The price of lifting a rough road, breaking the stones, forming the
road, smoothing the surface, cleaning out the watercourses, and
replacing the stone, leaving the road in a finished state, has been
found in practice to be from one penny to two-pence per superficial
yard, lifted four inches deep; the variation of price depends on the
greater or lesser quantity of stone to be broken.
At two-pence per yard, a road of six yards wide will cost, therefore,
one shilling per running yard, or 88l. per mile.
Any rough road may be rendered smooth and solid at this price, unless it
be weak and require an addition of stone, or require some very material
alteration of shape.
Breaking stone has been reduced in price by the use of more proper
hammers, and the sitting posture.
The Commissioners at Bristol used to pay fifteen pence per ton for
limestone from Durdham Down, for the use of their roads, and broken to a
size above twenty ounces.—Stone is now procured from the same place,
broken so as none exceed six ounces for ten-pence per ton! and the
workmen are very desirous of contracts at that rate, because the heavy
work is done by the men, the light work with small hammers by the wives
and children, so that whole families are employed.
In Sussex, the proportion is greater between former and present prices;
the breaking of flint cost at one time two shillings per ton, and is now
done, by introducing a better method and fitter tools at one shilling
per ton.
By a more judicious preparation and application of materials the
quantity of stone consumed in roads is decreased, by which a great
saving of expence is made, and with this great advantage, that the
saving is in horse labour of cartage, while the labour price is given to
men, and in such a manner as includes boys from the age of ten upwards,
women and old men past the age of being able to labour hard. The
proportion of men and horse labour in the Bristol district, under the
former management, was
One-fourth to men’s labour,
Three-fourths to horse labour.
Under a better system of management the proportion has been exactly
reversed: during half a year that an exact account was kept, there was
paid.
For men’s, women and children’s labour, £3088.
For horses’ labour 1035.
This immense advantage is presented in every part of the country, as
roads are confined to no particular place, and are universally in want
of repair: ample funds are already provided for every useful and proper
purpose, although at present misapplied in almost every part of the
kingdom, while the labourers are in want of that employment which it
ought to afford them.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
THE PRESIDENT,
AND
THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.
Having communicated to your Honourable Board, some observations on
making and repairing roads, in February, 1819, I beg leave to add the
following, which have arisen from increased experience on the subject,
and also from a desire of calling your attention to the effects of the
late severe winter on the roads of the country, and the confirmation
afforded to the opinions I have endeavoured to introduce on the
construction of roads.
During the late winter, and particularly in the month of January, 1820,
when the frost was succeeded by a sudden thaw, accompanied by the
melting of snow, the roads of the kingdom broke up in a very alarming
manner, and to an extent that created great loss and inconvenience by
the interruption of communication, and the delay of the mails, and also
occasioned a very heavy extra expenditure by the Post-office.
The obvious cause of this defect of the roads, was the admission of
water from the loose and unskilful method of their construction.
Previous to the severe frost, the roads were filled with water, which
had penetrated through the ill-prepared and unskilfully laid materials:
this caused an immediate expansion of the whole mass during the frost,
and upon a sudden thaw, the roads became quite loose, and the wheels of
carriages penetrated to the original soil, which was also saturated with
water, from the open state of the road. By this means, many roads became
altogether impassable, while the whole were rendered deep and
inconvenient to be travelled upon.
In particular, it was observed, that _all_ the roads of which chalk was
a component part, became, generally, impassable; and even, that the
roads made over chalk soils gave way in most places. This evidently
proceeded from the absorbent quality of chalk, which renders it so
tenacious of water, that I consider its use to be one of the most
dangerous errors in road making. I was induced on former occasions to
recommend particular care in making roads over chalk soils, and to
advise a discontinuance of the practice of mixing chalk, clay, or any
other matter that holds water, with the materials of a road. The
experience of last winter has confirmed this opinion, and has shewn the
ruinous effects of the former method.
Of all the roads which have been thoroughly re-made, according to the
directions which I had the honour to submit to your Honourable Board
last spring, not one has given way, nor has any delay taken place
through the severity of the late season.
As every winter has, in some degree, presented such inconveniences, and
as it has been observed that very severe winters occur in England every
six or seven years, it is of great consequence to consider of the means
of constructing the roads of the kingdom in such a manner as shall
prevent their being in future affected by any change of weather or
season.
The roads can never be rendered thus perfectly secure, until the
following principles be fully understood, admitted, and acted upon:
namely, that it is the native soil which really supports the weight of
traffic: that while it is preserved in a dry state, it will carry any
weight without sinking, and that it does in fact carry the road and the
carriages also; that this native soil must previously be made quite dry,
and a covering impenetrable to rain, must then be placed over it, to
preserve it in that dry state; that the thickness of a road should only
be regulated by the quantity of material necessary to form such
impervious covering, and never by any reference to its _own_ power of
carrying weight.
