Paved road

“ This road, being almost a street, had been paved, but, the king explains, it is “so full of holes and bogs . . . and the pavement is so damaged {85} and broken,” that the traffic has become very dangerous for men and carts. ”

“ The stout buttresses built between each arch, are hollowed at the top into curious triangular places of refuge for pedestrians, the roughly paved roadway being just wide enough to allow the passage of one cart at a time. ”

“ The broad interminable perspective of the East India Dock Road, the great perspective of drab brick walls, of grey pavement, of muddy roadway rumbling dismally with loaded carts and vans lost itself in the distance, imposing and shabby in its spacious meanness of aspect, in its immeasurable poverty of forms, of colouring, of life--under a harsh, unconcerned sky dried by the wind to a clear blue. ”

“ It literally carved its way down to the valley. Slopes often greater than forty-five degrees have been cut into intrepidly; arches and viaducts thrown over gaping clefts, bridges over unbridgeable chasms. The road turns on itself; it doubles and twists and dodges; it crawls midway along the ledges, gouges a path into the hill around a landslide's groove, looks over uncomfortable brinks with easy unconcern, and in short outplays Nature at every point. And all the while it continues wide and firm, and we trot ceaselessly downward with not one pause. ”

“ Even in the midst of houses, the path suggests school-children with their luncheon-baskets, or workmen seeking eagerly the noonday interval or the twilight rest. A footpath cannot be quite spoiled, so long as it remains such; you can make a road a mere avenue for fast horses or showy women, but this humbler track keeps its simplicity, and if a queen comes walking through it, she comes but as a village maid. ”

“ Lilac and laburnum bushes peeped over the garden walls. The throng of traffic grew thinner, the pavement less crowded. It was past five when we drew up at a little public-house standing back from the road. ”

“ Nature has adopted them among her own works, and the road that mounts the hill to meet the sky-line, or winds away into mystery through the woodland, seems to be veritably her own highway leading us to the stars, luring us to her secret places. And just as her rocks and trees, we know not how or why, have come to have for us a strange spiritual suggestiveness, so the vanishing road has gained a meaning for us beyond its use as the avenue of mortal wayfaring, the link of communication between village and village and city and city ”

“ It lay out of the beaten track, and any one wanting to visit it must needs climb the long winding road that led from the plain beneath, through olive groves and sheepfields, up to the city gate—a steep, difficult road, leading nowhere but to the little town itself. ”

“ It is what is known as a "dirt" road, well kept and level, of the sort beloved of horses and horsemen, and it lies close to the stream, between it and the farm lands. At every turn a new and wonderful panorama of green and yellow landscape and azure expanse of water bursts upon the lucky traveler along this blessed highway. Still, being a "dirt" road, when one drives along it at speed there arises in midsummer a slight pillar of dust as the conveyance passes, and one may from a distance note the approach of a possible visitor. ”

“ One small street, the Rue Pié, appears to have lost all control over itself, for it dives insanely under another street—houses, road and all—and then rushes down hill in the dark to apparent destruction. There is one lane that is especially picturesque. ”

“ I was astonished to find that at many points in Fayette and neighboring counties the old course of the road can be distinctly traced in fields which have for half a century and more been under constant cultivation. If, at certain points, [Pg 204] cultivation and the elements have pounded the old track level with the surrounding ground, a few steps in either direction will bring the explorer instantly to plain evidence of its course—except where the road-bed is, today, a travelled lane or road. ”

“ It is true that the road is one much used by traffic, and by motorists in especial, whose dust and horrid odours might well disgust any but the hardiest of wraiths; but here is the old garden-pavilion or gazebo on the wall at the fork of roads, with its quaint roof and the windows from which the people of the manor would look out upon the traffic when it was not so dusty and did not stink so much, and here are still the trunks of the magnificent elms that until recently cast a grateful shade upon the road and made the bridge-end so beautiful a scene. ”

“ One of the charms of old England is to be found in her numerous foot-paths and green lanes, which are recognized by law, for many of them are older than the highways. When a walker tires of the public road or is in a hurry, if he knows the country, he can turn into some foot-path and reach the place of his destination by short cuts through green lanes, across pleasant meadows, and along shady hedgerows. ”

“ The strength of the pavements is illustrated by the fact that the substrata of some have been so completely washed away by water, without disturbing the surface, that a man may creep under the road from side to side while carriages pass over the pavement as over a bridge. The roads were generally raised above the ordinary surface of the ground. They frequently had two wagon-tracks, which were separated by a raised foot-path in the center, and blocks of stone at intervals, to enable travelers to mount on horseback. ”

“ Where the results have been unsatisfactory, the cause can generally be traced to unsuitable materials or unskillful construction, the result of ignorance or carelessness on the one hand, or of the attempt to reduce first cost below normal figures on the other. Many people are searching for a pavement or roadway that will have all the good qualities of the standard pavements but can be built about as cheaply as a common macadam road. ”

“ By 'roads' must be understood bridle-paths, worn by traffic alone across the gravelly valleys, but elsewhere constructed with great toil and expense, as Nature compels the road-maker to follow her lead, and carry his track along the narrow valleys, ravines, gorges, and chasms which she has marked out for him. For miles at a time this road has been blasted out of precipices from 1,000 feet to 3,000 feet in depth, and is merely a ledge above a raging torrent, the worst parts, chiefly those round rocky projections, being 'scaffolded,' i. ”

