All roads lead to London and have done so for many a century, and so we find, as we should expect to do, that roads from all parts of the country converge towards it like the spokes of a wheel to its centre. The same sort of thing is seen in all towns of any size. Cross roads connect these main roads, and the nearer we are to the town the greater is the number of these, and they are often as busy and as important as the old main roads. But as we get away from the towns into the more rural districts, the lesser roads which connect the villages and hamlets with each other become fewer, more winding and straggling. There are also green lanes and field paths, and it is by following these, rather than the high roads, that the real beauties of the country can be seen. A person dashing along the main road in a motor-car, on a motor-cycle or a bicycle misses much which a man on foot, who is not in a tremendous hurry, is able to see and enjoy.

Not very long after the Romans left Britain, and the raids of Saxon tribes began to be felt, the roads, which during the Roman times had been kept in good repair, were neglected. Some of them gradually dropped out of use, and in the course of time grass, brushwood, and trees grew close up to the track and in places covered it, and it became in time a "lost" road. The roads which remained in use, through neglect grew worse and worse, and all through the Middle Ages very little was done to mend them. Travellers for the most part journeyed on horseback, and trains of mules and packhorses transported goods. Later on heavy wagons, drawn by teams of eight, ten, or a dozen horses were used, and frequently extra teams had to be hitched on at places where they got into difficulties and came to grief owing to the badness of the road. Often these long trains of wagons had to be "convoyed" by bands of armed men on horseback. To repair "foul and noyous highways" was regarded as a work of mercy, and we often find good people in the Middle Ages leaving money in their wills to be bestowed on the repair of a part of a highway. The religious houses in many cases were expected to keep up good roads in their own neighbourhood. There was once a hermit, who lived at Highgate, near London. He, at his own cost, had gravel dug from the top of Highgate Hill, and with it made a causeway down in the "hollow way" between Highgate and Islington. In the fourteenth century the Bishop of London made a way through his park at Highgate Hill across Finchley Common to Whetstone, near Barnet, because the highway was in such a dreadful condition. Those who used this road had to pay a toll.

After the dissolution of the monasteries the various parishes were expected to look after the parts of the great roads which ran through them, the landlords and tenants being required, according to the size of their holdings, to furnish men and horses, wagons and barrows, to work on the highways for so many days in each year. But for some centuries the work was done in a very shiftless, casual manner. The people in the parishes grumbled and did as little as they could, for, as they said, it was not they who wore out the roads, but the travellers from a distance who came backwards and forwards with all their heavy loads.

Traffic increased as the time went on, and it became necessary to provide for the wants of the many travellers along the roads. The old villages in very many cases stood away from the highways, and so we find new hamlets springing up on the main roads, and some of the new towns, like Uxbridge, Brentford, and Edgware in Middlesex, and Buntingford in Hertfordshire, had their origin in this way. Similar instance will be found in most other counties.

In Queen Elizabeth's reign the roads all over the country were bad; in some parts, owing to the nature of the soil, particularly bad. In the south, in the Weald district, the iron workers were ordered to mend their roads with the cinders from their furnaces, as the stone found in that neighbourhood was too soft for the purpose. But the roads did not greatly improve although the amount of traffic upon them increased.

Coaches came into use for long-distance travelling in the reign of Charles II. One began to run regularly between London and Bath in 1667—a three-days' journey if no accidents happened—and another started running from London to Portsmouth in the following year. About the middle of the eighteenth century every week there passed through the Borough from London on the way south, a hundred and forty-three stage-coaches, a hundred and twenty-one wagons, and a hundred and ninety-six carts and caravans. That was only the out-going traffic, there was quite as much traffic returning to the City.

It was about the year 1754 that a great improvement of roads began through the passing of the Turnpike Acts. The idea was that those people who actually used the roads should bear the cost of their upkeep, and companies, or "trusts", were formed to look after certain roads, have them properly made, and kept in repair. At certain distances along the road, a few miles apart, gates were set across the road with a little house by each, in which the toll-gate keeper lived, whose duty it was to open and close the gate to travellers and take the specified toll. Different kinds of vehicles had to pay different sums as toll, and so had flocks of sheep and droves of cattle when being moved from one part of the country to another. People actually living in the neighbourhood had certain rights to use the way toll free. The toll-gate keeper was usually a "crusty" person—a sort of spider lying in wait to catch flies—and very often when a traveller drove up to the gate in a hurry, anxious to get through, the toll-man would be particularly slow in opening the gates and in giving change.

Most of the main roads were thus improved, but not all of them. As late as the year 1797 the turnpike road through Uxbridge, which carried a very large traffic, was very bad indeed. There was only one track which could be used in winter and that was eight inches deep in slush and mud. Still, on the whole, the roads were improving and coaches were able to travel more quickly.

Mail-coaches were put on the road in 1785, and they increased in speed and in numbers as the years went on, until just before the advent of railways. Over ninety coaches a day passed through Whetstone Turnpike, near Barnet; and in 1821 there were coaches which did the seventy-two miles between London and Portsmouth in ten hours. It was the same on all the great roads, and the coaches were only one part of the traffic.

In the "good old coaching days", noblemen and great folk travelled the long distances in their family coaches in great state, attended by servants; some riding before and after on horseback, and some hanging on behind the coach. Other wealthy people used to travel "post", and the carriages used were called "post-chaises". These were drawn by four or six horses, with a "post-boy" or postilion to each pair of horses. No matter how old he might be he was always called a post-boy. A great many old-established inns all over the country are still called "posting-houses". At these inns such carriages and horses to draw them, and post-boys to drive them, could be hired. These houses were about ten miles apart, and that distance was called a "stage"; and in posting the horses were changed at each "house" along the road. Nowadays, by the name posting-house we understand an inn where vehicles and horses can be hired; but probably not one of them could turn out a post-chaise, four horses and a couple of post-boys, at five minutes' notice.

The railways gradually drove the coaches and the post-chaises off the roads, but the introduction of cycles in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and the motor-car at the beginning of the twentieth century have revived the use of the highways for traffic, and there is a great time for the old roads just ahead of us to-day.

There were many varieties of inns, often quite close together, from the big posting-houses down to the obscure little ale-house. These houses accommodated various classes of traffic. Even now, if you live near to one of the big main roads you will notice that some wagons draw up at particular houses on the road for "refreshment of man and beast"—the hay-carts have their own special stopping places, and so, too, have other sorts of heavy traffic; and they have kept to the custom of the road from one generation to another.

The old inns are often very picturesque buildings and there are some famous ones in every county. The curious names by which they are known is a study in itself, and quite an interesting one.

Many of the old inns fell on evil days as the introduction of railways gradually absorbed most of the road traffic, and many of them were closed or turned into private houses. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century life on the ancient highways began to revive through the introduction of cycling as a means of locomotion. Cycling became very common, and, by specially catering for cyclists a good number of these old inns came again to prosperous times. With the dawn of the twentieth century motor-cars came on the road, and still further brought the highways into use. But these raised "clouds of dust" and tore up the roads, and it became a great problem how to make the roads suitable for this new sort of traffic, and a good deal was done which improved their surface greatly. Then came the Great War, and a continuous stream of heavier motor-traffic had to be put upon the roads throughout the country to supply the huge camps at home and overseas, and the many new towns which have sprung up in districts which, a few years ago, were quiet, unfrequented places. There is an enormous amount of work to be done now in re-making the present roads and tracks, and to provide for many new ones as well. We now realize that rapid means of transit for both people and goods will have to be provided on a far larger scale than we have hitherto attempted, if the resources of the country are to be properly developed. Roads, more roads, better roads are an urgent necessity.