algy Posted November 23, 2011 Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 Easy one especially if you live in the area. What's the pub and where is it and what was the purpose of the single story building to the left of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grappenhall Guy Posted November 23, 2011 Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 Dog and Drat toll house Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
algy Posted November 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 Dog and Drat toll house Told you it would be easy if you lived in the area, just as a matter of interest Grapp's do you remember the old Dog, not the Toll house, I had many a pint in there when I first came to Grappenhall, I think the landlord at that time was "Pudge" Beswick, one of the Lower Walton Beswick clan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted November 23, 2011 Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 Why did they have a Toll House there ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
algy Posted November 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 To take money of commercial travellers, ie. horse & carts, Stagecoaches etc. the idea was to use the money to maintain the highways but as today not all of the toll money was spent wisely and found it's way into the packets of unscrupulous officials!. Excerpt from a book from 1886 called "The Royal Mail" (out of copyright). How the people managed to get from place to place before the Post-office had a history, or indeed for long after the birth of that institution, it is hard to conceive. Then, the roads were little better than tracks worn out of the surface of the virgin land, — proceeding in some cases in a manner approaching to a right line, over hiUs, down vaUeys, through forests and the like ; in others following the natural features of the country, but giving evidence that they had never been systematically made, being rather the outcome of a mere habit of travel, just as sheep-tracks are OLD EOADS. 3 produced on a mountain-side. Such roads in winter weather, or in rainy seasons, became terrible to the traveller : yet the only repairs that were vouchsafed consisted in filling up some of the larger holes with rude stones; and when this method of keeping up repairs no longer avaUed, another track was formed by bringing under foot a fresh strip of the adjoining land (generally unenclosed), and thus creating a wholly new road in place of the old one. Smiles in his ' Lives of the Engineers ' thus describes certain of the English roads : " In some of the older settled districts of England, the old roads are still to be traced in the hollow ways or lanes, which are met with, in some places, eight and ten feet deep. Horsetracks in summer and rivulets in winter, the earth became gradually worn into these deep furrows, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted November 23, 2011 Report Share Posted November 23, 2011 Thanks Algy. I have to say the bit which says "Such roads in winter weather, or in rainy seasons.... became terrible to the traveller : yet the only repairs that were vouchsafed? consisted in filling up some of the larger holes with rude stones " sounds somewhat familiar eh ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazj Posted November 24, 2011 Report Share Posted November 24, 2011 Thanks Algy. I have to say the bit which says "Such roads in winter weather, or in rainy seasons.... became terrible to the traveller : yet the only repairs that were vouchsafed? consisted in filling up some of the larger holes with rude stones " sounds somewhat familiar eh ? I wish the council would carry out even that level of road maintenance Dizzy..... "chance would be a fine thing....." as they say! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.