TOLL HOUSES OF STAFFORDSHIRE

A companion to code 86392 Toll Houses of Cambridgeshire, this is the very first detailed study of Staffordshire's toll-houses, small buildings on the highway edge, lived in by the pike-men who collected the tolls used to pay for the maintenance of roads. Toll-houses were both functional buildings and to some extent expressions of architectural style, coming as they did at the beginning of the industrial revolution. They made use of essentially local materials for their construction, yet often employ a non-vernacular octagonal ground plan to advertise their special purpose. Notice the round headed window at Blue Gates toll-house in Smethwick, Titterton Gate of 1851 at Sheen, Newcastle-under-Lyme to Hassop, Cheadle to Rocester, Chester to Birmingham, roads into Tamworth, the Staffs and Worcs canal, Ashbourne to Leek and more. The book mostly comprises a gazetteer of both the toll-houses and their former sites, illustrated where they survive with map references and where lost illustrated with a suitable photograph. Covers Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Newport, Newcastle, Ashbourne, Burton, Tamworth and of course Litchfield and Stafford in the central part of the county. Fully illus large softback, 148pp.