Turnpike

New bypass for Kibworth! Not a headline from 2017 but from 1810. Traffic congestion in Kibworth Harcourt had convinced the trustees of the turnpike road through Kibworth that a bypass was needed to ease the chaos of Main Street.

David Holmes’s fascinating talk on the history of the A6 turnpike between Loughborough , Leicester and Market Harborough showed clearly that congestion problems in Kibworth are nothing new. The route of the present A6 is largely unchanged since the Middle Ages but the need for a decent road which could be used throughout the year was becoming an increasingly serious problem by the end of the 17th century. At this time roads were mainly tracks which were largely unusable in the winter but the growing internal trade called for a solution to the problem of transporting goods throughout the year.

Before the Turnpike Trusts were created, individual parishes were responsible for maintaining the roads in their parish, supplying both labour and materials, which meant the road quality varied widely depending on the diligence of the individual parish.

The Turnpike Trusts were private organisations which undertook to maintain and enhance the roads under their control and in return they could charge a fee or toll for use of their road. They erected toll booths and toll gates to enforce these charges. Their impact was felt south of Leicester: the turnpike reached Oadby by 1730, Great Glen by 1733 and Kibworth by 1736. The Turnpike Trust undertook other improvements such as a new bridge at Great Glen to replace the ford over the River Sence and a bridge just south of Kibworth, near the turn for Debdale Wharf.

The improved road surfaces encouraged greater road traffic (hence the need for the bypass at Kibworth by 1810) but the Coaching Age was relatively short-lived. The use of canals reduced the demand for long-distance road carriage and the coming of the railways killed off the main coaching business. By the 1840s the coach business from Leicester was virtually dead.

Evidence of the Turnpike Trust can still be seen in the landscape today. In order to ease the burden on the horse-drawn traffic the Trust removed the tops of some of the steepest hills to reduce the gradient. A cutting was created on the road up to Market Harborough from the Macdonalds’ roundabout, before it reached the present-day Foxton crossroads. This hill had been quite a barrier and it was reported that it could take as much as half a day for a fully loaded vehicle to travel from the Bowden Inn (on the site of the present Bowden Business Village) to the top of the hill.

The turnpike trusts became increasingly financially unviable throughout the 19th century as goods and passengers used the railways and tolls were seen as a barrier to good communication. By the 1880s the turnpike trusts had been wound up and responsibility for road maintenance passed to County Councils.

More information can be found on the society’s Facebook page: facebook.com@kibworthhistorysociety

Eric Whelan