Roads, Trackways and Turnpikes around Wirksworth

A survey of the development of road communications in Wirksworth and the surrounding Parishes

                                                                     Peter Chivers November 2017

Wirksworth was a town when Canterbury was a village and Liverpool was a swamp” (Local saying)

Substantial evidence supports the area’s claim to antiquity. Before the town existed, trackways crossed the landscape enabling early communities to hunt or trade goods. 

Substantial evidence supports the area’s claim to antiquity. Before the town existed, trackways crossed the landscape enabling early communities to hunt or trade goods.

This study searches for clues in the present landscape, in published accounts, maps and other sources to illustrate how the current pattern of communications in and around Wirksworth displays a footprint of the past.

The prehistoric trackway known as ‘The Derbyshire Portway’ passed close to Wirksworth linking Nottingham to Mam Tor. Ridgeway routes proved less wooded, saved travellers crossing marshy valley bottoms, made navigation easier using prominent landmarks and enabled travellers to use of a series of safe defensible sites as stop over points on their journey.

A number of features, both natural and man-made, provided way markers to help guide travellers. The earliest Portway route looped to the north of Wirksworth to avoid the marshy valley bottom of the River Ecclesbourne. As Wirksworth developed travellers were afforded an opportunity to visit the town. 

A MISCELLANY OF INFORMATION RELATING TO THE ERA OF TURNPIKE TRUSTS IN DERBYSHIRE.

The socio-economic effects on the population including references to the Duffield to Wirksworth Turnpike Trust.

Introduction.

By the mid eighteenth century, the state of parish highways were generally in a poor state of repair which had limitations on the movement of people and goods. Seasonal weather conditions and the topography within each parish were additional limitations. Statutes dating from the reign of Elizabeth 1st were still in use for the repair and upkeep of parish highways and in practice there were differences between parishes on the state of their own roads. There was free access for travelling on the Kings/ Queen’s highways, but the conditions for travel and transportation of goods needed to be improved.

Why was it important to improve the roads? The time taken to travel between cities, towns and villages had not improved since Elizabethan times; people walked, some rode on horseback and others by coach and goods were carried by packhorse, waggons and carts.   

The progressive effects of the Industrial Revolution and the increasing need for speedier transportation of manufactured products and farm produce were restricted by the general poor condition of parish roads even when traffic was light and local.

Nb; highway and road will be interchangeable terms for a public way leading from one place to another.

With the introduction and development of Turnpike Trusts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the roads and road network improved which reduced travelling times and costs to private and commercial users.

Turnpike Trusts.

This is a vast subject and my miscellany is a random collection of information taken from primary and secondary sources.

From the start of the fourteenth century Wirksworth was an important market town and by the mid-eighteenth century onwards the transport of raw/ finished goods was being taken by packhorse, by waggon/ carts drawn horses/ oxen and canal. The parish was unable to raise the revenue needed to improve road transport and Turnpike Trusts were the solution for those improvements.

There were petitioners against Turnpike roads; drovers, carriers, stage coach proprietors, landowners and farmers.

The Duffield to Wirksworth Turnpike Trust – 1756 -1851

Two original Order Books 1756 -1811 are in DRO- D6/1/1 and DRO6/1/2- these books record the quarterly meeting of the Trustees with attendance varying from three to nine being present. Content- ordering various parishes to repair the roads under The Statute of Labour legislation.

An early meeting of the Trustees was held at the Crown Inn, Wirksworth on October 24^th, 1756 and attendees included Richard Arkwright, John Toplis, Charles Hurt and Philip Gell. Wealthy landowners and merchants with business   interests who along with other local entrepreneurs would receive financial gains from the tolls, better transport for minerals/ stone and manufactured goods.

During construction of the Turnpike compensation was paid - David Smith to receive £2.12s.6 “for the damage and trespass in his crops called Bailey Croft for carrying stone throughout for the use of the said Turnpike Road”

The Statute of Labour applied to the repair of the Turnpike roads and in 1759 the Trust took legal action for “application to made for a warrant to distrain on several defaulters in the several Liberties ………… “

In1851 reduced revenues, and competition from the railways, the Trust ceased to operate.

Turnpike Trust Administration.

In 1726 the qualification to be a Trustee: a demand to have an estate yielding £100 pa or be an heir to those with an estate of £300 pa.

Finance and Mortgage Debt.

Generally, did not issue shares but used a mortgage debt which in effect was a “single” loan; individual mortgagee’s financial input represented a portion of the whole loan. Interest was paid and showed that finances were being handled reasonably well. Each mortgagee had equal rights against the tolls regardless of the date of the mortgage. A distinct advantage of the Mortgage Debt was that it enabled the Trust/ Trustees to borrow more money at any time without the need for creating a second or third mortgage. Again, the debt itself is not grounds for assuming a Trust is in an unsound financial position

Paying interest on the debt could “how” that finances were being handled reasonably well, however this does mean that a Trust was being well administrated; a percentage of income was used to repair and maintain roads, but not the effectiveness those repairs.

