the best, the roads are frequently the worst. There is 
 no road round London upon which there is more heavy 
 country traffic, than the first stage of the great Essex or 
 Mile End road ; and owing to the well directed attention of 
 the chairman of the commissioners, and of their surveyor, 
 there are few better roads any where, excepting in very wet 
 heavy weather. Indeed I do not think it possible to do 
 much, if any thing, in improving the superrntendance and 
 
 M 
 
178 
 
 repair of that road, with the material nt present in use ; 
 for the nature of which, as well as for the exclusion of nir 
 and sun by buildings, proper allowance ought to be made 
 in judging of the state of the roads near London, and when' 
 this is done, and the great wear considered, we may find that 
 in very many cases, there is but little cause to find fault, 
 and much room for commendation. The traffic upon the 
 Mile End road is however too much for a gravelled road, 
 and the expense for repair for the first three miles is conse- 
 quently very great. The same remarks as to conduct and 
 attention, are merited by the commissioners of other dis- 
 tricts, and their gratuitous services entitle them to the 
 thanks of the public ; while in some parts of the kingdom, 
 including Scotland, where the material is the very best, the 
 roads are often in the worst condition, and the most un- 
 pleasant to travel upon. The stone is put in large pieces 
 upon the road, without any covering or mixture of smaller 
 material, and is left to take the chance of being broke and 
 formed into a solid, or of tumbling loose upon the road. 
 When a track is once formed in this stone-heap, it is not to 
 be expected that the horses will be easily made to move out 
 of it ; and unless the thoroughfare is considerable, the road 
 in use consists sometimes for a long period, of the two deep 
 wheel tracks, which are always filled with water during the 
 winter, and of the horse's path between them, the other 
 parts being covered with a body of loose stones, and ren- 
 dered absolutely useless. These observations apply to some 
 lengths of the most frequented highways, but are more par- 
 ticularly applicable to the cross roads and the parish roads. 
 I had the opportunity of seeing the roads in the West 
 Highlands last autumn ; they are formed with judgement, 
 and kept in good repair. 
 When the highways in a county are under the manage- 
 
170 
 
 ment of trustees, it is common to divide them, and to assign 
 a particular length to the trustees who live near it, without 
 employing any person in the capacity of a surveyor. When 
 this is the case, the state of repair depends much upon the 
 observation and attention of the trustee ; and the change in 
 the state of the road often marks out the change of super- 
 intendance. A relative of mine has given up a good deal 
 of his time and attention to a part of the roads in Stirling- 
 shire, of which he is one of the trustees : no professional 
 man could, perhaps, do the business better ; and the effect 
 of this attention is very visible. Instances of the same kind 
 are frequent, but it is not to be expected that trustees 
 generally can both understand, and have so great a relish 
 for serving the public, as that the detail of the repairs of 
 roads, if imposed upon them, will be always executed with 
 the attention they require. 
 
 The case of parish roads is still worse, where the inha- 
 bitants are, without much regard to their habits of life, 
 obliged in their turns to serve the annual office of surveyor 
 of the highways. If such persons mean to signalize them- 
 selves during their being in office, the first step is often to undo 
 what their predecessor has done, or has not perfected ; and 
 the love of self and of friends determines them to make 
 sure while they have it in their power, that some favoured 
 roads or lanes are put into proper order. If the surveyor is, 
 on the contrary, an unwilling officer, or if the attention to 
 his own affairs prevents him giving his time to the duties of 
 the office, he avoids the fine by accepting the charge, pays 
 the bills and wages without much knowledge of their nature 
 or accuracy, and one of the labourers becomes, in fact, the 
 road-surveyor ; but in every case of annual nominations 
 there is this evil, that so soon as the surveyor has, by a 
 year's apprenticeship, begun to know something of the 
 
 M % 
 
180 
 
 nature of the business, his place is filled by another, who 
 comes in for the same time to take lessons at the expense of 
 the parish. Thus, while many simple trades require, by 
 law, an apprenticeship of seven years, before the person is 
 thought qualified to practise with his own capital, the road- 
 surveyor is supposed fit, the very hour he is named, for an 
 office which requires at least as much understanding and 
 experience as the average of trades, and in which he has 
 the capital of all the parish to speculate with. For these 
 reasons, I have always been convinced of the propriety of 
 an intelligent accountable officer in each district, but I do 
 not see to whom he can be responsible with so great pro- 
 priety, or in other words, in whom the chief control can be 
 so well vested, as in the gentlemen who live in the county, 
 who are almost daily witnesses of what is doing, and are 
 chiefly interested in keeping down the expenses, at the same 
 time having their roads in good repair. 
 