The erroneous opinion so long acted upon, and so tenaciously adhered to,
that by placing a large quantity of stone under the roads, a remedy will
be found for the sinking into wet clay, or other soft soils, or in other
words, that a road may be made sufficiently strong, _artificially_, to
carry heavy carriages, though the sub-soil be in a wet state, and by
such means to avert the inconveniences of the natural soil receiving
water from rain, or other causes, has produced most of the defects of
the roads of Great Britain.
At one time I had formed the opinion that this practice was only a
useless expence, but experience has convinced me that it is likewise
positively injurious.
It is well known to every skilful and observant road-maker, that if
strata of stone of various sizes be placed as a road, the largest stones
will constantly work up by the shaking and pressure of the traffic, and
that the only mode of keeping the stones of a road from motion, is to
use materials of a uniform size from the bottom. In roads made upon
large stones as a foundation, the perpetual motion, or change of the
position of the materials, keeps open many apertures through which the
water passes.
It has also been found, that roads placed upon a hard bottom, wear away
more quickly than those which are placed upon a soft soil. This has been
apparent upon roads where motives of economy, or other causes, have
prevented the road being lifted to the bottom at once; the wear has
always been found to diminish, as soon as it was possible to remove the
hard foundation. It is a known fact, that a road lasts much longer over
a morass than when made over rock. The evidence produced before the
Committee of the House of Commons, shewed the comparison on the road
between Bristol and Bridgwater, to be as five to seven in favour of the
wearing on the morass, where the road is laid on the naked surface of
the soil, against a part of the same road made over rocky ground.
The practice common in England, and universal in Scotland, on the
formation of a new road, is, to dig a trench below the surface of the
ground adjoining, and in this trench to deposit a quantity of large
stones; after this, a second quantity of stone, broken smaller,
generally to about seven or eight pounds weight; these previous beds of
stone are called the bottoming of the road, and are of various
thickness, according to the caprice of the maker, and generally in
proportion to the sum of money placed at his disposal. On some new
roads, made in Scotland, in the summer of 1819, the thickness exceeded
three feet.
That which is properly called the road, is then placed on the bottoming,
by putting large quantities of broken stone or gravel, generally a foot
or eighteen inches thick, at once upon it.
Were the materials of which the road itself is composed, properly
selected, prepared, and laid, some of the inconveniences of this system
might be avoided; but in the careless way in which this service is
generally performed, the road is as open as a sieve to receive water;
which penetrates through the whole mass, is received and retained in the
trench, whence the road is liable to give way in all changes of weather.
A road formed on such principles has never effectually answered the
purpose which the road-maker should constantly have in view; namely, to
make a secure, level flooring, over which carriages may pass with
safety, and equal expedition, at all seasons of the year.
If it be admitted, as I believe it is now very generally, that in this
kingdom an artificial road is only required to obviate the inconvenience
of a very unsettled climate; and that water with alternate frost and
thaw, are the evils to be guarded against, it must be obvious that
nothing can be more erroneous than providing a reservoir for water under
the road and giving facility to the water to pass through the road into
this trench, where it is acted upon by frost to the destruction of the
road.
As no artificial road can ever be made so good, and so useful as the
natural soil in a _dry state_, it is only necessary to procure, and
preserve this dry state of so much ground as is intended to be occupied
by a road.
The first operation in making a road should be the reverse of digging a
trench. The road should not be sunk below, but rather raised above, the
ordinary level of the adjacent ground, care should at any rate be taken,
that there be a sufficient fall to take off the water, so that it should
always be some inches below the level of the ground upon which the road
is intended to be placed: this must be done, either by making drains to
lower ground, or if that be not practicable, from the nature of the
country, then the soil upon which the road is proposed to be laid, must
be raised by addition, so as to be some inches above the level of the
water.
Having secured the soil from under water, the road-maker is next to
secure it from rain water, by a solid road, made of clean, dry stone, or
flint, so selected, prepared, and laid, as to be perfectly impervious to
water: and this cannot be effected, unless the greatest care be taken,
that no earth, clay, chalk, or other matter, that will hold or conduct
water, be mixed with the broken stone; which must be so prepared and
laid, as to unite by its own angles into a firm, compact, impenetrable
body.
The thickness of such road is immaterial, as to its strength for
carrying weight; this object is already obtained by providing a dry
surface, over which the road is to be placed as a covering, or roof, to
preserve it in that state: experience having shewn, that if water passes
through a road, and fill the native soil, the road, whatever may be its
thickness, loses its support, and goes to pieces.
In consequence of an alteration in the line of the turnpike road, near
Rownham Ferry, in the parish of Ashton, near Bristol, it has been
necessary to remove the old road. This road was lifted and relaid very
skilfully in 1816; since which time it has been in contemplation to
change the line, and consequently, it has been suffered to wear very
thin. At present it is not above three inches thick in most places, and
in none more than four: yet on removing the road it was found, that no
water had penetrated, nor had the frost affected it during all the late
winter; and the natural earth beneath the road was found perfectly dry.
Several new roads have been constructed an this principle within the
last three years. Part of the great north road from London by Hoddesdon
in Hertfordshire—two pieces of road on Durdham Down, and at Rownham
Ferry, near Bristol—with several private roads, in the eastern part of
Sussex.
