ue to tolls being too low is
evident from the fact that a petition was presented to the trustees,
setting forth that the tolls were so high as to drive the traffic off
the road. Eightpence per horse at both gates was a considerable sum
between Royston and Kisby's Hut. Again and again the bankrupt
condition of the road, both in solidity and finance, was submitted to
the Postmaster-General and the Treasury Authorities in the hope of
getting some relief from that quarter, and in 1833 the Trustees,
despairingly, stated that upon the success of their application for a
subsidy (including L1,500 to cut through Arrington Hill), depended the
question of keeping open "this most important line of general
communication."

Between 1790, when the Kneesworth toll bar produced about L5 a week,
and 1820, there was a considerable increase in the traffic on the
roads, and the highest figure reached was in 1828, when the amount
realized from the Kneesworth and Caxton toll gates was L1,367 for the
year. As coaching declined, the turnpike receipts fell off so much
that by 1847 the Kneesworth and Caxton toll-gate receipts had dwindled
down, in twenty years, from L1,367 to L282 a year! That the railway
did not knock all the horses off the road, but on the contrary brought
them on for other purposes, is evident from the fact that after the
establishment of a railway station at Royston the above toll-gate
receipts went up again in the next twenty years to L600 a year!

{155}

The Wadesmill Turnpike Trust (from Royston to Wadesmill) was a much
more profitable road, as it included some of the Cambridge as well as
the North Road traffic. Indeed, for three years before the London Road
hill was cut through, the tolls from Royston to Wadesmill were let to
Mr. Flay for L4,090 per annum, and in 1839 after the cutting was
finished, they were let for L4,350, the highest sum ever made under
this Trust.

With the disappearance of the last of the toll-gates the last relics of
the old coaching days vanish. Antiquated such an expedient may
seem--placing bars across the road--yet the system did enable some very
notable improvements to be carried out in cutting through high hills at
an expense which modern highway authorities would never dream of.
Then, they not only secured the desirable result that all who used the
roads should pay for them, but helped to preserve the balance of trade
between towns and villages, for, no sooner were gates abolished t