EARLY ROADS

AND

MODES OF TRAVELLING.

[By Percival Skelton, after an original Sketch by Miss Simpson.]

EARLY ROADS

AND

MODES OF TRAVELLING.

CHAPTER I.

OLD ROADS.

ROADS have in all times been among the most influential agencies of society; and the makers of roads, by enabling men readily to communicate with each other, have properly been regarded as among the most effective pioneers of civilization. Roads are literally the pathways not only of industry, but of social and national intercourse. Wherever a line of communication between men is formed, it renders commerce practicable; and where commerce penetrates, it invariably creates a civilization and leaves a history. Roads place the city and the town in connection with the village and the farm, open up markets for field produce, and provide outlets for manufactures. They enable the natural resources of a country to be developed, facilitate travelling and intercourse, break down local jealousies, and in all ways tend to bind together society and bring out fully that healthy spirit of industry which is the life and soul of every great nation.

The road is so necessary an instrument of social well-being that in every new colony it is one of the first things thought of. First roads, then institutions, followed by schools, churches, and newspapers. The new country, as well as the old, can only be effectually "opened up," as the common phrase is, by roads, and

until these are made it is virtually closed. Freedom itself cannot exist without free communication, every limitation of movement on the part of the members of society amounting to a positive abridgment of their personal liberty. Hence roads, canals, and railways, by providing the greatest possible facilities for locomotion and information, are essential for the freedom of all classes, of the poorest as well as the richest. By bringing the ends of a kingdom together, they reduce the inequalities of fortune and station, and, by equalizing the price of commodities, to that extent they render them accessible to all. Without their assistance the concentrated populations of our large towns could neither be clothed nor fed; but by their instrumentality an immense range of country is brought as it were to their very doors, and the sustenance and employment of our large masses of people become comparatively easy. In the raw materials required for food, for manufacturing, and for domestic purposes, the cost of transport necessarily forms a considerable item; and it is clear that the more this cost can be reduced by facilities of communication, the cheaper do these articles become, the more they are multiplied, and so enter into the consumption of the community at large. Let any one imagine what would be the effect of closing the roads, railways, and canals of England. The country would be brought to a dead lock, employment would be restricted in all directions, and a large proportion of the inhabitants concentrated in the large towns must at certain seasons perish of cold and hunger.

In the earlier periods of English colonization roads were of comparatively less consequence. While the population was thin and scattered, and men lived by hunting and pastoral pursuits, the track across the down, the heath, and the moor, sufficiently answered their purpose. Yet even in those districts unencumbered with wood, where the first settlements were made

as on the downs of Wiltshire, the moors of Devonshire, and the wolds of Yorkshire-stone tracks were laid down by the tribes between one village and another. We have given, at the beginning of this chapter, a representation of one of those ancient trackways, as its remains still exist, in the neighbourhood of Whitby, in Yorkshire; and there are many of the same description of old roads to be met with in other parts of England. In some districts they are called trackways or ridgeways, being narrow causeways usually following the natural ridge of the country, and probably serving in early times as local boundaries. On Dartmoor they are constructed of stone blocks, irregularly laid down on the surface of the ground, forming a rude causeway of about five or six feet wide.1

The Romans, with many other arts, first brought into England the art of road-making. They thoroughly understood the value of good roads, regarding them as the essential means for the maintenance of their empire in the first instance, and of social prosperity in the next. It was the road, not less than the legion, which made them masters of the world. Wherever they went they opened up the communications of the countries they subdued, and the roads which they made were certainly among the very best of their kind.2 For centuries after they had left England the Roman roads continued to be the main highways of internal communication, and their remains are even to this day to be traced in many parts of the country. Settlements were made and towns sprang up along these old "streets;" and the numerous Stretfords and Stratfords, and towns

1 An interesting description of these old trackways in Devonshire is given by the Rev. Samuel Rowe, M.A., Vicar of Crediton, in his 'Perambulations of the Ancient and Royal Forest of Dartmoor.' London, 1848.

2 The Curator Viarum of the Romans was an official of distinction,

wielding great authority. Plutarch says of Caius Gracchus, when appointed supreme director for making roads, &c., that the people were charmed to see him go forth on his tours of road-making, followed by such numbers of architects, artificers, ambassadors, and magistrates.