If there is one topic that infuriates many British drivers, it is potholes. However, a recent study has found that the problem is centuries old, not just decades. Diarists from the mid-1600s to 1820 recorded their experiences with road quality, including writers Daniel Defoe and Anne Lister.
Study Methodology
Academics at the University of Cambridge and the University of California examined the diaries of 100 individuals using mapping software that digitised journeys totalling nearly 350,000 miles. They applied textual analysis and a scoring system to road descriptions. The diarists used words such as “execrable, insufferable, vile, detestable, ruinous and dangerous” to describe their negative experiences on roads.
“This is the first study to focus on the road user experience,” said Professor Dan Bogart. “Diaries give us unique insight into how things changed on the roads, and with that information, we can say far more definitively that the turnpike system dramatically improved road travel in the eighteenth century.” Turnpiking was a toll-funded system for maintaining and improving main roads in England and Wales.
Key Findings
The researchers found that roads were 78 per cent more likely to be judged ‘at least acceptable’ in the period 1760–1820 than in the period 1660–1759. The academics believe the extent of improvement probably exceeded this because road users became harder to please as they grew accustomed to better roads.
Professor Bogart added: “People generally think of the railways as the Big Bang for internal travel and forget about the road improvements that came before. But on the eve of the railway age, Britain had the largest toll road network that has ever existed. Roughly one-fifth of main roads were tolled. And these turnpike roads were largely run by locals; community engagement was key to their acceptance and ability to spread. That’s remarkable.”
Comfort and Safety Over Speed
One of the study’s key findings is that road users strongly valued comfort and safety over speed. A key reason, they argue, is that most of the diarists were making discretionary, shorter journeys in privately owned vehicles, rather than in rapid, long-distance stagecoaches that expanded in use in the nineteenth century.
Dr Alan Rosevear stated: “Until now, historians have focused on speed as the key marker of improvement, but diarists rarely mentioned speed. They were far more interested in safety and comfort. People wanted to get to their cousin’s wedding in one piece, and not totally dishevelled, because their carriage bounced them around or tipped them into a river. Getting there a bit faster wasn’t so important.”
Professor Leigh Shaw-Taylor, also a co-author, said: “The improvements brought about by turnpikes reduced freight rates, which enabled a major expansion in internal trade and increased regional specialisation — key features of the Industrial Revolution. At the same time, better roads not only made it possible to travel by stagecoach much faster, but 24 hours a day, because travelling by night became much safer. As a result, Britain benefited from far greater circulation of people, money and ideas.”