None of those roads exceed six inches in thickness, and although that on
the great north road is subjected to a very heavy traffic, (being only
fifteen miles distant from London) it has not given way, nor was it
affected by the late severe winter; when the roads between that and
London became impassable, by breaking up to the bottom, and the mails
and other coaches were obliged to reach London by circuitous routes. It
is worthy of observation, that these bad roads cost more money per mile
for their annual repair, than the original making of this useful new
road.
Improvement of roads, upon the principle I have endeavoured to explain,
has been rapidly extended during the last four years. It has been
carried into effect, on various roads, and with every variety of
material, in seventeen different counties. These roads being so
constructed as to exclude water, consequently none of them broke up
during the late severe winter; there was no interruption to travelling,
nor any additional expense by the Post-office in conveying the mails
over them, to the extent of upwards of one thousand miles of road.
Many new roads, and to a considerable extent, are projected for the
ensuing season. Some of them are to be assisted by grants or loans from
government, and it will be a great saving of property, and enable
government to extend their assistance more effectually, if these roads
be made in the most approved and economical manner.
The unnecessary expense attending the making of new roads in the manner
hitherto practised, is one great cause of the present heavy debt upon
the road trusts of the kingdom. The principal part of the large sums
originally borrowed, have been sunk in the useless, and in my opinion,
mischievous preparation, of a foundation. This debt presses heavily on
the funds of all the roads in England, and, in many cases, absorbs
almost their whole revenue in payment of interest. In Scotland this
pressure is still more heavily felt: indeed it is not of uncommon
occurrence in that country, for creditors to lose both principal and
interest of their loans to roads.
This causes not only a great and unnecessary loss in the first instance,
and a deficiency of means for ordinary repair, and maintenance of the
roads, but it also discourages the formation of new roads. Were a better
and more economical system generally adopted and acted upon, many great
additions and improvements of the communications of the country would
take place, from which, at present, the landholders are deterred, by
fear of the extent of the expense, and the difficulty of obtaining loans
of money.
The measure of substituting pavements, for convenient and useful roads,
is a kind of desperate remedy, to which ignorance has had recourse. The
badness, or scarcity of materials, cannot be considered a reasonable
excuse; because the same quantity of stone required for paving, is fully
sufficient to make an excellent road any where: and it must be evident,
that road materials of the best quality may be procured at less cost
than paving stone.
The very bad quality of the gravel round London, combined with want of
skill and exertion, either to obviate its defects, or to procure a
better material, has induced several of the small trusts, leading from
that city, to have recourse to the plan of paving their roads, as far as
their means will admit. Instead of applying their ample funds to obtain
good materials for the roads, they have imported stone from Scotland,
and have paved their roads, at an expense ten times greater than that of
the excellent roads lately made on some of the adjoining trusts. Very
few of these pavements have been so laid as to keep in good order for
any length of time; so that a very heavy expense has been incurred
without any beneficial result, and it is to be lamented that this
wasteful and ineffectual mode is upon the increase in the neighbourhood
of London.
This practice has also been adopted in places where the same motive
cannot be adduced: in Lancashire, almost all the roads are paved at an
enormous cost, and are, in consequence, proverbially bad. At Edinburgh,
where they have the best and cheapest materials in the kingdom, the want
of science to construct good roads, has led the trustees to adopt the
expedient of pavements, to a considerable extent; and at an expense
hardly credible, when compared with what would have been the cost of
roads on the best principles.
The advantages of good roads, when compared with pavements, are
universally acknowledged; the extension of pavement is therefore to be
deprecated as an actual evil, besides the greatness of the expence.
Pavements are particularly inconvenient and dangerous on steep ascents,
such as the ascent to bridges, &c. A very striking example of this may
be observed on the London end of Blackfriars Bridge, where heavy loads
are drawn up with great difficulty, and where more horses fall and
receive injury, than in any other place in the kingdom. The pavement in
such places should be lifted, and converted into a good road; which may
be done with the same stone, at an expense not exceeding ten-pence per
square yard. This road would be more lasting than the pavement, and,
when out of order, may be repaired at less than one-tenth of the expense
which relaying the pavement would require.
This measure has been adopted with great success, and considerable
saving of expense, in the suburbs of Bristol, where the pavements were
taken up, and converted into good roads, about three years ago.
The advantages of the system recommended is so obvious to common
observation in the repair of old roads, and has been practised to an
extent so considerable, during the last four years, that the minds of
most people have become reconciled to it; and objections, founded on old
prejudice and suspicion, have given way to experience, but the
application of the same principles to the construction of new roads, has
necessarily been much more limited. It will, therefore, require more
liberality and confidence on the part of country gentlemen, and also
more patient investigation of the principles on which the system is
founded, before they will allow of its adoption on new lines of road. It
is to be hoped, however, that the importance of the subject will
recommend it to general consideration.
REPORT
FROM THE
SELECT COMMITTEE
ON THE
HIGHWAYS OF THE KINGDOM:
TOGETHER WITH THE
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
TAKEN BEFORE THEM.