 Whether a board of roads, appointed by parliament, meet- 
 ing once every year, and forming a report of the expense and 
 state of the roads in each county, to be presented to parlia- 
 ment, with such oervat ions as present themselves, as to im- 
 provements, or otherwise, taken from general surveys made 
 by persons appointed by them, would be useful, by exciting a 
 spirit of emulation and attention on the part of the different 
 trusts, every member of this honourable Committee is as 
 able, and perhaps more able, to give a disinterested judg- 
 ment than I am ; for I conclude, that if surveys are to be 
 made, engineers will think they have some chance of being 
 selected as the most proper persons to be employed on the 
 occasion, under the board. The state of the roads continue 
 to improve throughout the kingdom. Every friend to his 
 country will be pleased, if the march of this improvement 
 can be accelerated by a moderate reform, and carried into 
 
181 
 
 remote corners and parishes, where it appears most to be 
 wanted ; but I much question the propriety of such a revo- 
 lution as would lessen the interest, which, in their present 
 situation, the commissioners ought to feel in the repair of 
 their roads, and the consequence which the appointment 
 tends to give them. 
 
 If country road-surveyors are appointed throughout the 
 kingdom, the nomination might be with the commissioners 
 of the county, and if friendship or local interest is supposed 
 to operate too far, the nomination, or the examination pre- 
 vious to election, or the veto after it, might be with the 
 central or other board, the members of which might be sup- 
 posed not to be connected with the individual, in the same 
 way as pilots and the masters of men of war are examined by 
 the elder brethren of the Trinity House. And sub-surveyors 
 or surveyors of parishes, might in the same manner be ap- 
 pointed, or undergo an examination by the county commis- 
 sioners and county surveyor, to qualify them to be elected ; 
 for it is to be lamented, that in cases where parishes have, 
 from the reasons I have mentioned, made the office of road- 
 surveyors permanent, with a salary : the election being 
 popular, has fallen, not upon the candidate who was really 
 the best qualified, but probably upon some honest decayed 
 tradesman, who, having proved himself unable to manage 
 his own business, which he ought to have known the best, 
 has thereby, and by his long residence, qualified himself for 
 managing a public business, of which he probably knows 
 nothing, but whether he does, or does not, rarely enters 
 into the consideration of the majority of the voters. 
 
 IN what manner do you think the extra toll for over- 
 weight ought to be regulated ; whether by the weight, or 
 by the number of horses used, without regard to the weight ? 
 I think by the weight most certainly ; unless the object is 
 
182 
 
 to discourage the breed of small horses, and encourage the 
 over-loading and straining, of horses of all sizes. The 
 number of horses is a very imperfect measure, or rather no 
 measure at all of the injury done to the roads ; for a load 
 of three tons, drawn by one horse, injures the road as 
 much, to say the least of it, as if two horses were used. 
 It is not out of place to mention the extreme disproportion 
 between the penalties for overweight, and the injuries which 
 they are meant to compensate for, or to prevent ; particu- 
 larly when this over-loading is the effect of ignorance, 
 which is almost always the case. When the tolls are in the 
 hands of trustees, the penalty is almost always reduced ; a 
 proof that that fixed by law is exorbitant ; but when the 
 tolls are farmed, and the trustees do not reserve the power 
 of mitigating the penalty, the poor carman has less chance 
 of being saved perhaps from ruin. 
 
 iSy 1 die Aprilis, 1819. 
 
 Mr. James Dean, called in ; and Examined. 
 
 WHAT is your profession ? I am a land agent and civil 
 engineer, and am occasionally employed to solicit bills in 
 parliament as an agent. 
 
 Where do you reside ? I reside in London about half the 
 year, and the other half in Devonshire. 
 
 As an engineer, have you had the means of becoming 
 acquainted with the roads of the kingdom ? About twenty 
 years since, I had the appointment of surveyor to the trus- 
 tees of the turnpike roads from Oxford to Henley upon 
 Thames, and from Dorchester to Abingdon, in Berkshire ; 
 since then I have been employed about several roads in 
 Devonshire and Cornwall, and, latterly, in surveying and 
 
183 
 
 reporting on an extensive district of the roads in Somerset- 
 shire. 
 
