Engineering:Tollhouse
A tollhouse or toll house is a building with accommodation for a toll collector, beside a tollgate on a toll road, canal, or toll bridge. [1]
History
The examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with the United Kingdom and the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (October 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) |
Many tollhouses were built by turnpike trusts in England, Wales and Scotland during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Those built in the early 19th century often had a distinctive bay front to give the pikeman a clear view of the road and to provide a display area for the tollboard.[2] In 1840, according to the Turnpike Returns in Parliamentary Papers, there were over 5,000 tollhouses operating in England. These were sold off in the 1880s when the turnpikes were closed. Many were demolished but several hundred have survived for residential or other use, with distinctive features of the old tollhouses still visible.
Gallery
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Toll House in Burke, Vermont. This house was home to the toll collector for the road on Burke Mountain.
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Toll house at the Bratch Locks, Wombourne, on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, circa 1772
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Smethwick. What looks like a window opening on the upper floor would hold the tollboard.[3]
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Rogatka Grochowska in Praga-Południe
See also
- Tollkeeper's cottages in Ontario
- Tholsel, from the English word tolsey
- Tollbooth
References
- ↑ https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/tollhouse
- ↑ Tollhouse architecture, turnpke.org.uk, http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/Tollhouse%20design.htm, retrieved 18 September 2014
- ↑ Historic England. "Toll House, Smethwick (1077114)". National Heritage List for England. https://HistoricEngland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1077114.
Bibliography
Tollhouses in England:
- Haynes, R. & Slocombe, I. (2004) Wiltshire Toll Houses, publ. Hobnob Press, Salisbury. (ISBN 0946418-21-7)
- Kanefsky, J. (1976) Devon Tollhouses, Exeter Ind Arch. Group, University of Exeter (ISBN 978-0-9501778-8-5)
- Jenkinson, T, Taylor, P (2009) The Toll-houses of South Devon, Polystar Press (ISBN 978-1-907154-01-0)
- Jenkinson, T, Taylor, P (2010) The Toll-houses of North Devon, Polstar Press (ISBN 978-1-907154-03-4
- Searle, M. (1930), Turnpikes and Toll-bars, publ. Hutchinson
- Taylor, P. (2001) The Toll-houses of Cornwall, publ. The Federation of Old Cornwall Societies. (ISBN 0902660-29-2)
- Taylor, P (2010) The Toll-houses of Essex, Polystar Press (ISBN 978-1-907154-04-1
- Ward, M & A (2011) The Toll House, Medlar Press, Shropshire (ISBN 978-1-907110-18-4)
External links
- British Tollhouses has photographs and maps of some surviving tollhouses in Britain
- English tollhouse database
