Origins and building

In the 18th century, Richmond was the seat of a court of quarter sessions, it was a chief market in the area for goods and it was also the export point for metals and ores mined and quarried in Swaledale and Wensleydale.^[1] In addition to this, the Court of Archdeaconry extended quite far westwards beyond the Lancashire border, but all the major roads in the area bypassed Richmond to either the north or the east. At the same time, Lancaster was developing into a prosperous port with good links into Ireland, the Americas and the Baltic countries.^[2] The people in Wensleydale had also petitioned the local landowners to do something about the roads. One petitioner stated that the roads through Wensleydale were "so bad, ruinous, narrow and rocky that it is totally impassible at some Times of the Year for any kind of Wheel Carriages[sic] ...".^[3] Parliament approved the turnpike in 1751, and in June of the same year, the turnpike trust employed Alexander Fothergill as its surveyor with a salary of £30 per year.^[4] Fothergill became the surveyor for the eastern district (from Ingleton to Richmond).

In 1755, the road was extended northwards from Richmond through to Piercebridge via Gilling West. This allowed for the important transport of Durham coal, although initially, coal was exempt from being charged for.^[5] Fothergill was not able to ride the entire course of the road until 1774, when the trustees of the turnpike were dissatisfied with his work and accused him of dishonesty in his financial affairs.^[6] As a result of this accusation, he was dismissed from his post of surveyor.^[7]

Much of the route had already existed in one form or another, it was down to the Turnpike Trust to remediate all the surfaces and then charge tolls which they set about doing as soon as the bill was passed in May 1751. Fothergill reported in 1755 that the road was "60 miles (97 km) in length;^{[note 1]} 40 miles (64 km) of which have been repaired and made good".^[11] Labour for the road came from surveyors junior to Fothergill, but also crucially, most of the manual labour was undertaken by the local population through whose parish the road went. The Highways Act 1555 stated that each parish or township was responsible for the upkeep of the roads.^[12] Every inhabitant had to commit to four days annually working on the road. In 1563, this was amended to six days each. Fothergill was reliant on his local surveyors to organise this "statute labour" which predicated that the local surveyor kept an accurate list of who was living in the parish at that time.^[11]

At Bow Bridge between Askrigg and Bainbridge, the existing 13th century bridge over Grange Beck was widened to accommodate the new road. The bridge is now a scheduled monument, and was replaced in 1899 with a new bridge 98 feet (30 m) to the south.^[13] A bridge was constructed at Richmond which spanned the River Swale. Over this, the turnpike went in a rough south westerly direction encountering its first tollbar at Slee Hill where the edge of Richmond was. The bridge at Richmond, always known as Green Bridge as it connected Richmond Green with the south side of the Swale, which until that point, had not existed as a crossing and in fact was the only crossing of the Swale in Richmond until the bridge connecting to the railway station was opened in 1876.^[14] Flooding had damaged the original bridge so much by the mid 1780s that it had to be replaced. The design of the bridge was down to John Carr of York, but as the River Swale was the dividing line between the Borough of Richmond and the North Riding of Yorkshire, each employed their own contractor to finish their half of the bridge and meet in the middle.^[15][16] This can be seen in the slight differences of construction; at the county end (the southern half) the masonry is composed of two layers of stone. On the borough half (the northern end) the depth of the stone runs to three layers.^[15]

When the river level is low, the bases of the previous bridge can be seen in the water immediately upstream of the present bridge.^[17]

Tolls and earnings

The day-to-day running of the turnpike became the responsibility of the Richmond-Lancaster Trust. Between 1758 and 1799, the trust charged a flat rate of 10d for transit throughout the town of Richmond and the borough of Richmondshire.^[18] Prices for transit along the route to Lancaster were initially quite high (typically 4 Shillings and 6 pence [4s, 6d]), which was later relaxed when in 1756, an Act of Parliament allowed the turnpike trusts to charge for the carriage of coal. Fothergill noted that the volume of coal traffic using the route from Durham was stopping the route from being rebuilt when it fell into disrepair.^[19] Thereafter, charges amounted to 10d for twenty cattle, 5d for twenty sheep, 1d for a laden horse and 6d for three or four horse carriages.^[20]

In the period from 1825 to 1829, the trust typically paid an interest rate to its shareholders of 5% per year.^[21] Besides the droving of animals, which had been going on via the Cam High Road for centuries anyway, goods taken to Richmond were groceries, drink, mahogany and other timber, with corn and butter going westwards from Swaledale and Wensleydale.^[22] In 1835, the total receipts from the tollhouses in the eastern district was £271, 7 shillings and sixpence. £116 was spent on wages for labour, tradesmen, the treasurer (£10) and the clerk (£5). However, the trust was in debt to the tune of over £4,100.^[23] Conversely, the western district had toll receipts of over £515 and paid their treasurer and clerk twice as much as the eastern district. Their debts were slightly higher at £5,200.^[24]

In early 1796, the combination of suspected Jacobean uprisings, the Corn Laws and the high price of food, resulted in rioting breaking out through Wensleydale. At least 300 people were rioting within 1 mile (1.6 km) of Bolton Castle, which made the authorities dispatch a "troop of Horse" to deal with the issue. However, the rioters agreed not to interrupt the delivery of grain on the turnpike through the dale.^[25]

Trust closure

A report prepared for Parliament in 1851 stated that the trustees had left the maintenance on the road to individual parishes over the last 30 years. Some of the milestones on the road had been replaced with metal ones that stated the parish name and displayed the name of the "Lancaster and Richmond Road".^[26] The eastern end of the turnpike; that which ran through Ribblesdale, Wensleydale and Swaledale, was operated by the trust until 1868, when it was closed by an Act of Parliament.^[27] Responsibility for the turnpikes thereafter was down to the district highway boards.^[28] The Highways and Locomotives Act 1878 abolished the turnpike trusts completely.^[29]