 From the observations which you have made in this em- 
 ployment, are you able to give the Committee any infor- 
 mation as to the best mode of improving the roads of the 
 kingdom generally ? The first and most obvious improve- 
 ment is to shorten distances; but even that must be governed 
 by circumstances often of a local nature ; a sound founda- 
 tion, and the contiguity of good stone or gravel to a road, 
 should not be overlooked in choosing a new line, or depart- 
 ing from an old one. In forming a new line in a level 
 country, the transverse section should approach as near as 
 possible to the form of the accompanying sketch No. 1, and 
 in a hilly country to that of No. 2 ; in the former, the water 
 from one half the road would be carried into a ditch on the 
 field side, and that of the other half into a ditch between 
 the footpath and hedge -bank. When it is necessary to form 
 a road on the side of a hill, the ditch should be on the 
 higher side of the road, where it will receive the water 
 falling from the high ground, and so keep the foundation of 
 the road dry. I have figured the breadths of a good ave- 
 rage turnpike road on sketch No. 1, but the breadth will 
 frequently depend upon circumstances of a local nature. 
 Near to great towns, it would be highly advantageous if the 
 centre of the road, for about twelve feet in width, were to 
 be paved with hard well-squared stones, nine inches deep, 
 and the sides made with hard rubble stones or gravel. I 
 need scarcely mention, that in applying the materials to a 
 new line of road, the stones should be broken into pieces of 
 an uniform size, as near as may be ; that the larger should be 
 laid of nearly an equal depth over the whole surface of the 
 road, and the smaller, mixed with gravel, should be placed 
 upon them. The repairing of roads should be conducted 
 in the same manner as far as it is practicable ; but, after all, 
 
184 
 
 the only sure way of getting good roads is, for the trustees 
 to employ men of education and science as their surveyors. 
 In a few instances, where this has been done, the best 
 consequences have resulted, and in no case is it more 
 conspicuous than in the neighbourhood of Bristol, where 
 Mr. M'Adam is the surveyor. 
 
 Will not a consequent impediment arise to the employ- 
 ment of men of education and of superior ability as sur- 
 veyors, from the smallness of the funds upon small trusts or 
 districts ? For that reason, I would recommend the con- 
 solidation of the several trusts, in each county, into one 
 general trust, under the authority of one general act of 
 parliament, leaving the adoption, however, of the acts to 
 the discretion of the several trusts respectively in each 
 county, making it compulsory only on the minority, at the 
 expiration of a time to be limited, when a majority in 
 amount of toll shall call for its adoption, and after insertion 
 in the provincial papers and London Gazette. 
 
 Supposing parliament to adopt your suggestion as to the 
 passing of such an act, and supposing that afterwards the 
 trusts of none of the counties should adopt it as a general 
 trust, would there be any objection to the act being so 
 framed as to admit of adoption by such of the trusts as 
 might prefer it to incurring the expense of a renewal of 
 their then local acts ? I do not think there would be any 
 well founded objection to an act made capable of being so 
 applied ; and I am of opinion, that the making it optional 
 on trustees to adopt it or not, would render the measure ex- 
 tremely popular, and in the end be highly beneficial to the 
 country. 
 
 Have you not lately prepared a bill for the trustees of an 
 extensive trust in Somersetshire, including in it nearly all 
 the improvements which you would recommend to be intro- 
 duced into a general turnpike act ? I have prepared such a 
 
185 
 
 bill ; and it was intended that the same should have been 
 brought before parliament in the present session, but the 
 clerk to the trustees having omitted to put the notice required 
 by the standing orders of parliament upon the sessions- 
 house door, at the Michaelmas sessions, the trustees resolved 
 to defer presenting their petition until the next session. 
 
