Controversy in the borough: The turnpike

Following Metcalfe’s successful petition and the confirmation of John Orlebar as MP, peace might have been expected to reign in the Bedford constituency. However there was still considerable controversy. In 1727 an Act was passed creating a turnpike from Westwood Gate in Knotting to Luton. The preamble stated that ‘whereas the Highways or roads leading from Luton (through Bedford in the County of Bedford) to Westwood gate in the said County (being Twenty miles in length) by reason of many heavy Carriages frequently passing through the same, is become very ruinous and bad, and many parts thereof in the Winter Season so deep that Passengers cannot pass and re-pass without danger’. The Act sought the appointment of trustees, whose names are listed and include all the prominent figures of Bedfordshire. In addition, the Corporation of Bedford was to appoint three senior aldermen to sit as trustees. The Act allowed the erection of toll bars or turnpike gates and listed the exact figure that could be demanded as toll for each type of vehicle.

The line of the present A6 was chosen rather than the old main road from London to Oakham through Chellington and over Harrold Bridge because the new road led to Higham Ferrers, a pocket borough of the Marquis of Rockingham, whose advisers insisted that the turnpike go through that town, rather than any other route. Toll bars were put up round Bedford. These were very unpopular with trades-people, who used the un-turnpiked road to Turvey and Northampton and delivered goods in the villages. They had to pay the toll and yet only used the road for a short distance. The coal merchants, who brought their coal from Newcastle to King’s Lynn by way of the Ouse Navigation to Bedford, felt particularly aggrieved. Thomas Wilks, Thomas Battison, William Faldo and Joseph Barnes wrote to John Orlebar on 4 February 1728/9 ‘Experience having evinced to us that the Turnpike lately erected in Bedford by vertue of an Act of Parliament for Amending the Roads from Luton to Westwood Gate in this County, are of very great detriment and prejudice to the trading party of our town, the Turnpikes being contrived and placed in such a manner as to oblige multitudes of passengers and carriages to pay toll, who never do or can in the least receive the benefit and advantage because they never travel upon the same … none have greater reason to complain than the dealers in coals, a branch of trade by much the most considerable of any in our town, of which it may be truly asserted there are no less than 5000 wagons trading annually … not above one in twenty, travels upon the turnpike roads till they come within the town of Bedford itself.’ They concluded: ‘The coal trade daily dwindles and decays.’