THERE still stands on the Cheltenham Road in Stratton a quaint old fashioned building with leaded window panes general referred to as the old Toll House. This is a is a relic of the old turnpike gate which stood on this site.

A ‘Turnpike’ road was a name given to roads having upon them toll-gates or bars called ‘turns’. These ‘turns’ were first constructed about the middle of the 18th century when certain interested individuals subscribed amongst themselves for the repair of various roads and exacted a toll for the privilege of using the roads so repaired. Popular resistance to these exactions led to the passing of the Acts to regulate tolls.

The control of these turnpike roads came into the hands of trustees who let the tolls annually by auction, putting them up at the sum produced the previous year above the expenses of collection.

An advertisement of such a letting appeared in our columns in 1852 shows that the ‘gates and weighing machine at the end of Dyer Street, Cirencester and side bars at or near Preston had the previous year realised £920.

This appears to have been by far the most remunerative in this immediate district the least productive being the gate at Clay Hill near Lechlade and bar leading to Southrop which had produced £184.

Gates at the bottom of Cricklade Street, Cirencester, and the bars at Preston and the gate and weighing engine at Latton near Cricklade brought in £510 over the cost of the collection some £15 more than did the gates at Stratton, White Way and the bar or chain at Perrotts Brook.

A condition of the letting was “Whoever happens to be the best bidder must at the same time pay one month in advance or the rent at which such tolls may be let and give security to the Trustees of the said turnpike roads for the payment of the rest of the money monthly.

A turnpike gate was the subject of one of the most extraordinary advertisements ever published.

This appeared in our issue of May 15 1852 and was written by the then vicar of Inglesham who occupied nearly two full columns of small and closely set type using footnotes to give his own version of proceedings taken against him for having ‘fraudulently passed through the said turnpike gate with a cart and four horses.’

A friend of the vicar had contracted with the lessee of the tolls for the free passage of all his vehicles through the turnpike gate for a certain fixed sum for the year. One day he lent the vicar a cart and four horses for the carriage of a load of goods for which the turnpike keeper attempted to extract a further toll.

The vicar refused payment and this action heard by the magistrates sitting at the Swan Inn in Bibury.

The story of the service of the summons of the unfee’d legal assistance he secured and of the ‘sensation’ he produced in court is told in detail and with such a sense of humour that one images that this vicar could preach an excellent sermon!