Width of ancient roads

I'm reading a book at the moment entitled 'The Making of the English Landscape'. A lot of new roads were built at the time of the Parliamentary Enclosures in the mid 1700s and they were massive--main roads were normally 33 yards wide, with lesser roads of 22 yards.

This "reflects the state of even the main roads before... the scientific roadmaking initiated by McAdam. Roads that carried any considerable amount of through traffic had to be wide enough... to allow detours around impassable stretches that developed in mid winter. The main London to Exeter 'road' was said to have been a quarter of a mile wide by the end of winter where it crossed--or rather plunged through--the sticky morass of the chalk on Salisbury Plain."

Today's wide verges on country roads show the width of the original road.

Tim

I'm reading a book at the moment entitled 'The Making of the English Landscape'. A lot of new roads were built at the time of the Parliamentary Enclosures in the mid 1700s and they were massive--main roads were normally 33 yards wide, with lesser roads of 22 yards.

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I thought it was to enable a carriage and "eight in hand" to make a U'ie

i could get extremely boring here and talk about the roads as it part of something i know a little about in relation to ages of roads and their frequency (loads of roads from a to b not just one) why they go round things, its is related to land enclosure in the period you mentioned and earlier and i could go on about how the roads actually go round an earlier geological/geographical feature (ie a now dried up lake bed ) but i wont instead i will be happy that they are there........

only cause i cant do the off road thing i am too scared

Great article in "Man the Builder" about the construction of the A5 Shrewsbury to Holyhead Road.

archaeo said:

i could get extremely boring here and talk about the roads as it part of something i know a little about in relation to ages of roads and their frequency (loads of roads from a to b not just one) why they go round things, its is related to land enclosure in the period you mentioned and earlier and i could go on about how the roads actually go round an earlier geological/geographical feature (ie a now dried up lake bed ) but i wont instead i will be happy that they are there........

only cause i cant do the off road thing i am too scared

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Well go on then, give us chapter and verse.....Particularly with regard to any ancient tracks that are still around (drover's way etc etc) and stuff like that.....I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one very interested

PS have you looked up 'longbows' yet

And we'll have you off roading next year as well......just you see

when i get a few minutes i will put some words together about roads, from the research done that i have read, remember this is only an interpretation that i will be giving in case i get it wrong, as i tell people who come on tour with me, most opinions have a basis in some fact, as most of what we believe is based on myths and sometimes then on oral traditions which are past down the ages of course some of these ideas change (like chinese whispers) but most have a factual basis

did any of that make sense

see this is why i dont post often i end up talking out my a*se hee hee
i will post something about the roads though in a whiley

fanum if you want to take me off roading you better be really brave and strong as i can drop my bike just going up hills hee hee

Hmm...but I thought that roads came in varying widths according to their ancient usage. For example, packhorse lanes only needed to be wide enough for, erm, an animal and its pack. If a drove road with dozens of cattle, it would naturally become wider over time.

Also of course there was the 'Broad Wheel Acts' of the 18th century which attempted to standardise the size of wagon and cart wheels.

I understand that the 'standard gauge' (Brunels broad gauge?) copied that of the standard width between the axles of carts and carriages which in turn was the same as the axle width of Roman Chariots (4' 6")! Guess what the width of axles are on motor cars - yes 4ft 6 inches!! Thats why if you drive along a single track road you only just fit.

Mike

Who got the archeologist all fired up then? Someone get her back on the subject of bikes quickly....

I always liked this story about how train track widths were determined. It's sort of relevant to what was posted here:<blockquote><i>The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 ft 8 1/2 in (1.44 m). That's an exceedingly odd number. Why is that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English ex-patriots.

Why did the English build 'em like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did they use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools as they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

wagonOK! Why did the wagons use that wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagons would break on some of the old, long distance roads, because that's the spacing of the ruts.

So who built these old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts? The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of breaking their wagons, were first made by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made by or for Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing (ruts again).

Roman soldierThus we have the answer to the original question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 ft 8 1/2 in derives from the original military specification (MilSpec) for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. MilSpecs (and bureaucracies) live forever!

So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war horses.

A follow-up to this story: When Napoleon marched on Russia, his army made much slower time than planned once they reached eastern Europe because the ruts weren't to Roman gauge. Because they made slower time than planned they got caught in the field in the Russian winter rather than on the outskirts of Moscow. And then, of course, they lost the war.

Space ShuttleNow the twist to the story...

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. </i></blockquote>
Pity it's not true - http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.htm

Mike

A general rule that I picked up whilst researching old rights of way was that, on Enclosure awards, a footpath was enclosed at <10', a bridal path was enclosed at <15', an occupation road was enclosed at <20' and a public highway & carriage road was enclosed at >20' but was typically 30'+.
So when you're walking along a "footpath" and it is 30' between hedges you can bet it's been mis-recorded. Trouble comes in trying to find the records and evidence that's been hidden or lost since the 1850's.

GS Adventurer said:

I understand that the 'standard gauge' (Brunels broad gauge?) copied that of the standard width between the axles of carts and carriages which in turn was the same as the axle width of Roman Chariots (4' 6")! Guess what the width of axles are on motor cars - yes 4ft 6 inches!! Thats why if you drive along a single track road you only just fit.

Mike

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Anorak time......

I`m no off roader,but I do have an interest in railways.

The 'Standard Gauge' (as used today,and called standard gauge globally ) is actually four feet eight and a half inches.

Based on the wheel track of the carriages of the time.


Brunel`s railway on the Great Western Railway ( GWR,or 'God`s Wonderful Railway' ) initially used what we now call 'Broad Gauge', which was actually seven feet and a quarter of an inch gauge.
Gawd alone knows where the quarter of an inch came from......

The Broad gauge gave a superb ride,and was technically superior,but just like the Betamax/VHS video war,most companies had adopted the 'four foot eight and a half' gauge , so Broad gauge died a death.

The shite you learn on this site.....

Is it true that the entire length of railway between Bristol and London was changed from broad to standard guage in next to no time ?