Fixing the roads

The ‘turnpike’ toll road system deserves far more credit for improving roads in eighteenth-century England and Wales, a new study argues. Analysis of nearly 100 travellers’ diaries reveals that turnpiking improved comfort and reduced danger on the roads, as well as speeding up wheeled vehicle journeys.

Potholes may be Public Enemy No.1 for British road users today but toll roads aren’t much more popular. Three hundred years ago, however, British diarists started to credit major improvements to their journeys to ‘turnpiking’, a toll-funded system of maintaining and improving main roads in England and Wales.

In a study published in Explorations in Economic History, researchers from Cambridge and UC Irvine analysed the mode and speed of travel of nearly 100 diarists between the mid-1600s to 1820, together with their observations about the quality of the roads they were using. Using mapping software, the researchers digitised journeys amounting to nearly 350,000 miles, and applied textual analysis and a scoring system to road descriptions.

While previous studies have suggested that turnpikes led to improvements, scholars have disagreed about the timing, pace and extent of this change. Until now, data limitations have made it difficult to compare outcomes on turnpike roads versus standard parish roads. This has left the system vulnerable to the charge that significant improvement only came in the 1820s with the advances in road design and construction promoted by Telford and McAdam.

But this study shows that the turnpike system achieved major improvements well before 1760, and that that progress accelerated into the nineteenth century. UC Irvine’s Professor Dan Bogart, and Cambridge’s Professor Leigh Shaw-Taylor and Dr Alan Rosevear found that roads were 78 percent more likely to be judged ‘at least acceptable’ in the period 1760–1820 than in the period 1660–1759. The researchers think the extent of improvement probably exceeded this because road users became harder to please as they grew accustomed to better roads.

“This is the first study to focus on the road user experience,” Professor Dan Bogart said. “Diaries give us unique insight into how things changed on the roads, and with that information, we can say far more definitively that the turnpike system dramatically improved road travel in the eighteenth century.”

The study credits turnpikes with making a major contribution to the Industrial Revolution.

Professor Leigh Shaw-Taylor said: “The improvements brought about by turnpikes reduced freight rates, which enabled a major expansion in internal trade and increased regional specialisation – key features of the Industrial Revolution. At the same time, better roads not only made it possible to travel by stagecoach much faster, but 24 hours a day, because travelling by night became much safer. As a result, Britain benefited from far greater circulation of people, money and ideas.”

The diarists – comprised of Brits as well as overseas visitors – include Daniel Defoe; Anne Lister, now known as ‘the first modern lesbian’; the philanthropist Jonas Hanway; Joseph Taylor, a former lawyer and Tory politician; Samuel Curwen, a loyalist refugee from the American revolution; the agricultural reformer Arthur Young; and the pioneering travel writer Celia Fiennes.

The negative words diarists used for poor roads included: execrable, insufferable, vile, detestable, dangerous, break-neck, totally impassable, flooded, steep, narrow, stony, full of ruts, dirty, rough, heavy, deep, ruinous, wet and splashy. Favourable words for adequate and good roads included: free from ruts or stones, as garden gravel, excellent, flat, level, pleasant, firm, mended, paved, well-pitched, repaired, and smooth.

What were turnpikes?

Many main roads were in a poor state in the late seventeenth century. Having ridden on horseback eight miles from Ely in 1698, Celia Fiennes complained “the road was so full of holes and quicksands, I durst not venture, the water covering them over, a stranger then cannot easily escape the danger”.

Such roads were the responsibility of local parishes which lacked funding for maintenance and improvements. Turnpike trusts were created through Acts of Parliament to overcome this, the first in 1663. Their trustees – members of the local gentry and other notables – could levy tolls and borrow against toll revenues.

Riders on horseback, wheeled vehicles and livestock droves were all forced to stop at toll gates and pay to continue their journeys. Trusts were required to reinvest all surpluses. Each trust managed a modest mileage, but collectively they became responsible for most of the inter-urban road network by the late 18^th century.

