Tales from Longford:  The Bath Road milestones

 

Few of us, as we drive along the A4 on the northern edge of Heathrow airport, realise we are travelling on an old coaching route called The Great Bath Road. Nor can we now imagine how it felt for the eighteenth-century travellers in their coaches and carriages, bumping along the hardened earth road, stopping every seven miles to change horses, eat and drink, and enduring that for the three-day journey to Bath. Whilst most people have forgotten the history of the Bath Road there are still reminders of the old days which lie unnoticed against a fence or a wall on the airport side of the road.

The road was a busy coaching route between London and Bath where fashionable gentry would take the medicinal waters. After leaving Hounslow the road crossed part of the isolated Hounslow Heath which brought with it the additional fear of being robbed by highwaymen, but it did not deter passengers from making the journey. The carriages would stop to change horses at the many inns along the route, and passengers would have time to refresh themselves at the Three Magpies at Sipson Green, or the four inns in Longford. For the passengers, the coach journey along the Bath Road, was not a comfortable ride. The packed earth surface was sometimes reinforced with gravel dug from the nearby fields, but this did not prevent it from becoming a constant source of complaint. The vehicle wheels damaged the surface, and dry hot weather baked the mud into deep ruts, which in wet weather would fill with water and produce cloying mud. The solution was to impose a proper maintenance plan on the road. On 1 June 1727 thirty-two trustees met at the George Inn, Colnbrook, for the first meeting of the Colnbrook Turnpike Trust. This trust was formed to maintain the Bath Road, for a length of seven miles, between Cranford Bridge and Maidenhead Bridge. The cost of the road maintenance would come from tolls paid by the highway users. The improved road surface, strengthened by a proper gravel surface and improved drainage, meant the journey-time to Bath could be shortened to less than a day, but there was still room for improvement.

In 1741 the Colnbrook Trust erected mile stones along the seven miles of Bath Road under their administration. The stones were commissioned from Mr Woodruff of Windsor and cost £2 8s each. Although recut in the 1820s the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth miles stones are still in place today. They show the distance between local towns as well as the total distance from Hyde Park Corner.

 

One of the natural hazards in the summer for the Bath Road travellers was the choking dust created by the wheels of the carriages breaking up the dried mud on the road. In 1827 the Colnbrook Turnpike Trust spent £759 on trying to solve this problem. They had wells dug every two miles, installed pumps and bought new water carts. The pumps were made by Fowler & Co of Lambeth and were about two metres high in order to be tall enough to fill a barrel mounted on a cart. The water carts would then be used to spray water on the road in order to lay the dust. From March to October the road would be watered twice daily in dry weather, except for Sundays. This practice continued into the twentieth century until just before the first World War when the road surface was sprayed with tar. One of these pumps has been preserved, today, at Longford near the 15th milestone.

 

Today we hardly notice the milestones which still mark the miles from London as they have done for 283 years, but they are still there and still standing smartly to attention to fulfil their purpose. The thirteenth-mile marker is outside the telephone exchange at Harlington Corner and opposite the Best Western Arial hotel and the Airport Bowl.  The fourteenth is just past the Three Magpies pub, near Newport Road that leads onto the Northern Perimeter Road West, and opposite the Leonardo Hotel. The fifteen-mile marker is against a car park fence and opposite a petrol filling station and a MacDonalds where the Peggy Bedford pub used to be. This and the sixteenth marker, close to the bridge that carries the Old Bath Road over the M25 near Colnbrook, will be removed if Longford village is demolished to make way for the Third Runway, and another piece of Longford history will disappear.

Read more about the last three hundred years of Longford in:

 "Longford: A Village in Limbo" by Wendy Tibbitts

For a “Look Inside” option for this book go to 

  https://b2l.bz/WUf9dc

Murder at the Colnbrook Tollhouse

 

Colnbrook Tollhouse 1933

Murder at the Colnbrook Tollhouse

When Bath became a fashionable place for Society to visit, the Great Bath Road (A4), which passed through Hounslow Heath to Longford and Colnbrook and onwards to Bath, saw an increase in the long-distance carriage trade. The constant movement of carriage-wheels damaged the compressed earth road and often resulted in a quagmire of deep mud through which pedestrians, riders and coaches had to pass. When the mud dried out the crushed mud then covered travellers in clouds of dust.

