Paying to get into Netherfield


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Digging around Picture the Past I came across this photo which shows something I'd not heard of before - a toll gate at Meadow Road, Netherfield.

nethertoll2.jpg

Looks like this today.

nethertoll1.jpg

Meadow Road was originally called Toll Bar Lane, and the gate survived until the early 20th century. Was it to keep people out, or to keep Netherfield-ites in?

How much would you pay to get in to Netherfield?

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This is the only mention that I can find of the toll in the old newspapers , this from the Nottingham Guardian 19/08/1893 . Seems the gate was put up in 1800 and there is mention of the 11.5 feet clo

My apologies for the ambiguity in my previous post. Could have been worded better, sometimes my brain and typing finger whilst lickety splitting the same slope, don't necessarily do it at the same tim

@Messy Hessey: a quick reply. The row of houses where you lived were originally in Colwick. The old boundary being where Charworth Road was built to take road traffic over the railway. West of that wa

View of that corner brings back a few memories. The building on the left used to belong to the Clark family. It was known as Clark's of Netherfield. I served my electrical apprenticeship there 1961-1966. Building across the street was Lloyd's bank. We used to maintain the alarm system for them. Toll gate was long gone by that time.

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hence why the pub that stands there now is called the bank remember when at ashwell st school doing a project on toll gates and toll bridges

there was a time when i would have payed toget into netherfield but i dont think i would now .think if you lived in netherfield you did not have to pay but as most people living in netherfield in those days would be walking anyway and there were otherroutes into netherfield without going through the toll gate .

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So they turned Lloyds into a pub eh Babs? Well I guess they would have a walk in safe for the money and the liquor. Last time I looked on Google earth the Clarks building was a pizza restaurant. Doubt if old Joe Clark would have liked that. I note that it is now for sale. Wonder what its next incarnation will be?

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I don't think a person on foot paid to go through a highway tollgate , though I may stand corrected on that .

The reason for tollgates was to get money to repair the roads that before Macadam were basically just tracks , so that during a wet spell they would be churned up by cartwheels and horses hooves and often in winter completely impassable .

Narrow wheels churned up the surface more than broader wheels so they had to pay more to go through than a broader wheeled cart or waggon . The idea of a wide 15" cart wheel was that it would compact the road surface more .

The toll also depended on the number of horses or oxen drawing the waggon . It was extremely complicated and here is a blog piece about the charges that though I wrote it , still have difficulty understanding !

http://djwilson22.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/narrow-and-broad-wheeled-waggons/

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I read somewhere that pedestrians were normally exempt from turnpike tolls. Also, if you were only going up to a few hundred yards beyond a toll gate you didn't have to pay.

I thought the tolls were normally paid for journeys on turnpikes between towns and villages, so you would pay a toll when leaving a place, rather than when entering.

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Looking at old OS maps, the road barely leads anywhere until the 20th century. It is not a normal turnpike.

It would be interesting to find out more. Maybe an enterprising local landowner had built the road across fields towards Carlton and charged people for the privelege of using it?

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A person on foot, shepherding a load of pigs , cattle or sheep would have to pay to go through , the fee

depending on how many were in the flock .

Won't apply to the Netherfield one but the only wheeled transport that didn't pay tolls were the Royal Mail coaches .

When approaching a turnpike gate the guard on the coach gave a blast on his horn and if the gate wasn't opened the gatekeeper could be fined.

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This is the only mention that I can find of the toll in the old newspapers , this from the Nottingham Guardian 19/08/1893 .

Seems the gate was put up in 1800 and there is mention of the 11.5 feet closed part and the open 3.5. feet opening , enough for a rider on a horse to pass through which matches the photo in #1 .

11822517686_473052bc57_z.jpg

11821746905_54c2d25aaa_z.jpg

11821746235_1f244ff8bf_z.jpg

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interesting to read that piece so many old netherfield and carlton familes but anyone who knows netherfield will also recognize st names todeabil st had pearson st hodkinson st norman st godfrey st next st up

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Poohbear , Ref #16

According to the table above , the toll for a non-animal propelled carriage is a shilling per wheel so thats 3 bob please !

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Back when Woodthorpe Drive used to be called Scout Lane, it had a toll-gate/toll-house at the Mansfield Road end.

To avoid paying the toll, shepherds used to take their flocks by a back route, which is still visible today behind what is now a Tesco Express....

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=52.986216,-1.140492&hl=en&ll=52.986474,-1.140727&spn=0.001905,0.004823&sll=52.98629,-1.14011&sspn=0.001905,0.004823&t=h&mra=mift&mrsp=0&sz=18&z=18

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From the EP November 1925

11838249684_5129d7b7ff.jpg

The Black Swan on Mansfield Rd 1905 and the road to the left is Woodthorpe Drive .

NTGM003650.jpg

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The Black Swan on Mansfield Rd 1905 and the road to the left is Woodthorpe Drive .

NTGM003650.jpg

Not quite..... the road to the side of the pub is the future Villiers Road. Woodthorpe Drive is slightly further up just off the right edge of the photo.

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That'll teach me....I should have said Woodthorpe Drive (according to Picture The Past) :)

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  • 6 years later...

         The toll gate at Netherfield was a contentious issue for many years. Stemming from the enclosure act the road now designated Meadow Road should have been a public carriage way to the boundary with Colwick Estates owned at the time by the Musters family.

However, the residents of Colwick Hall decided to charge people for right of way over their land. They erected the gate in the position photographed, unfortunately it was erected in the wrong place. It should have been erected just past where Meadow Road turns into Charworth Road. Originally, the area was known as Gedling/Colwick/Stoke Bardolph. This may have been part of the problem of the original siting. Why the Earl of Carnarvon didn't tap Lord Musters on the shoulder and ask him what he was playing at. Technically, people were paying the Musters family to travel over Carnarvon's land. 

       Old maps show Netherfield as part of Colwick or Gedling, in fact there are many references to streets in Netherfield being listed as Colwick.

      Somewhere in the system, Netherfield comes under the influence of Carlton. It is this council that eventually takes ownership of this stretch of road having paid compensation in 1905, along with Nottingham Corporation and Basford RDC.

     By this time, a Colonal Davies owned Colwick Hall. Not a bad little earner.

    As an aside, this boundary confusion may account for the railway sidings being called Colwick and not Netherfield. The boundary actually ran to the East of the railway line so technically the railway station was erected in Colwick. Many people think the railway as the boundary.

   Those who are familiar with the area will know of the cinder path running along side the railway, that is the boundary.

   Actually, the Earl of Carnarvon only came to own the land through his wife's inheritance, really it should have been the Earl of Chesterfield who should have been asking the question earlier.

     As the gate was supposedly erected around 1800, there must have been a lot of chuntering over the years.

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On 6/26/2020 at 10:25 PM, Dark Angel said:

Old maps show Netherfield as part of Colwick or Gedling, in fact there are many references to streets in Netherfield being listed as Colwick.

      Somewhere in the system, Netherfield comes under the influence of Carlton.

 

I was under the impression that the name Netherfield didn't come into existence until the arrival of the railway in the 1870s. It doesn't appear on any maps before that time. The settlements in that area were Carlton. Gedling, Colwick and Stoke Bardolph. What became Netherfield was just an empty space in the middle of those places.

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The space would have possibly been referred to by the locals pre 1870 as 'the lower field' before it became another settlement...

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On the subject of Netherfield area, whereabouts is Bakersfield?  Pardon my ignorance.

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