The generosity of readers is fantastic. Bt by bit we're assembling a useful historic record amongst the ranting.
Following the interest by reader David Evans, top commenter and part-time whittler, I have acquired through the generous and covert use of a photocopier, a fine, nearly lost work on the toll roads and of Walsall. Sadly, this doesn’t cover the exact area of David’s interest, but it’s a useful and engaging read that details the legalities and buildings of this interesting and engaging part of local and national civil history.
The book is ‘The Story of Walsall Turnpike Roads and Tollgates’ by W. F. Blay, associated with the Walsall Historical Association, of whom the author was a former president. Published in 1932, by J.W. Griffin Limited, I have been able to scan this and upload for all to read due to the remarkable generosity of an anonymous reader who came upon it in a bookshop in south Birmingham. The scans aren’t great, but if printed at A4 size they’re quite readable. You can download this excellent book in PDF form (Adobe reader required) by clicking on the cover image above or following this link.
I’d just like to take this opportunity to repeat the following fact: Dick Turpin never jumped the toll gate at the Anchor Bridge. He didn’t pay, either; he died before it was instituted and therefore the myth would have been impossible. I hear this factoid repeated in all sorts of places, and between familiars of the Brownhills Blog it’s become somewhat of an in-joke. Like Robin Hood and other light-fingered folk heroes, we all seem to want a historical piece of the bad boy Turpin… whom I doubt was as prolific a criminal as we imagine. I’ve often mused that if a coachman got shook down by a bunch of rogues on a lonely road, who would he have been robbed by by the time he got to town? A few local yobs, or the finest highwayman in the land? Of such stuff are myths made…
The former tollgate at Anchor Bridge. To clear up confusion, there was only one Anchor pub, which was to the right, out of shot in this photograph. Lindon Road is heading off left, ant the buildings featured stand where the now-demolished maisonettes did.