The earliest road legislation that can be traced was an Act passed in 1285, in the reign of Edward I., directing that on highways leading from one market town to another "there be {29}neither dyke, tree nor bush whereby a man may lurk to do hurt within two hundred feet on either side of the way"; but this measure was designed for the protection of travellers against robbers, and had no concern with the repair of the roads. In 1346 tolls were imposed, by authority of Edward III., for the repair of three roads in London, namely, "the King's highway between the hospital of St. Giles and the bar of the old temple (in Holborn)"; what is now Gray's Inn Road ("being very much broken up and dangerous"), and another road, supposed to be St. Martin's Lane. These tolls, according to Macpherson's "Annals of Commerce" (1805) were to be imposed for a period of two years upon all cattle, merchandise and other goods passing along the roads in question; they were fixed at the rate of one penny in the pound on the value of the animals or goods taxed, and they were to be paid by all persons, except, curiously enough, "lords, ladies, and persons belonging to religious establishments or to the Church." Then, in 1353, "the highway between Temple-bar and Westminster being already rendered so deep and miry by the carts and horses carrying merchandise and provision at the staple that it was dangerous to pass upon it," the King required the owners of houses alongside to repair the road in consideration of the increased value of their property owing to the establishment of the staple.[5] Reference has already been made (page 13) to the concession by Edward III. to "Phelippe the hermit" of the right to impose tolls for the repair of the road on Highgate Hill. Macpherson further says, under date 1363:-- "The equitable mode of repairing the roads by funds collected from those who used them was now so far established that we find, besides the renewals of the tolls for the Westminster road almost annually, tolls granted this year for the road between Highgate and Smithfield, for that from Wooxbridge (Uxbridge) to London, and for the venel called Faytor (Fetter) lane in Holburn." In the reign of Henry VIII. the first Statutes relating to {30}particular highways were passed, a lord of the manor in Kent, and another in Sussex, being empowered to construct certain new roads, at their own expense, and then enclose the old ones for which the new would be substituted; but the Act of 2 and 3 Philip and Mary c. 8, passed in 1555, was the first Highway Act in this country which applied to roads in general.