“ The advantages of good roads, when compared with pavements, are universally acknowledged; the extension of pavement is therefore to be deprecated as an actual evil, besides the greatness of the expence. Pavements are particularly inconvenient and dangerous on steep ascents, such as the ascent to bridges, &c. A very striking example of this may be observed on the London end of Blackfriars Bridge, where heavy loads are drawn up with great difficulty, and where more horses fall and receive injury, than in any other place in the kingdom. ”

“ The road, which at its best part is a small path in the thick wood uninvaded by the sun, and frequently is only a track, passes over slippery ridges of clay, disappearing in the mud puddles in the intervening hollows, and sometimes running into the bed of the brooks. ”

“ Some ten minutes’ driving, up a hill or two, while lamps grow less and less frequent, and we are out of the town, rolling along a road which is as good as an ordinary English turnpike-road—passing every now and then through spots of perfect darkness, where clumps of firs overhang the road on each side, and new again looking over a broad spread of water stretching away from our feet, with a row of distant wooded slopes appearing more and more clearly as the moon slowly rises. ”

“ The road itself is a 35singular combination of picturesqueness and sordid vulgarity. Badly founded on the marshes that stretch, water-logged, on either side of the river Lea, its two miles’ length of roadway is full of ridges and depressions that no mere surface repairs will ever remedy, and nothing less than reconstruction from its foundations will ever cure the unequal subsidences of what should be the finest highway out of London into Essex. ”

“ The present condition of the road is most unpromising. Nearly every contractor has formed his bed in the valley made by the removal of the old pavement, the consequence of which is, that, with the mild season and rainy weather, the bed is not drained, nor can it be, until the side roads are cut down to the bottom of the stone strata—a measure I directed as the only means of correcting the evil. ”

“ And, indeed, it does pass many churches to the north, but it always leaves 111 them (as at Chevening, Lenham, Charing, and the rest) to one side. It never goes close to their site.
The importance of this rule will be apparent when we consider, later on, the spots in which a church stands, or has stood, and where, at the same time, the track is doubtful and has to be determined.
V. In crossing a river-valley, the Road makes invariably for the point where spurs of dry ground and rising ground come closest upon either side, and leave the narrowest gap of marshy land between. ”

“ It is never so hard as to resist the wearing down of feet and of vehicles. Moreover, those who are acquainted with chalk countries must have noticed how a road is not only naturally cut into the soil by usage, but forms of itself a kind of embankment upon a hillside from the plastic nature of the soil. The platform of the road is pressed outward, and kneaded, so to speak, into an outer escarpment, which would make such a track, for generations after it was abandoned, quite plain along the hillside. ”

“ Wherever an old pavement or macadam road can be utilized it makes an excellent foundation for a pavement of this kind, provided it is not in too dilapidated a condition, extends from curb to curb, and its surface conforms near enough to the desired street surface so that the necessary changes and repairs will not be too expensive. Where the new pavement is expected to carry quite a heavy travel it is not advisable to use plain crushed stone for filling depressions and leveling up the surface. ”

“ The road from hence to the pavement is one mile and a half, the soil a brick clay, so that, when there has been heavy rain, or a thaw, you must wallow to the city through a bed of mortar without a bottom, the horses sinking to their knees. ”

“ Rough road indeed it was, little better than a beaten track worn by men and beasts constrained to pass that way; a road unsought except in dry weather, a rugged descent from Llantrissant to the ford of the Rhonda, and then up and down again, with stones and tree-roots lying in wait to trip unwary feet; for at that period the picturesque Vale of Taff was thickly wooded and scantily populated, and the roads were little better than deep gullies or natural stairways. ”

“ With the settling of the country and a new century came a new age of road-building. Travel until now had been on north and south routes—on portage paths, which usually ran north and south between the heads of rivers which flowed north or south, on routes of the buffalo, which the herds had laid on north and south lines during their annual migrations, and on Indian trails which had been worn deep by the nations of the north and those of the south during their immemorial conflicts. ”

“ John's Wood Road, my impatience so completely overpowered me that I stood up in the cab and stretched my head out of the window, to see the end of the journey before we reached it. Just as a church clock in the distance struck the quarter past, we turned into the Forest Road. ”

“ This system of paving I originally proposed for the main street of Linlithgow, forming part of the great western road from Edinburgh to Stirlingshire, and a correct idea of the proposal will at once be acquired by examining Fig. 13. By using tracks of this description—giving the stones a proportionally broad bed, and laying them upon a firm foundation (which is indispensable) —we should have our streets and the acclivities of our highways rendered smooth and durable, avoiding the expense and inconvenience of the common road, and also the irksome noise and jolting motion of the causeway. ”

“ All along the road the prevailing feature is the Alpine-like scenery, the towering heights and the white houses nestling in the mountain side at dizzy heights. Many houses are approached from the road by steps and a narrow walk between two habitations. On the next rise the same rule prevails, and so on up to the highest point. There is seldom an attempt at a hill-side street—it would be useless, because impossible to ascend without steps. ”

“ The town is on the same bank of the river as the road. Had the Old Road left by the eastern gate, such a corner would have been quite explicable and even necessary, but as a matter of fact it left by the northern.
The argument which relies upon the necessity of following the high land is of more value; but that value may be exaggerated. The shorter and more natural track, to which we inclined, though it runs indeed at a lower level, follows the edge of the chalk, and just avoids the marshy alluvial soil of the valley. ”

“ When a new road is laid out it is important that it should be located in the best attainable place, considering the natural formation of the surrounding country; for when a highway is once established it is impossible to say how long the tide of humanity and commercial traffic will seek passage over it. While the ordinary processes of Nature—rain, thaw, and frost—are ever at work lowering the hills and mountains and filling up the valleys and lowlands, the public highways of a country remain in the same relative positions from age to age. ”