Turnpikes in Somerset

(details of each turnpike trust can be reached by clicking on links at bottom of this page)

Somerset

County Topology and Wealth during turnpike era

Somerset is bounded by the Bristol Channel to the northwest, the high ground of Exmoor and the Blackdown Hills to the southwest and the hills and downs of Dorset and Wiltshire to the south and east. Hence most of the rivers flow westwards and travel into the county is generally over high watersheds, except for communication through Bristol and up the Severn Valley. Somerset was dependent on the woollen trade in the east, mining of minerals and coal in the Mendips and agriculture in the west around Taunton. Bristol with its port and industrial activity was the chief commercial hub on the edge of the county and Bath was a long established resort for entertainment and leisure, as well as having an important stone quarrying industry.

Although none of the rivers are large, some are slow flowing forming extensive marshes. Sedgemoor in particular creates a barrier to easy travel along the northern edge of the county, particularly since it is juxtaposed with the scarp face of the Mendip hills. However, there were several routes running southwestwards along the centre of the county connecting Devon and Cornwall to London.

The county town, Taunton, is 144 miles from London.

Old Routes through the County

The main Post Road from London was via Bristol where it branched to go along the northern coast, across Sedgemoor, down to Taunton and on to Exeter (the modern A38). An alternative post route ran through Yeovil and Chard to Honiton and so to Exeter (the modern A30). Important routes focused on Bath and old roads ran from there through Wells and into Wilshire.

Turnpike Pattern

Somerset sits on the boundary between areas where wealth and topography led to the creation of some of the earliest turnpikes, and the less economically favoured west country where turnpiking came relatively late. All Somerset’s turnpike trusts are on the urban-hub pattern, with a series of roads of differing importance radiating from the market town centre, rather than the linear through-route pattern seen in the Thames Valley and around London. The roads leading into Bath were amongst the first in England to be turnpiked, in 1707. This was associated with improvements to the roads that carried wealthy travellers between London and this leading leisure resort of post-Restoration England. The roads around Bristol, the gateway port of the west, were turnpiked soon afterwards in 1726 and the formation of the Bridgwater Trust (1730) carried the Bristol road south across the Somerset Levels. There was then an hiatus until the 1750s, when Somerset saw a similar pattern to Devon, Dorset and Cornwall in creating a rush of town-centred turnpike trusts. Trusts with large mileages were created on Taunton (1752) and Wells (1753) to carry the Bath road across the county. The Trusts for Black Dog (Bath & Warminster) (1752), Shepton Mallet (1753) and Langport (1753), Bruton (1756), Wincanton (1756) with Frome (1757) created a string of turnpikes on a route running to the south of the Post Road. Finally, in the south the roads around Chard (1759) and Crewkerne (1765) completed the turnpiking of all the main routes after little over a decade.

There then followed a period of infilling with generally smaller trusts. Several of these seemed to be turnpiking every highway in the district with no obvious pattern of main roads. Hence in the south of the county Martock (1761) Ilminster (1772) and Ilchester (1800) intermingled with the other trust roads to create thick web of minor turnpikes. In the west the sparsely populated areas around Exmoor were turnpiked by extensive trusts based in Minehead (1765) and Wiveliscombe (1786). In the early 19^th century, new roads were built across the Devon border, particularly the Honiton & Ilminster Road (1807), and new routes were turnpiked across Sedgemoor by the High Ham & Ashcott and the Wedmore trusts in (1826/7) and the Wells & Highbridge road (1841). Finally, Somerset got its road to the seaside in 1840 with the turnpike of a short section of road to Weston super mare.

During the early decades of the 19^th century many of the trusts obtained powers to build new sections of roads to by-pass inconvenient section of road and improve gradients. In many of these projects they were advised by the McAdam family who were General Surveyors on several of the larger Somerset Trusts (the Bristol Trust had been JL McAdam’s first important post). The Somerset trusts were affected by the arrival of the railways in the 1840s in the north and by the 1850s elsewhere. After a period of steady decline the trusts were progressively wound up in the late 1870s onwards and the roads transferred to local Highway Boards and later the County Council in 1888.

A map of turnpike roads in Somerset gives details of the roads for which individual trusts were responsible.

This draws primarily on the work of the Somerset Industrial Archaeology survey, by Bentley and Murless (1985).

(use the list of turnpikes trusts in the main table for more details of individual trusts).

Tollhouses

Click on the highlight to reach a table showing the tollhouses that have been recorded in Somerset. Around 90 of the original 260 still survive in some form; this is a relatively high rate of survivals compared with other counties in the country.

