Hatfield and Reading Turnpike
{{short description|English turnpike road}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
File:Hatfield and Reading turnpike 2.jpg
File:Milestone in St Albans.jpg milepost in St Stephen's Hill, St Albans placed by the Hatfield and Reading Turnpike Trust about 1820 {{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_R7lAAAAIAAJ&q=hatfield+and+reading+turnpike|title=The industrial archaeology of Hertfordshire|last=Johnson|first=William Branch|date=1970-03-26|publisher=David & Charles|isbn=978-0-7153-4775-1 |language=en}}]]
The Hatfield and Reading Turnpike , nicknamed the Gout Track, was an English turnpike road created in the 1760s to provide a route that connected the Great North Road (the modern A1) with the Holyhead Road (A5) and the Bath Road (A4). It had the advantage that it made it possible for travelers to avoid congested London and was shorter in distance. In 1881 it was one of the last of the turnpikes to have its tolls removed.{{Cite web|url=https://smallford.org/welcome-to-the-turnpike/|title=Welcome to the Turnpike|last=Neighbour|first=M.|date=2014-05-07|website=Smallford|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-12-15}}
Founding
{{Infobox UK legislation
| short_title = Reading and Hatfield Road Act 1768
| type = Act
| parliament = Parliament of Great Britain
| long_title = An Act for repairing, widening, turning, and altering, the Road leading from Reading, in the County of Berks, through Henley, in the County of Oxford; and Great Marlow, Chipping Wycombe, Agmondesham, and Cheynes, in the County of Bucks; and Rickmansworth, Watford, and Saint Albans, to Hatfield, in the County of Hertford; and also the Road leading out of the Said Road at Marlow, over Great Marlow Bridge, through Bysham, to or near the Thirty mile Stone in the Turnpike Road leading from Maidenhead to Reading.
| year = 1768
| citation = 8 Geo. 3. c. 50
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| royal_assent = 8 March 1768
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It is said that the Marquis of Salisbury, who lived at Hatfield House, wanted a route to the Great West Road avoiding central London, for onward travel to the spa towns of Bath and Cheltenham where, as a sufferer of gout, he often took the waters. This would also spare him the discomfort and congestion of London's cobbled streets. With others (including the Earl of Essex, who suffered from a similar affliction, and who lived at Cassiobury House near Watford) he sponsored an act of Parliament{{which|date=July 2024}} passed in 1757 for the building of a road from Hatfield to Reading. The Reading and Hatfield Turnpike Trust was set up by a further act of Parliament, the {{visible anchor|Reading and Hatfield Road Act 1768}} (8 Geo. 3. c. 50), to improve the route between the two towns. It ran via St Albans, Watford, Rickmansworth, Amersham, High Wycombe and Marlow, with two alternative routes south and west from there, one to Knowl Hill (on the Great West Road between Maidenhead and Reading) and the other to Reading itself via Henley-on-Thames. The Trust lasted until 1881, and at that date was one of the last surviving Turnpike Trusts in the country. For many years the route was known as the Gout Track, given its reputed raison-d'etre.{{Cite web|url=https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3437022|title=Geograph:: Milepost, Hatfield Road (C) Ian Capper|website=www.geograph.org.uk|language=en|access-date=2019-12-15}}{{Cite book|title=Passing Through', The Grand Junction Canal in West Hertfordshire, 1791 - 1841|last=Hiscock|first=Fabian|publisher=Hertfordshire University Press|year=2019|isbn=978-1-912260-15-7|pages=31}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.ourwatfordhistory.org.uk/content/topics/transport/roads|title=Roads|website=Our Watford History|language=en|access-date=2019-12-16}}{{Cite web|url=https://amershammuseum.org/history/little-chalfont/turnpike-milestone/|title=Turnpike milestone|website=Amersham Museum|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-12-16}}
Analysis of toll receipts shows that traffic was lighter than that on the great trunk routes it interconnected. Nevertheless, it stimulated the local economies along its route in trades like farriers, foraging and inn keeping.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OdmfAAAAMAAJ&q=hatfield+and+reading+turnpike|title=Latimer: Belgic, Roman, Dark Age and Early Modern Farm|last=Branigan|first=Keith|date=1971|publisher=C.V.A.H.S.|language=en}}
Modern successor routes
File:Milepost, Hatfield Road (geograph 2705980).jpg
On classification by the newly formed Ministry of Transpor
South of Marlow the turnpike had two alternate routes -
- one to Knowl Hill (former terminus of A404) on the A4 to the west of Maidenhead with part now the unclassified Burchett's Green Road.
- or another via Henley-on-Thames to Reading (now the A4155).{{Cite web|url=http://www.marlowsociety.org.uk/marlow-history/hatfield-reading-turnpike/index.php#content_top%20Text%20No%20preview%20:|title=Marlow History - The Hatfield-Reading Turnpike|website=www.marlowsociety.org.uk|access-date=2019-12-15}}
External links
- "READING AND HATFIELD Turnpike Trust". The National Archives. Contains Annual Statements of the trusts Income and Expenditure for the years:-1828; 1830 - 1843; 1851 - 1854; 1856 - 1857; 1859; 1861 - 1869 [https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/ba830149-c6cc-4bfb-bdfe-020642d078c8]
Watford Through Time by John Cooper, Amberley Publishing Limited, 15 Sep 2011. {{ISBN|1445632039}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=lpOIAwAAQBAJ&dq=hatfield+and+reading+turnpike&pg=PT100] Description of the turnpike in Watford where it was known as Hagden Lane or colloquially as Ricky Road.