Local people would sometimes spread gravel on the road to improve the surface, but it soon became clear a proper maintenance policy was needed. Turnpike Trusts were formed on all major roads. They would charge users a toll to travel along the roads and this money paid for the cost of road maintenance. Gates were set up across the road where the toll was to be collected and toll houses built for the toll-house keeper and his family to live in.

The Colnbrook Turnpike Trust was set up in 1727 to maintain a length of road from Cranford Bridge to Maidenhead Bridge. A turnpike gate was built at Salt Hill in Slough, but the main gate was west of Colnbrook. This gate was later thought to be inconvenient and collected insufficient funds, so in 1739 it was moved to the eastern side of Colnbrook near the road to Poyle and a tollhouse built alongside it.[1] Two toll gatherers were employed to collect the tolls. The tollhouse was often isolated and vulnerable to thieves who knew that sums of money were held there.

On 16 June 1735 the Colnbrook Toll keeper was robbed of all the previous days takings.[2] In April 1768 the tollhouse keeper, Benjamin Harvey was robbed of not only his takings, but his silver watch and eight shillings and ninepence of his own money. The Colnbrook Turnpike Trust refunded him £2.18s.3d for his loss.

Joseph Pierce from Langley Marish had married his London-born sweetheart in 1764 when he was 26. Later Joseph became the tollhouse keeper and moved his growing family into the tollhouse at Colnbrook. On the night of 23 February 1781 he heard a noise in the tollbooth and went to investigate. At two in the morning a butcher from Windsor, with another traveller, entered the tollhouse to pay their turnpike toll and found the keeper badly injured on the floor, covered in blood, and dying. His head appeared to have been caved in from the use of a blood-covered poker that lay nearby and there was a large pool of blood around his body. It was later found that twelve pounds had been stolen.[3] Joseph Pierce did not survive the night. He was 43 and left his wife with a teenage daughter and three young children. The family lost their home and their wage-earner on that terrible night.

 

The murder shocked the nation and the hunt was on for the killer. In March a man was arrested in London and confessed to the murder and robbery at Colnbrook turnpike, but appeared to be “disordered in his senses” and it was discovered that he had arrived from India since the murder and robbery were committed.[4]

It was not until three years later that the culprit was discovered by chance. In April 1784 a man called Robert Griffith was employed by Samuel Dixon who lived in the 16th century Wallingtons Manor, a large manor house in the village of Kintbury, Berkshire. On the night of 7 April Samuel Dixon was staying in London when the manor house was badly damaged by fire. Robert Griffith was sent to London to tell Mr Dixon about the fire, but his suspicious behaviour caused Dixon to question Griffith about the fire. He eventually confessed that he started the fire to cover up the fact that he had stolen a brace of pistols, a gun, and a quantity of money.

Whilst in custody he also confessed to the murder of the Colnbrook Tollhouse keeper. At the time of the murder Griffith had been the second toll-gatherer at Colnbrook and it was thought Joseph Pierce had surprised him whilst he was stealing the takings. Griffith was sent to Reading Goal where he tried to slit his own throat, but he missed his windpipe and, after the cut was sewn up, he survived.[5] His sentence is unrecorded, but the crime would have been classed as highway robbery for which a death sentence is mandatory.

The tollhouse was demolished in 1962. There is a rumour that it was haunted by the ghost of Joseph Pierce, and that his spirit is said to walk at Halloween.

For more historical stories about Colnbrook, Longford, and Harmondsworth read “Longford: A Village in Limbo” by Wendy Tibbitts.

[1] Rosevear, Alan. A booklet on the Turnpike Road around Reading. http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/Reading%20turnpike%20roads.htm

[2] Newcastle Courant - Saturday 21 June 1735

[3] Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette - Thursday 01 March 1781

[4][4] Reading Mercury - Monday 19 March 1781

[5] Northampton Mercury - Monday 26 April 1784