Pam Smith
Turnpike roads were a system of road management used in England. They were first established in the seventeenth century but not used extensively until the eighteenth. The first turnpike was for a stretch of the Great North Road in Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire which was in particular need of repair, but this innovation was not copied elsewhere until the 1690s.[1]
The name derives from the barrier, or ‘pike,’ which was turned to allow passage. Responsibility lay with turnpike trusts authorised by private Acts of Parliament, each maintaining a defined stretch of road. Before their introduction, upkeep of the roads had been the duty of parishes through compulsory statute labour, a system often inadequate for heavily used routes. Turnpikes replaced this with a toll-funded model, where users paid at gates and the income supported repair and improvement.[2] Mostly, turnpike roads took over existing routes though new stretches of road were formed where the older roads tackled gradients or were previously suitable only for foot passengers and packhorses.
Alan Rosvear, ‘Derbyshire Turnpikes’ http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/map%20Derbyshire%20turnpikes.jpg. By kind permission.
This system grew to criss-cross much of England, but there was variation in their uptake and operation, and so regional considerations must be borne in mind. By the 1750s most of the major routes in England had been turnpiked, but there were none in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, or Wales, and few in Scotland.[3]
By the early nineteenth century, these roads formed an increasingly organised network, carrying stage and mail coaches alongside wagons transporting agricultural produce. They connected inland settlements to markets and coastal ports, forming the principal overland infrastructure before the arrival of the railway.
The chronology of their development, however, reveals that turnpikes were imposed upon a landscape already subject to change. The development of the Turnpike system can be seen in a study of Rillington in North Yorkshire. In 1736, William St Quintin, while laying out his park at Scampston obtained permission to enclose part of the Malton-Scarborough road between Rillington Head and Wintringham Sands; a distance of approximately 1,400 yards. He was required to provide an alternative route ‘in his own soil’ demonstrating that even major roads could be diverted to accommodate estate improvement.[4]
Only after these local adjustments did turnpike trusts begin to impose a more standardised system. The York-Scarborough road, turnpiked in 1752 and now forming part of the A64, became the principal route through the parish of Rillington.[5] Mileposts such as that at Scampston belong to this later phase of regulation, marking measured distances and reflecting the administrative order introduced by the trusts. Yet they stand within a landscape whose routes had already been negotiated, diverted, and reshaped in the decades immediately preceding the turnpike era.
Milestone approximately 40 metres west of the gates to Scampston Hall.[6] Author’s image 2026.
By 1840, this road network represented the established means of communication through the parish. A daily mail coach operated along the route, underlining its importance for both communication and commerce.[7]
Turnpikes were not isolated roads but part of a wider system. Mapping shows interconnected routes across Yorkshire, linking places like Rillington to Malton, Beverley, and Scarborough within a regional transport network.[8] They also shaped local life. Inns such as the Coach and Horses (aptly named) and the Fleece in Rillington provided rest, sustenance and stabling for travellers while toll gates at nearby settlements regulated movement and collected revenue.
Within a few years, however, this system would be challenged by a new form of transport operating to entirely different principles of speed, scale, and connection: the arrival of the York-Scarborough railway in 1845.
Gerald England, Turnpike House, Llanllechid (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Turnpike trusts declined in the mid-nineteenth century. In Rillington’s case, the York-Scarborough trust continued until 1866; however, railway expansion had already reduced its economic viability.
For historians, turnpikes reveal how people, goods and information moved across the landscape before the arrival of modern transport. They formed part of a wider, interconnected system that structured communication, trade, and daily life, and which was subsequently reshaped, rather than simply replaced, by later developments in infrastructure.
Pam Smith DipGen, Local Historian. Rillington One-Place Study.
References and Resources:
David Hey (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (1996 & 2010)
W. G. Hoskins, The Making of the English Landscape (2013)
S. Neave and S. Ellis, An Historical Atlas of East Yorkshire (1996)
K. Tiller, English Local History – An Introduction (2020)
Dan Bogart, ‘The Turnpike Roads of England and Wales’, Campop, https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/transport/onlineatlas/britishturnpiketrusts.pdf
Alan Rosevear, Turnpike Roads in England & Wales, http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/
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[1] David Hey (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (1996), 454.
[2] David Hey (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Family and Local History (2010), 612-613.
[3] Hey, Local and Family History, 454.
[4] MacMahon, K. A., Roads and Turnpike Trusts in Eastern Yorkshire, East Yorkshire Local History Society (1964) p.15 https://www.eylhs.org.uk/dl/128/roads-and-turnpike-trusts-in-east-yorkshire [accessed 4 May 2026]
[5] 25 Geo. II, c. 47 (priv. act); York Corp. Rec., Ho. Bk 43, f. 375. ‘Transport’, in A History of the County of York: the City of York, ed. P M Tillott (London, 1961), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/yorks/city-of-york/pp472-481 [accessed 4 May 2026]
[6] Historic England, Grade II Listed Building, List Entry Number: 1315715, Date first listed: 14 Dec 1987, https://historicengland.org.uk [accessed 3 May 2026]
[7] Goode, C. T., The York and Scarborough Railway, Burstwick Print & Publicity Services, Hull (1998) p. 10
[8] Turnpike Roads in England and Wales http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/ [accessed 4 May 2026]
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