 In what respect does the bill which you have prepared 
 differ from the generality of local turnpike acts ? Many of 
 the clauses of the bill are not so remarkable for originality, 
 as their combination is calculated to produce extensive be- 
 nefit to the country, by conferring larger powers than have 
 heretofore been given to any one body of trustees ; among 
 others, it empowers the trustees to appoint committees, and 
 make bye-laws ; it binds them to provide a fund for buying 
 up outstanding securities, and to pay off the further sums 
 proposed to be raised under the new act, within the term of 
 the act; the tolls on wheel- carriages are made referrible to 
 the breadth of the fellies, and description of wheel, and to 
 the weight drawn, rather than to the number of horses, 
 drawing, and are founded on a statement which 1 had the 
 honour of delivering to a Committee of the House of Com- 
 mons in 1809. The standing orders of parliament require 
 that on or before the 30th of September next, preceding 
 any application to parliament for any Turnpike Act, a plan 
 &c. of the roads proposed to be made or altered, shall be 
 deposited with the clerk of the peace. It often happens, 
 that in the Committee alterations are made in the proposed 
 line, when the plan deposited becomes mere waste paper ; 
 the seventy sixth clause of this bill provides for the depo- 
 siting of a plan, &c. last determined upon, with the clerk 
 of the peace, signed by the Speaker, and being an authentic 
 document can be referred to with safety. The bill also pro- 
 vides for the making of commodious footpaths by the sides 
 of the roads. And as the paving, cleansing, lighting, 
 
186 
 
 watching, &c. of the liberty or borough of * * * * is 
 placed in the trustees of the roads, the trustees are em* 
 powered to rate the inhabitants, and are also empowered to 
 light the streets, &c. with gas, and to allow gas to be taken 
 from their mains for the lighting of private dwellings, manu- 
 factories, &c. ; so that in all probability the latter indulgence 
 may pay the greater part, if not the whole, of the expense 
 of lighting the public lamps. The ninety-third clause em- 
 powers the trustees to pave, light and watch any town, vil- 
 lage or place through which the roads pass, upon application 
 of two-thirds of the inhabitants, and is in my view extremely 
 important. 
 
 Have you any further suggestions to offer to the Com- 
 mittee that would tend to the improvement of the roads, or 
 the laws relating to them ? Upon the subject of turnpike 
 roads, and of wheel-carriages generally, I am of opinion 
 that such a spirit of improvement has gone forth as, with 
 the assistance of judicious legislative enactments, will in a 
 few years carry both to a state of very great perfection ; 
 but I cannot close these remarks without observing on the 
 injurious effect which the large fees paid to the higher 
 officers of both houses of parliament has upon the growing 
 improvements of the country, by preventing a recurrence to 
 parliament to remove obstacles which the prejudice of some 
 will not, and the incapacity of others cannot permit. The peri- 
 odical expenses of renewing turnpike acts is really enormous, 
 when it is considered that between the fees of parliament 
 on the one hand, and a two month's residence in London of 
 the country solicitor, to manage the business, besides a par- 
 liamentary agent in town to assist him, four or five hundred 
 pounds are soon swallowed up ; but I also feel it right to 
 suggest, that if parliament would allow affidavits to be made 
 before two magistrates in the county, of the notices directed 
 by the standing orders of parliament, having been duly 
 
18? 
 
 given, of plans and of books of reference being lodged 
 with the clerk of the peace, and of the names of the per- 
 sons assenting to, dissenting from, or being neuter in respect 
 of any proposed new road, the solicitor need not remain in 
 town more than three days, and the expenses, except in 
 cases of opposition, need not exceed 200/. 
 
 Would you, as a parliamentary agent, undertake to pre- 
 pare and conduct an ordinary road bill through parliament 
 for 200/., to include all expenses, where there is no oppo- 
 sition ? I would undertake any number at that sum, pro- 
 vided the proofs before mentioned were admitted to be made 
 by affidavit in the county, in like manner as the proofs are 
 now given to facilitate the passing of inclosure bills. 
 
 Jovis, 6 die Mali, 1819. 
 
 Thomas Telford, Esquire, called in ; and Examined. 
 
 YOU are, I believe, a civil engineer ? 
 
 Yes, I am 
 
 The roads which have been formed by direction of the 
 Parliamentary Commissioners for the Holyhead road, and 
 under your management, having been described to this 
 Committee as being very perfect, will you have the good- 
 ness to state your opinion as to the present condition of the 
 different turnpike roads of the kingdom, and what improve- 
 ments you would recommend in their direction and manage- 
 ment. In the first place, state to the Committee in what 
 respect you consider the roads of the kingdom at present 
 to be defective, either in their formation or management ? 
 
