“Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode, the rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.” Chesterton’s poem is apocryphal. Roads bend normally for one of two reasons; the first is topographical to make use of a contour or firmer ground; the second, to avoid an obstacle such as a river, large obstruction or piece of private land. The first major routes in Britain, the green roads, lay along the watersheds, because wooded valleys and marshy tracts provided only a hazardous alternative to firm hill paths. Occasionally the traveller had to resort to valley and ford, simply to join another upland bridle road.

Local craftsmanship and rural economy required virtually no long distance transport, but areas that produced special industries- mining of coal, stone, slate and ores, the weaving trade, tinker’s wares and cutlery from Sheffield, nets made at Bridport, saddlery from Walsall, salt from Cheshire and Droitwich, and pottery from the Five Towns, all needed a national network of distribution. Clearly the green tracks were unsuitable for horse-drawn wheeled vehicles, and in fact, probably at least 70 per cent of goods travelling on the roads before the 19th Century were carried in packs.

Oxen were too slow and packmen, ponies and donkeys provided the answer. The loads of up to 4cwts, were carried in panniers across the back. A string of pack-horses, between 4 and 40 in number, and usually not more than 14 hands high, would normally all be of the same breed, jack-asses, Welsh cobs, and the ponies of the drove roads of the North of England, sure-footed and hardy. Most packhorses would have been indifferent specimens, running loose and not tethered to each other, their extra freedom making them less liable to stumble on rough terrain. The herd instinct of the horse was sufficient to keep them all together in large numbers, led by an old mare, though small strings probably required tighter control.

Draining valleys to provide better soils for agricultural purposes and canalising and controlling rivers to reduce floods produced a secondary benefit. The lowering of the water table created potentially firmer ground for valley roads. The ancient trackways were still persistent and purposeful as they strode across long distances, but now, village to village bridle paths carried more traffic. Towns and markets sprang up at crossroads and river crossings, and today most of our major roads lie in the valleys.

They were simply muddy brown tracks. Out in the country only the villages had responsibility for road repair. This at best they fulfilled by ploughing back the ridges into the ruts. Many roads lay in ditches, dug out to form parish boundaries and perversely, in these sunken roadways, the extra erosion this caused, washed away some of the finer mud and produced relatively firmer patches. In very soft areas, travellers strayed into the fields, trespassing and causing local friction, and unless narrow causeways were built for horse and rider, roads became completely impassable in winter for horse-drawn carts and wagons. It was from these conditions that the Turnpike Trusts arose.

Towards the end of the packhorse era, much greater use of valley roads, especially by wheeled vehicles, severely eroded their surfaces and made them even worse. The first turnpikes began under a general act of 1663, when problems with river crossings on the Old North Road at Ware led to the collection of tolls at Wadesmill, Hertfordshire; Caxton, Cambridgeshire; and Stilton in Huntingdonshire. Three hundred and eighty-nine Turnpike Trusts were established between 1751 and 1772, and in 1773 a General Turnpike Act produced greater uniformity.

As to the road making, John Metcalf, “Blind Jack” of Knaresborough, who was a man of many trades, eventually ran a stage-waggon and was so appalled by the “accursed surfaces” that he built 200 miles of roads in Yorkshire, around Harrogate and Boroughbridge.

Professional civil engineers, immediately following him were Telford and Macadam. Telford was famous for firm foundations and surface camber to carry off rainwater, for his engineered gradients and massive bridgework. Macadam relied more on binding the surfaces to create their strength. He used crushed limestone which bonded as it weathered. In the summer of course, the dust ground up by the heavy coned waggon wheels, caused not only the roads but also the surrounding hedges to turn white.

These larger road wagons had a gross weight of 10 tons, all unsprung; they struck uneven surfaces with a shattering jolt, for the road, the wagon and the six or eight horse teams.

Staging, using fresh horses every 10 miles, which was introduced by an ex-army officer, John Trull, in 1743, changed the whole picture. The horses were required to trot or in the case of the stage coaches, to gallop and this doubled and trebled average speeds. Drivers sat high above their teams and drove with long lines and had hand brakes, which could be rapidly applied.

This allowed for vehicles to be controlled in heavy traffic. By say 1850, coal gas was produced by roasting coal without oxygen to produce coke. The by-product was tar, much used for caulking the planks of ships, and was at last available in large quantities.

Now a familiar sight was the little horse drawn tar boiler. Roads were sprayed with melted tar through hand-held metal pipes and granite chippings were spread over the patch. The surface was called tar macadam and then Tarmac.

Of course from 1837, the railways rapidly took over long distance haulage of both passengers and freight and a complete national network was established by 1890. Fares were much reduced and speeds of up to 80 mph were achieved.

The stagecoaches had to go, but ironically so much local traffic was created from station and goods yard that this was the hey-day of the heavy horse. It was at this time that the diverse vehicles with springs proliferated; omnibuses, trams, carriages, traps and gigs, pantechnicons, floats, drays, vans and so on. Dunlop further decreased road shocks with vulcanised rubber tyres and the scene was set for the horseless carriage.

Two wheeled vans were a common sight in towns throughout the country, making retail deliveries for Grocers, Bakers and others. They were pulled by crossbred Vanners also known as "half legs," that could plod up and down the streets all day and then trot home with the prospect of a warm stable and a good meal. Some were so knowledgeable of their routes that they would stop and start, watch the traffic and turn left and right unaided. The standard of craftsmanship, painting and lining of the vehicles was universally high.

Another common delivery vehicle was the Coal cart. Although it was a four-wheeled lorry, it was always called a cart. Normal delivery was in 1 cwt sacks that were "shot," tipped into the coalhole, a small door in the wall of the coal house. 8 cwts would last most families for the winter. Sometimes, scales were carried to weigh out smaller amounts.

In London the coal carts traditionally had a high bowed front. Brewer’s drays and Chandler’s vans, railway lorries, trolleys and parcels vans, fire-engines, hearses and Coster Monger’s carts all plied the streets.

Miller's Wagons were also a common sight, working around the country areas. The canvas tilt was necessary when they were carrying sacks of flour to keep the load dry. They advertised the well-being of the firm and consequently were very smart and well turned out. They could be drawn by a pair of heavy horses or a team of "vanners."

The other town vehicles were the cabs, the equivalent of the taxi today. They ranged from two wheeled Hansom cabs, to four wheeled Broughams. There were Hotel buses and graceful Landaus that were almost too elegant to ply for hire. Many were privately owned and coachman driven from a fine London residence.

When labour was cheap and time seemed plentiful, transfer of freight from vehicle to vehicle was not considered to be particularly inefficient. Today, although road travel is still relatively slow by aeroplane and railway standards, because these two do not provide a door to door service, road transport remains in the ascendancy.