Halifax and Huddersfield Turnpike Road
The Halifax & Huddersfield Turnpike was a 4-mile toll road running from Huddersfield to Elland Bridge, via Hillhouse, Clough House, Grimescar Wood and Ainley Top, and was built following an Act of Parliament in 1777.
Ainley Top Branch of the Halifax & Huddersfield Turnpike
The route to Ainley Top was then superseded in 1824 by a new route, running out of Huddersfield along New North Road through Edgerton and Birchencliffe. The preamble to the Act read:
...that it would be of public utility, if a branch were made from a certain part of the said district of Road, commencing at a place called The Ainleys otherwise Ainley Top, in the township of Elland cum Greetland, and passing into or through the several townships or places of Fixby otherwise Rastrick cum Fixby, and Lindley, to a certain place in the town of Huddersfield, called Temple Street...
The total cost of this new branch was reportedly £15,989 3s. 3d.[1]
The 1854 O.S. map shows the following toll points on the route:
- Edgerton Toll Point, at the junction with Blacker Lane
- Birchencliffe Toll Point, in the hamlet of Quarmby
In 1840, the Parliamentary Commissioners for Inquiring into the State of the Roads in England and Wales reported the following details of the road:
- 10½ miles with 6 gates and 3 side-bars
- The repairs were paid for "entirely by the townships through which it passes; but the trustees invariably open all drains, support burr-walls, remove all shoots of earth in the various cuttings and embankments, and are now making a very considerable improvement of the road by diversion."
- "In 1833 Messrs. I.W. and C. Rawson and Co., the bankers, refused to make any further advances, and the trustees ordered that payment of interest due 1833 should be postponed. The interest paid in that year was on the floating debt and upon certain mortgages where on it was payable half-yearly, and arrears. The arrears of interest amounted, in 1837, to £2,116. 1s. 10d.; the funds being low, the trustees have paid interest only to those parties who have pressed for payment. In 1824 an Act of Parliament was obtained for making a new branch, and the moneys subsequently borrowed were expended thereon."
Route
The route of the turnpike road, including the latter branch, is shown below:
Notes and References
- ↑ "The Toll-Bar Question" in Huddersfield Chronicle (03/May/1856).