Making repairs to toll roads.

Statute law provided for the procurement of materials for the repair of toll roads. An example the Trust’s surveyor had to sufficiently fence off any hole while that hole remained to prevent accidents to persons or livestock.

Repairs by parishes, although the Trustees of a turnpike road are prima facae liable to repair it, yet if it is out of repair, the parish in which it is situated was liable by prescription to repair all roads within it and may be indicted for the non-repair of it.

Toll houses and gates.

The local Act regulated where turnpike gates and toll houses were to be erected. Styles of gates varied, and the width of a turnpike road was twenty in width. The toll house was built/ designed to give the toll keeper, the ability to see oncoming road users and each set an area not exceeding one eighth of a statute acre.

Toll keepers: duties and benefits/ legal obligations.

The toll collector/ gate keeper had to be literate and numerate and came from a variety of backgrounds; cordwainer, rope maker, surveyor and tailor. They were provided with rent free accommodation, a weekly wage, extra living space for his family and a suitable garden.

By the 1840s their statutory duties under the local Act included –

to collect tolls as “computed” from twelve o’clock at night to twelve o’clock of the next succeeding night,

demand such tolls or monies and taken before any horse, cattle, coach/cart is permitted passage through the gate,

issuing single or return tickets for the toll and a requirement for each ticket to specify the name of the gate at which it was to be delivered,

measure wheel breadth to determine toll fees,                                                         3

weights of loads carried by waggons and carts was determined by the season,

charge extra toll for overweight loads and

weigh machines were installed beside gates to determine load weight and operated by a mechanic. [John Farey in 1817] No details to date how it was operated, there was a weigh engine on Sturston Road, Ashbourne.

Payment of the toll allowed the ticket holder clearance to pass through the gate or another gate or gates as stated on the ticket without paying further tolls. It was established practice to reduce tolls; carrying minerals and goods on behalf of vested interests.

Legislation over several years produced a list of exemptions from paying tolls.

Justice of the Peace, and Parish Officer, with the practice of COUNTRY ATTORNIES in Criminal Cases, etc. John Frederick Archbold, Esq. Shaw and Sons, London 1842.

Examples of exemptions taken from this law book, pp 558-601.

No toll shall be taken on any turnpike road for –

any horse or carriage attending, or going to attend, or returning from having attended His[Her] Majesty, or any of the royal family.

waggons going to/ from on any day involved in road maintenance,

Royal Mail coach and post rider,

loads for used to take or bring farm produce and transport of dung and manure.

 person going to and from church/ chapel or funeral,

prisoners.

And for any horses or carriages which shall only cross any turnpike road, or shall not pass above one hundred yards thereon.

Conclusion.

The introduction and development of Turnpike roads benefited Wirksworth’s inhabitants across all social classes as travelling times were reduced within the parish and beyond. These improvements occurred within the overall framework of the Industrial Revolution; manufacturing in the town increased; new mills and a variety of trades/ businesses provided jobs for the increased population.                                                           

The entrepreneurs, factory owners and landowners gained financially from their investments. The means for transporting people and goods improved; new designs of all types of vehicles and improved breeds of horses. The horse remained paramount; for the individual rider and as the draught animal. The inhabitants walked free of charge and there were many exemptions to allow free movement along, and across, turnpike roads. A better road surface underfoot and wheeled vehicles. The decline and closure of Turnpike Trusts and the ending of tolls was inevitable for a variety reasons, mainly the railways, but the legacy of the toll road network remains visible in today’s landscape

David R Rance

November 2017.     

Was 'Arbour' a harbour?

Apart from finding their way, the principal difficulty for long-distance travellers in the past was finding a safe place to spend the night - before the advent of inns. It seems likely that they used a series of fortified, hilltop enclosures, similar to the caravanserai found in the Middle East up to the nineteenth century.

Along the route of the Derbyshire Portway there is a chain of likely sites for such enclosures, such as Harborough Rocks west of Wirksworth and Arbour Hill west of Dale. (The well-known prehistoric complex at Arbor Low may be another example on the old road from Wirksworth to Buxton).

After publishing The Derbyshire Portway in 2008 I discovered another Arbour Hill, this one in the grounds of Wollaton Hall, shown above. Only a couple of miles from the Hemlock Stone in Bramcote (where I had finished my earlier research) this suggests an eastward route along the Bramcote Hills and then along the line of the present Derby Road towards a crossing of the River Leen at Lenton, probably close to the site of Lenton Priory.

Although close to the private golf course, this Arbour Hill is easily accessible. If you enter Wollaton park by the lodge gate opposite Nottingham University's northern flank, turn right and walk uphill you soon come to a magnificent ancient oak tree, and just beyond this is the hilltop, covered now in rhododendron and Scots pine.