 With regard to the roads in England and Wales, they 
 are in general very defective, both as to their direction and 
 inclinations, they are frequently carried over hills, which 
 
188 
 
 might be avoided by passing along the adjacent valleys ; at 
 present the inclinations are inconveniently steep, and long 
 continued. I might instance many principal lines, over which 
 I have had frequent occasion to travel : I shall select the great 
 road from Holyhead, through North Wales to Shrewsbury ; 
 and from thence by Birmingham and Coventry to London. 
 On the Welsh portion of it, those parts which have been im- 
 proved under the direction of the Parliamentary Commis- 
 sioners for the Holyhead road, the inclinations were formerly 
 (in many instances) as much as one in six, seven, eight, 
 nine, and ten, the width at the same time frequently not ex- 
 ceeding twelve feet, without protection on the lower side* 
 and the roadway itself of improper construction. The im- 
 provements which have lately been made in North Wales, 
 I beg leave to submit as models for roads through hilly 
 countries, although these improvements have been made 
 through the most difficult and precipitous districts of that 
 country, the longitudinal inclinations are in general less 
 than one in thirty ; in one instance, for a considerable dis- 
 tance, there was no avoiding one in twenty-two, and in 
 another, for about two hundred yards, one in seventeen ; 
 but in these two cases, the surface of the roadway being 
 made peculiarly smooth and hard, no inconvenience is ex- 
 perienced by wheeled carriages. On flat ground, the 
 breadth of the roadway is thirty-two feet, where there is 
 side cutting not exceeding three feet, the breadth is twenty- 
 eight, and along any steep ground and precipices, it is 
 twenty-two, all clear within the fences ; the sides are pro. 
 tected by stone walls, breast and retaining walls and para- 
 pets ; great pains have been bestowed on the cross drains, 
 also the draining the ground, and likewise in constructing 
 firm and substantial foundations for the metalled part of the 
 roadway. From Shrewsbury upwards, the road at present is 
 encumbered with many hills, all of which might be avoided, 
 
J89 
 
 or much improved. There is a very long one between 
 Shrewsbury and Heygate, several between that point and 
 Shiffiial, two between Shiffnal and Wolverhampton, one 
 between Wolverhampton and Birmingham, viz. at Wednes- 
 bury, &c. Maiden Hill, between Birmingham and Coventry ; 
 Braunston Hill, between Dunchurch and Daventry; a con- 
 tinued succession of hills between Daventry and Towcester ; 
 afterwards the well-known Brickhill and Hockliffe hills, 
 besides tbe very circuitous and imperfect road between 
 South Mims and Barnet. 
 
 Another instance I would beg leave to mention to the 
 Committee, is the road between the towns of Shrewsbury 
 and Worcester, on the way to Bath, which consists of nearly 
 a succession of very high and inconveniently steep hills, 
 although very easy inclinations might be obtained by passing 
 along the side of the river Severn. 
 
 I have mentioned these two instances as examples of the 
 present imperfections of main roads, and it is quite evident 
 they might all be readily avoided by lines of new road, 
 easily to be accomplished. These, I presume, the Com- 
 mittee will admit are sufficient to show the present state of 
 many other roads in the kingdom, they not having been 
 selected as more particularly defective than others. 
 
 The shape, or cross sections and drainage of the roads, 
 are quite as defective as the general direction and inclina- 
 tions ; there has been no attention paid to constructing a 
 good and solid foundation for the roadway ; the materials, 
 whether of gravel x> stones, have seldom been sufficiently 
 selected and arranged ; and they lie so promiscuously upon 
 the road as to render it inconvenient to travel upon, and 
 promote its speedy destruction. The shape of the road, or 
 cross section of the surface, is frequently hollow in the 
 middle ; the sides encumbered with great banks of mud, 
 which have accumulated sometimes to the height of six, 
 
H)o 
 
 seven and eight feet ; these prevent the water from falling 
 into the side-drains ; they also throw a considerable shade 
 upon the road itself, and are gross and unpardonable nui- 
 sances. The materials, instead of being cleansed of the 
 mud and soil with which they are mixed in their native state, 
 are laid promiscuously upon the road ; this, in the first in- 
 stance, creates an unnecessary expense of carriage to the 
 road, and afterwards nearly as much in removing it, besides 
 inconvenience and obstruction to travelling ; the materials 
 should therefore be cleansed on the spot where they are 
 procured, from every particle of earth, by screening, or if 
 necessary, even by washing ; some additional expense 
 might in the first instance be incurred by these operations, 
 but it would be found by much the most economical and 
 advantageous mode in the end. In all cases, materials in 
 their native state are composed of particles and pieces of 
 different sizes, it is most important that those should be 
 separated, and that the largest size should be reduced to 
 not more than six or eight ounces in weight, and laid in the 
 bottom part of the road ; those that are under that weight 
 or size may be laid on the top or surface of the road ; the 
 surface itself should be made with a very gentle curve in its 
 cross section, just sufficient to permit the water to pass from 
 the centre towards the sides of the road, the declivity may 
 increase towards the sides, and the general section form a 
 very flat ellipsis, so that the side, at the time, should (upon 
 a road of* about thirty feet in width ) be nine inches below 
 the surface in the middle. Connected with the cross section 
 are the side drains which are to receive the water, and 
 which drains, in every instance, I particularly recommend 
 to be on the field-side of the fence, with apertures in that 
 fence for the water to pass from the sides of the road into 
 them. 
 
