ROCHESTER TO MAIDSTONE TURNPIKE TRUST. INDENTURE AND ASSIGNMENT FOR LEASE OF TOLLS.

Manuscript on folded parchment in three separate sheets joined together, with red ink lines, embossed stamps and seals, with witness statement on verso. 27 x 21 inches. Water damage to one fold, causing staining and lozenge shaped hole around fold, resulting in loss of text on all three parts of document. Further staining at one point on right hand margin, not affecting legibility. The damage, however, affects only a small proportion of the whole, which is otherwise in fine condition, and does not significantly impede its interpretation, given the repetitive language of such aged legal documents. By this document of 28 July 1823, three named trustees of the Rochester to Maidstone Turnpike Trust, assign the tolls to be raised at four specified gates to Carter Nye, Toll Collector at the Bridgewood Gate, for a term of three years for the sum of £905 p.a. He had successfully bid for the tolls at the four gates and after paying a £50 deposit and sureties, he was to deliver the balance of his purchase price at the monthly rate of £75.8s.4d. to Daniel Scratton, Treasurer of the Trust at his house on Penenden Heath, Maidstone. The four toll gates in question were Sandling Gate, Sandling and Tyland Bars and the Bridgewood Gates. The main Rochester to Maidstone turnpike had been established by an act of 1728 and was the fourth oldest turnpike road in the county. The additional spur from the Bridgewood Gates, in the parish of Burham, to the town of Chatham had been recently established by an act of 1822, which also amended and extended the acts relating to the Rochester to Maidstone Road. This document is an interesting example of the practice of farming or leasing tolls, whereby the lessee contracted to pay the trust an agreed sum in instalments for the right to collect the proceeds of the gates. An act of 1773 had established the system of auctions and sureties outlined in the document and the 1822 Act, to which it also refers in the preamble to the Indenture, restricted the letting of tolls to a period of no more than three years. As an already established toll keeper, Carter Nye, was in a good position to assess the profitability of the routes where he was located; the addition of the new spur from his base at Bridgewood direct to Chatham would certainly have increased the potential profits available to him on renting these four tolls. KENT ROADS KENT ROADS 19TH CENTURY KENT.…