Shropshire Routes to Roots

1. Introduction

Introduction

Railways, roads and canals leave a physical mark on the landscape. Using maps from different years, it is relatively easy to see when they were built and where. For example, the The day the canal came and the Abbey Station themes show, through maps and plans, how canals and railways changed Shropshire's landscape.

However, it is much harder to work out how roads have changed. Roads are often built on and improved, rather than being built afresh. Unlike with railways, there were no big companies with timetables and accounts which can let us work out how regularly they were used. There was no single log of goods which were carried on them, and few newspaper reports highlighting the changes in road use. This is where trade directories can help.

An advertisement from Kelly's Trade Directory of Shropshire, 1882 [Shropshire Archive reference: C67]

Trade directories have been printed since the seventeenth century. They were published as the growth of industry led to a need for lists of trades, important people, streets and transport links. Initially, they concentrated on London, but more trade directories were published to look at individual counties.

They give lots of different pieces of information about a town or area. However, they are particularly helpful as evidence for how roads have changed.

Carriers and coaches

Roads were used for transporting both people and goods. In the seventeenth century, only the rich had their own coaches; other people were carried in coach-wagons, which carried both people and goods. From the eighteenth century, the two types of transport separated, with people carried on coaches and goods in waggons.

For both types of transport, the usual stopping-places were inns. At coaching inns, travellers might snatch a meal or stay the night whilst the horses were being changed. Goods were carried to the inns, streets or warehouses where they were unloaded.

Carriers were the small businesses responsible for conveying trade freight between towns. They operated carts (generally on short trips) or waggons (for longer hauls). Here a waggon (defined as being a vehicle with four wheels, as opposed to a cart which only had two) is being loaded. On a good road - which in the 1800s was not guaranteed - a waggon could move up to six tons. The three men on the left with a long lever are compacting the goods to fit more on. Waggons that only travelled during the day were called 'slow waggons'; those which travelled continuously, day and night, were known as 'flying waggons'.

A covered waggon Larger image, in a new window [17kb] [Reproduced with kind permission of Luton Museum Service]

A stage coach Larger image, in a new window [22kb] [Reproduced with kind permission of Luton Museum Service]

Coaches carried passengers. This image is of a stage coach, although people could also travel in a post-chaise, a smaller and faster (and more expensive) version.

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