Dan Bogart said: “People generally think of the railways as the Big Bang for internal travel and forget about the road improvements that came before. But on the eve of the railway age, Britain had the largest toll road network that's ever existed. Roughly one-fifth of main roads were tolled. And these turnpike roads were largely run by locals, community engagement was key to their acceptance and ability to spread. That’s remarkable.”

Speed, comfort and safety

The researchers found that journeys recorded by diarists switched from 77% on horseback prior to 1760 to 73% in horse-drawn wheeled vehicles between 1760 to 1820. While the speed of journeys on horseback remained stable, the researchers found that stagecoach speeds doubled from 4 to 8 mph between the early 1700s and the early 1800s. Private carriages increased in speed from 4 to 6 mph in the same period.

The researchers are convinced that road improvements brought about by turnpiking were mostly responsible for this. They found that speeds were generally around 2mph higher on turnpike roads.

But one of the study’s key findings is that road users strongly valued comfort and safety over speed. A key reason for this, they argue, is that most of the diarists were making discretionary, shorter journeys in privately owned vehicles, rather than in rapid, long-distance stagecoaches which expanded in use in the nineteenth century.

Dr Alan Rosevear said: “Until now, historians have focused on speed as the key marker of improvement, but diarists rarely mentioned speed. They were far more interested in safety and comfort. People wanted to get to their cousin’s wedding in one piece, and not totally dishevelled, because their carriage bounced them around or tipped them into a river. Getting there a bit faster wasn’t so important.”

The diaries suggest that road users expected turnpikes ‘to get the basics right’ by filling in holes, clearing away stones and repairing ruts. They weren’t keen to spend more on tolls to make roads unnecessarily good.

Variation

The researchers acknowledge that there was variation in the quality of both turnpike and standard roads. But they found that over half of non-turnpiked road mileage was considered ‘poor’ whereas for turnpikes less than a quarter of the mileage was classified as ‘poor’. Moreover, while around 40% of turnpike mileage was categorised as ‘good’, less than 20% of non-turnpike mileage was judged ‘good’.

Regional inequality in road and railway infrastructure investment is a major issue in Britain today, but the researchers found that the turnpike system benefited neglected regions most. Leigh Shaw-Taylor said: “Before the turnpikes, the worst roads were in the Southwest, Wales, and the North of England. Wheeled traffic wasn't really possible there before the turnpikes. They had the greatest impact in those areas, more than in London and the Southeast.”

The researchers point out that turnpike roads both facilitated and were increasingly funded by tourism, as more affluent people sought to explore Wales, the Lake District and the Southwest.

The turnpikes also played a key role in the rise of North during the Industrial Revolution. Dan Bogart said: “The turnpike system was really important to the North: Coal wagons were beating up the roads, so forcing those vehicles to pay was crucial to maintaining and improving those routes.”

High acceptance of tolls

While there were some riots against turnpike tolls, the researchers note that they were relatively rare and localised. They believe there was a high level of acceptance at least partly because people could see they were getting something for their money: better journeys.

Today, many British drivers complain that road tolls are expensive but in the eighteenth century, they were a small fraction of the very high cost of travelling by private carriage or stagecoach, which only the affluent could afford. At the same time, turnpike roads reduced other costs incurred by horse-drawn transport. The number of horses needed to pull a stagecoach, for instance, declined over time, partly because of improved roads.

Alan Rosevear said: “Today the UK doesn't have taxes ringfenced to fix local roads. With the turnpikes, people knew their money was going to be used to improve their roads. That was a big advantage.”

Professor Leigh Shaw-Taylor is Director of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (Campop). Dr Alan Rosevear is a visiting research affiliate working on the Campop project: 'Transport, urbanization and economic development in England and Wales c.1670-1911'. Dan Bogart is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and a collaborator on the project.

Reference

D. Bogart, A. Rosevear & L. Shaw-Taylor, ‘A better ride: New evidence on travel and the quality of roads in England and Wales, 1660-1820’, Explorations in Economic History (2026). DOI:10.1016/j.eeh.2026.101748