Marking the way

How did  travellers find their way across unfamiliar country before maps and modern road signs? There are only two possibilities, both of which can still be found in remote parts of the world. Either a guide with local knowledge can be hired, or travellers can memorise a series of natural landmarks and man-made way marks, such as the cairns of stones still found in upland Britain.

On the route of the Derbyshire Portway many of the ancient way marks have clearly been lost, but enough survive to suggest that the whole route could have been navigated with their aid. The lower photo shows the Stapleford Cross, now in the churchyard at Stapleford, but which was earlier located elsewhere, possibly by the nearby ford over the Erewash, where the Portway crossed from Derbyshire into Nottinghamshire. Believed to date from c. 800 BCE, it is much older than the church and the oldest religious monument in the county. It may possibly be the origin of the town's name (the steeple - or post - at the ford).

The upper picture shows the standing stone in a field near the Malt Shovel pub above Wirksworth, on the Whatstandwell road. It is thought that the Portway came this way from Alport Height, looping round Wirksworth to avoid the steep descent into the town, heading for Steeple Grange. Without any carving, it is impossible to date this enigmatic stone, yet it is clearly not a gatepost or stile, and it is difficult to imagine any other function than a marker.

How old are roads?

One of the most difficult aspects of researching old roads is the issue of dating. The stretch illustrated above is now a footpath, but has clearly been a lane at some point, as the stone walls are 10 - 12 feet apart, wide enough for a cart. But how old are the walls? If the surrounding fields were created during eighteenth century enclosures, they will be about two hundred years old. But the track, or the route, may be much older. How can we be sure?

Appearances can be deceptive, and what looks like an old lane may have been created in the nineteenth century or even later. So there are really only two reliable methods of dating. The first, searching maps, is only effective for the past 250 years or so, since the first fairly accurate map of Derbyshire was drawn by Burdett in 1767. The second method, excavation, apart from being difficult to carry out, is only useful if there is something to find. Only Roman roads were properly engineered with layers of stone, gravel, ditches etc, so there is unlikely to be any physical evidence of an earlier trackway.

The section of the Portway shown above, called Islington Lane, running north between Winster and Elton, is shown on Burdett's map as a major route, and moreover a lead mine is shown by the road called 'Portaway'. This suggests that the mine was called after the road. 

In addition, near here a cross-section of the track has been excavated by members of the Wirksworth Roman Project,  who found strata suggesting a properly built road about 6 metres wide. If, as seems likely, this shows Roman construction, the question remains whether they built the road on virgin land or were improving an existing, possibly Bronze Age, routeway?

Beginnings and endings

This enigmatic lump of sandstone, the Hemlock Stone, found on Bramcote Hills west of Nottingham,  was the starting point for my 2008 guide to the Derbyshire Portway. I suggested that it was both a route marker and a boundary stone, being near the Nottinghamshire/ Derbyshire border. From this point I followed a route northwest into the Derbyshire Peak District, a route which had been pioneered by Cockerton in the 1930s. After about 45 miles the route reached Mam Tor in the White Peak, which is where my research finished.

But clearly the Portway must have had a continuation at both 'ends', as well as branches east and west. Having reached the Trent valley it may well have linked with the River Trent to the east of Nottingham's Trent Bridge, which has been a barrier to navigation for over a thousand years. At the northern end it seems likely that a major route would cross the Pennines in the direction of Manchester, which was the course of a well-known Roman road. 

So both these areas require more investigation, and each has its own challenges. Today Nottingham obviously has a heavily urbanised landscape with scant evidence of prehistoric pathways, while the Woodlands Valley to the northwest of the Ladybower Reservoir is high, bleak moorland with little documentation or mapping. Although roads rarely have a clearly-defined starting or stopping point, I feel confident that researching these two different regions will give a better understanding of how and when the Portway functioned.

The Meaning of 'Portway'

This roadsign at Coxbench in Derbyshire, on the road to Holbrook, is the only 'official' recognition of the Portway's existence - the Ordnance Survey map also uses the name for this stretch of road.

The road name 'Portway' is found is various parts of England, and seems to be Saxon in origin. There has been much discussion about the meaning of the name, but most agree that it seems to have been used for main roads or routes in the early medieval period. One suggestion is that 'ports' were principal towns linked by this road, or that 'port' refers to carrying goods. 

However, as the Derbyshire Portway runs through very few towns, I suggest that 'port' has a meaning similar to 'harbour', in other words a place where travellers can rest in safety. The harbours en route were similar to caravanserai: defensible sites, probably on hilltops, where travellers could camp overnight, possibly within a stockade. This theory is strongly supported by a number of sites along the Portway with suggestive names e.g. Harborough Rocks near Wirksworth and Arbour Hill near Dale.