Turnpike roads were administered by turnpike trusts, which were bodies authorized by Act of Parliament to charge tolls on road users. The tolls paid for work to keep the road in good repair, or in some cases to pay off the debt from a new road’s construction. Tolls were collected at turnpike gates, most of which were accompanied by a specially built toll-house where the toll collector lived. The trusts also set up milestones to mark distances along many of the roads that they controlled.
The first turnpike trust to be established in Devon was Exeter Turnpike Trust in 1753, and about twenty other trusts were operating by 1765, in most cases centred on particular towns. In 1840, the number of trusts responsible for roads in Devon had grown to 36, some of which had only one road to look after. Exeter Turnpike Trust was always the largest, having nearly 147 miles of road in 1840, radiating out from the city in all directions. At the other extreme, Exmouth Turnpike Trust had responsibility for just two and a quarter miles of road between Lympstone and Exmouth.
Railway competition from 1844 onwards caused turnpike trusts to experience financial difficulties, and one by one they were wound up between 1863 and 1889. Responsibility for the upkeep of the roads passed to local highway authorities, and ultimately to Devon County Council.
Mapping the Turnpike Roads of Devon
The maps of the Devon in 1840 series show exactly which roads were turnpike roads at that time, distinguishing them from other roads by colour (turnpike roads are shown in orange, other roads in yellow). Each turnpike road is labelled with the name of the trust that was responsible for it. The locations of the toll-gates are indicated on the maps by the label ‘toll’. Note that particular toll-gates went in and out of use over time (some toll-houses were built as late as the 1860s) and only gates known to have been operating around 1840 are shown on these maps.
Establishing exactly which roads were turnpikes, for the purpose of mapping them, has not been easy. Maps at the scale of one inch to one mile, published in the early part of the nineteenth century by the Ordnance Survey (and its commercial competitors), showed certain roads as ‘main roads’ and it is often assumed that those were turnpike roads. That assumption is unsafe; there are several examples of turnpike roads that were not depicted as main roads on those maps, and of main roads that were not turnpikes. The definitive statement of which roads were managed by each turnpike trust was in the Act of Parliament that gave the trust its powers and I have used those acts as the primary source of information, supplemented by the evidence of the one-inch maps. The results of that research are presented in a paperback book, The Turnpike Roads of Devon in 1840, which gives details of the roads administered by each turnpike trust.
More information about the book
A Summary Map of Devon Turnpike Roads, 1840-1850
The map below gives a summary of the book’s findings. Use the buttons in the map’s top-left corner to zoom in or out. If you are using a PC, drag the mouse to move around the map, and you can also use the mouse wheel to zoom. If you are using a phone or tablet, swipe the map to move around, and pinch it to zoom.
Image viewer by OpenSeadragon.
The map shows turnpike roads as coloured lines, drawn on a grey background map. All the turnpike roads of Devon in the 1840s are shown. The roads of each turnpike trust are in a particular colour, and the trust’s name is shown in the same colour. Some former turnpike roads that had been given up by the trusts before 1840 are also shown, using lines of coloured dots. These ‘disturnpiked’ roads were no longer kept in repair by the trusts and were toll-free. They include the roads of two small trusts that had already been wound up by 1840: the Crediton and Chudleigh Turnpike Trust, and the Roborough Down and Dartmoor Turnpike Trust.
The grey background is a map of Devon that was published in 1829 by C. and J. Greenwood at the scale of one inch to three miles. Notice that some of the coloured lines have no corresponding road in the background map; they indicate newly-built turnpike roads, those made later than about 1826 when the Greenwoods compiled their map. See, for example, the road between Barnstaple and Ilfracombe through Braunton, made by Braunton Turnpike Trust. The majority of turnpike roads, however, were very old roads that were simply declared to be turnpikes when the trusts were set up.
This map does not show new turnpike roads and alterations that were made after 1850, but they were few in number. The most significant additions to the system after that date were a new road between Kingsbridge and Dartmouth through Slapton Sands, opened in 1856, and a new road along the north coast between Combe Martin and Ilfracombe, made by a new turnpike trust set up for that purpose in 1866.
Further Reading
M. C. Lowe, 1990, ‘The turnpike trusts in Devon and their roads: 1753–1889’, Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 122, 47–69. (A good account of the history.)
Martin Ebdon, 2014, The Turnpike Roads of Devon in 1840: Detailed Lists of the Roads with Maps. (More about this book.)
Tim Jenkinson and Patrick Taylor, 2009, The Toll-Houses of South Devon. (This book and the next one list all the toll-houses of Devon, with illustrations.)
Tim Jenkinson and Patrick Taylor, 2010, The Toll-Houses of North Devon.