 The fences themselves on each side form a very material 
 
191 
 
 and important subject, with regard to the perfection of toads; 
 they should in no instance be more than five feet in height 
 above the centre of the road, and all trees which stand 
 within twenty yards from the centre of it ought to be re- 
 moved. I am sure that twenty per cent, of the expense of 
 improving and repairing roads is incurred by the improper 
 state of the fences and trees along the sides of it On the 
 sunny side more particularly ; this must be evident to any 
 person who will notice the state of a road which is much 
 shaded by high fences and trees, compared to the other parts 
 of the road which are exposed to the sun and air. My ob- 
 servations, with regard to fences and trees, apply when the 
 road is on the same level as the adjacent fields ; but in many 
 cases, on the most frequented roads of England, more stuff 
 has been removed from time to time than was put on ; the 
 surface of the road is consequently sunk into a trough or 
 channel from three to six feet below the surface of the 
 fields on each side ; here all attempts at drainage, or even 
 common repairs, seem to be quite out of the question ; and 
 by much the most judicious and economical mode will be to 
 remove the whole road into the field which is on the sunny 
 side of it. In cases where a road is made upon ground where 
 there are many springs, it is absolutely necessary to make a 
 number of under and cross drains to collect the water and 
 conduct it into the aforesaid side-drains, which I have recom- 
 mended to be made on the field side of the fences. 
 
 In constructing the bottom part of a road, ( which would, 
 of course, be made of an elliptical form) if it is upon clay, 
 or other elastic substance, which would retain water, I 
 would recommend to cover the whole bottom of the road 
 with vegetable'soil, in cases where the natural shape of the 
 ground admits ; I would not remove the original surface, and 
 where there are inequalities I would fill them up with vege- 
 
192 
 
 tnble soil, so as to cut off all connexion with clay. Where 
 gravel is the material to complete the road with, I have 
 already mentioned, that it ought to be completely cleansed 
 of every particle of clay or earthy substance, and its different 
 sizes ought to be selected and arranged by means of riddling 
 or washing ; in the use of the riddle, the particles of earth 
 or clay adhere so much to the stones that it frequently re- 
 quires to be exposed to the sun, air, and frost, for several 
 months, and then riddled over again. In this gravel, the 
 stones are of different sizes and different shapes ; all those 
 that are round ought to be broken with a small hammer, and 
 in mentioning hammers, I beg leave to draw the attention 
 of the Committee to their weight, shape and manner of 
 using, which is of much more importance than any one can 
 conceive who has not had much experience in road-making ; 
 the difference in managing this operation being not less than 
 ten per cent, and is, besides, of equal importance towards 
 the perfection of the road ; the size and weight of the ham- 
 mer I would apportion to the size and weight of the stones, 
 and the stones should be broken upon the heap, not on the 
 ground ; it must be evident that using round stones will be 
 the means of deranging the position of those near them, 
 and of grinding them to pieces. 
 
 Are you of opinion that the gravel which is found in the 
 pits in the neighbourhood of London is calculated for making 
 roads capable of bearing the heavy weights which the great 
 
 traffic round London occasions to be used upon them ? 
 
 I am of opinion that the materials in the whole valley or 
 plain round London being entirely silecious, or flints, and 
 easily ground to dust, are very improper. This must be 
 evident to every person who travels near London in any 
 direction. 
 
 Arc you of opinion that it would be advisable or practicable 
 
193 
 
 to procure from any particular part of the country, either 
 by canal, or by river conveyance, better^materials, so as to 
 form perfect roads, without the necessity of paving them ? 
 That those materials could be procured both by the canals 
 and by sea is evident; but I am satisfied that the most 
 economical and preferable mode would j be by means of 
 paving. 
 
