The development of the Turnpike Trust
| Regular road users were aware of the bad state of most roads as early as the 1650s. The reliance on parishes to maintain their own roads could be seen to be inefficient. A group of businessmen in Cambridgeshire had the idea of maintaining a road by charging a fee or toll for each user. By the early 1700s the idea of creating toll roads took a step further when the first Turnpike Trust was set up. Some businessmen felt that a toll road could be a money making enterprise. |
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| The idea was that a road would have a series of gates along its length and tolls would be charged to pass the gates. The Turnpike Trust would be responsible for the road and have to employ a surveyor, a clerk and a treasurer. Each Trust was to have a life of 21 years after which it would have to renew its permission to manage the road. A trust was seen as an effective way of rebuilding Britain’s busiest roads. Only the busiest and most important roads were ever turnpiked, 80% of Britain’s roads were left untouched. | |
| The process of
creating Turnpike Trusts was, by modern standards, very slow. As each one
needed an Act of Parliament the bureaucracy was very elaborate. The years
1706 to 1790 saw a growing number of trusts created in various parts of
Britain. In many places the roads created or developed by Trusts formed
the basis of Britain’s ‘A’ road system. The issue of turnpiking the Glamorgan roads
did not seriously emerge until the 1760s. Businessmen who lived in Swansea
and Cardiff were keen to improve the portway to the standards seen by
various English turnpikes. The growing need for effective communication
for South Wales’ new industrial centres forced the issue to the top of
the agenda for local debating societies and political discussions. Men who
were close to government such as Edmund Thomas of Wenvoe and Earl Talbot
of Hensol joined with Herbert
Mackworth of Neath and Robert Morris of Clasemont. |
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| The initial
idea was to improve the link between Cardiff and the Severn ferries at
Aust and Gloucester. There was also opposition from many who had no wish
to see an improved road because it brought in strangers and increased
costs. Eventually, in 1762, a meeting was held in Swansea (probably in the
Mackworth Hotel), to discuss the proposals. The support for the road was
overwhelming and by 1764, work had commenced to develop the road between
Dinas Powis and Leckwith to Cardiff. This involved straightening the route
and closing some of the older parts of the road. This was the first time
roads had been altered or made in South Wales since Roman times. The
red painted tollgates became a feature of the landscape for the first
time.
The first improvements encouraged an appetite for more. The South Wales Association for the Improvement of Roads was assembled with a mission to improve the Portway along its length. In 1789, a meeting was held at Swansea at the Mackworth Arms, by now Swansea's main coaching stop. It is clear that Swansea was a hotbed of desire for road improvement. Of the 33 members of the association, eleven were merchants from Swansea. The members of the association were keen to confront the old established gentry such as the Duke of Beaufort who (through the indomitable Gabriel Powell) were against improved communications because they saw no profit in them and they did not like the changes that improved transport would inevitably bring. |
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