Coventry Society member Peter James tells us about the history of two of Coventry’s most important roads. Peter writes….
Coventry was an important hub for travel by coach and carrier’s carts in the nineteenth century. One important route was from the city along Spon Street and the Allesley Road to Birmingham and eventually Holyhead. It is a section of the 243 mile long London to Holyhead Road. In the 1820s the Holyhead Road was built, a shorter route from Coventry City centre to Allesley. The work was carried out by Thomas Telford and his assistant John MacNeill. A Highways Commission Report issued on 5th June 1829 stated that the new road would be open soon and that arrangements to collect tolls would soon be in place.
The Commission report contained Thomas Telford’s own reports on this section where he commented:-
“On the hill at the entrance to Allesley the parish have erected on the roadside a very ugly rude pump, and have left the surface of the ground round it in a very slovenly state; this deformity is more striking as particular pains were taken to finish the road, after lowering it through the village, in the neatest manner, and to attend to the convenience of the inhabitants, in making good the damages done by lowering the road; good approaches were made to all the houses and to the church yard and glebe house; and substantial railings were erected where necessary, and well painted, so as on the whole to make the new work a great ornament to the village. A watering trough is suffered to remain opposite to the public house, where the road is confined to twenty seven feet between buildings; the consequence is, that when a wagon is stopped to water the horses, it is scarcely possible for a carriage to pass it.”
The road had been lowered to reduce the gradient for stage coaches which in the past had struggled up the hill and through the village towards Birmingham.
The painting shows a raised footpath on the right hand side. This was caused when the road was lowered. This type of raised walkway is a feature of many properties on the Birmingham Road in the village.
In the seventeenth century the government set up Turnpike Trusts to pay for road building and maintenance which became more prevalent in the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries. They gave powers for the collection of tolls, so toll houses with gates were built at certain key locations. By 1825 there were about 1000 trusts covering 18000 miles of road in England and Wales.
The Allesley Toll House was built at the junction of Holyhead Road and Allesley Old Road. It was rare if not unique allowing payment to be taken on two roads simultaneously.
The advent of railways spelt the end for turnpike roads. Road tolls were suspended by an Act of Parliament in 1871 and later the Local Government Act of 1888 made County Councils and County Borough Councils responsible for road maintenance. The Allesley Toll House was demolished in the 1930s. to facilitate road improvements.