 Do you consider that it would be advisable to pave the 
 whole of the roads, or that the paving of the centre or 
 sides, as has been recommended by some witnesses, would 
 be sufficient ? I apprehend that the paving a proper width 
 in the centre would be quite sufficient, gravel might be 
 proper enough for the sides, upon the same principle that 
 we, in all new roads which are constructed, make use of 
 metalling, or broken stones on the middle part of the road, 
 for about from sixteen to eighteen or twenty feet in breadth, 
 and leave the sides gravelled and kept dry ; this, in general, 
 forms a very perfect road. 
 
 Is there any principle which you would think proper to 
 recommend in regard to the shape of the stones to be used 
 in paving roads ? I am of opinion that the general shape of 
 the stones at present used for paving, and the modes of dis- 
 tributing them are very imperfect, the lower part of the 
 stones being of a triangular wedge-like shape, which, instead 
 of enabling them to resist the weights which come upon 
 them; easily penetrate into the substratum; the stones are also 
 broken of an unequal size. The remedies for these defects 
 are obvious, they should be as nearly as possible of a cubical 
 form, its lower bed having an equal surface with its upper 
 ace ; they should be selected as nearly as possible of an 
 equal size, and they should never be of great length on the 
 face. 
 
 In quarrying and preparing the stones would there be any 
 N 
 
194 
 
 additional expense in forming them into the cubical shape noW' 
 recommended? There would certainly be an additional 
 expense in the preparation, because there would be more 
 work required in the dressing, and many stones must be 
 rejected which are now used; but I think the additional 
 expense would be very well bestowed. 
 
 Are you of opinion that great injury is done to turnpike 
 roads by the heavy weights carried in waggons upon them ? 
 I am. 
 
 Are you of opinion that any breadth of wheels for those 
 waggons will justify the present exemption from tolls ? It 
 certainly ought not. 
 
 In what manner would you recommend that the tolls 
 should be apportioned to the weights carried by waggons on 
 those roads ? I am of opinion that the most advisable mode 
 would be to apportion the tolls to the weight carried on each 
 wheel, without 'reference to the breadth, provided it is not 
 allowed to be less than four inches. 
 
 For th ft purpose of assessing the tolls in this instance, 
 would it not be necessary that the waggon should be weighed 
 at every turnpike gate? There ought to be a power to do 
 it, but there might a check by means of toll tickets, 
 similar to what is done upon navigable canals. 
 
 With a view of establishing good roads generally through- 
 out the kingdom, and of keeping them in repair upon the 
 most economical plan, what limitation would you propose 
 as to the actual weight each carriage should be allowed to 
 carry ? I should think it should never exceed four tons, 
 which should be a ton upon each wheel ; when it exceeds 
 that weight the best materials which can be procured for 
 road-making must be deranged and ground to pieces. 
 
Martis, 11 die Mali, 1819. 
 
 Mr. Robert Perry, called in ; and Examined. 
 
 YOU hold a situation in the Post-office? Yes, under 
 Mr. Johnson, inspector of the mails in the Post-office. 
 
 Since the examination of Mr. Johnson before this Com- 
 mittee, has the Post-office received any further report on 
 the state of any of the roads near the Metropolis ? Yes ; 
 one that is between Staines and Bagshot, which I have 
 brought with me. 
 
 [Delivered in y and read:'] 
 
 State of the Turnpike Road between Staines and Bagshot, 
 May 4th, 1819. 
 
 From Staines Bridge to Egham the form of the road has 
 been considerably altered for the better, with plenty of 
 watercourses and arched drains: through Egham town the 
 dirt has been entirely removed, and a very plentiful supply 
 of well-sifted gravel laid on, which will in a short time make 
 a good hard road. The hill likewise has recently been co- 
 vered with a thick coat of good stones, which will require a 
 little time to cement ; from thence the road is greatly im- 
 proved; the sides are pared down, and kept particularly 
 clean. 
 
 At Virginia Water every thing appears to have been done 
 to the hills, that the time and sandy nature of the soil would 
 permit ; it is now in a good form, and level. 
 
 From Virginia Water Hill, by Broom Hill Hut, the road 
 has been well scraped, the watercourses opened, and the 
 sides kept clean, and is in a very good state all the way to 
 Bagshot. 
 
 (Signed) Samuel 
 
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