Tollhouse at Horsington

Milestones

The majority of milemarkers erected by the Somerset Turnpike trusts were originally milestones but many trusts attached metal plates to these in the early 19^th century, since this was generally cheaper than regularly re-engraving the limestone. A few metal mileposts were erected and a significant number of cast iron Parish Boundary markers were erected around Bath. Each trust adopted a different pattern of milestone, presumably because they contracted with local stonemasons and foundries who used individual designs.

. A repainted Milepost on Brown Down. This series to the Devon border were originally erected by Taunton Highway Board (which took over responsibility from the Honiton to Ilminster Trust) (Som. Ind. Arch Soc Bulletin Aug 2008)

Individual Turnpike Trusts in Somerset

Documents and notes relating to individual Trusts are summarised on pages reached by clicking the links below (those highlighted in blue are on-line).

Bath

Black Dog (Bath and Warminster)

Langport, Somerton and Castle Cary

Martock and South Petherton

West Harptry inc Chew Magna

Weston-super-Mare and Worle

Wincanton

Wiveliscombe

Yeovil

Trusts from Other Counties

Bristol

Sherborne

Vale of Blackmoor

Trowbridge

Honiton

Honiton and Ilminster

Lyme Regis (Crewkerne Div)

The numbers of milestones and tollhouses surviving beside roads in Somerset

(note this excludes features such as guidestones and boundary markers and non-road markers)

Turnpike Trust	Miles of Road in 1840	Milestones found	survival rate	Main Tollhouses in 1840	Tollhouse sites identified	Surviving tollhouses	survival rate
Bath	51	37	72%	17	25	9	53%
Black Dog (Bath & Warminster)	30	15	51%	7	5	5	71%
Bridgwater	49	16	32%	10	6	5	50%
Bruton	57	19	33%	15	13	2	13%
Chard	44	6	14%	7	6	3	43%
Crewkerne	28	3	11%	12	9	3	25%
Frome	42	15	36%	11	11	6	55%
High Ham and Ashcott	10	0	0%	3	0	0	0%
Ilchester	23	7	30%	6	4	1	17%
Ilminster	42	13	31%	11	14	9	82%
Langport, Somerton and Castle Cary	81	18	22%	14	16	5	36%
Martock and South Petherton	16	5	31%	3	2	0	0%
Minehead Roads	86	4	5%	22	31	6	27%
Radstock	23	9	38%	5	5	2	40%
Shepton Mallet	52	29	55%	16	21	9	56%
Taunton	81	9	11%	21	13	6	29%
Wedmore	15	0	0%	4	4	4	100%
Wells	39	13	33%	9	14	6	67%
Wells and Highbridge	25	0	0%		1	1
West Harptry inc Chew Magna	40	3	8%	10	2	1	10%
Weston-super-Mare and Worle	7	0	0%		1
Wincanton	41	11	27%	9	10	2	22%
Wiveliscombe	64	4	6%	30	10	2	7%
Yeovil	26	15	58%	10	11	3	30%
Total for Somerset based Turnpike Trusts	972	251	26%	252	234	90	36%
Bristol		28			8	5
Honiton & Ilminster		1			1	1
Honiton		1			2	1
Trowbridge		0			2	1
Vale of Blackmoor		0			2	1
Sherborne		6
Total for non-Somerset Turnpike Trusts		42
non-turnpike		10

For further reading;

Bentley, J.B. & Murless B.J. (1985) Somerset Roads – the legacy of Turnpikes, publ by Somerset Industrial Archaeology Society

Bentley, J.B. & Murless B.J. (1987) Somerset Roads – the legacy of Turnpikes – Phase 2 – Eastern Somerset, publ by Somerset Industrial Archaeology Society

Bentley, J.B. & Daniels P. (1990) The Shepton Mallet Turnpike Trust, Somerset Industrial Archaeology Society Bulletin , No 77, pp17-21.

Buchanan C.A. (1977) The Langport, Somerton and Castle Cary Turnpike Trust, J. Somerset Industrial Archaeology Society, 2, pp20-23.

Buchanan C.A. (1977) The Wells Turnpike Trust, J. Somerset Industrial Archaeology Society, 3, pp10-16.

Cameron A (2006) High Ham and Ashcott Turnpike Trust, Somerset Industrial Archaeology Society Bulletin No 102 pp 3-7.

Clarke L.A. (2002) The Minehead United Turnpike Trust, SIAS Survey No. 16; publ by Somerset Industrial Archaeology Society ISBN 0 9533539 6 6.

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This page created by Alan Rosevear 5^th Feb 2009.

Last Edited 11^th Feb 2009