Remarks on the Present System of Road Making: With Observations, Deduced from Practice and Experience, With a View to a Revision of the Existing Laws, and the Introduction of Improvement in the Method of Making, Repairing, and Preserving Roads, and Defending the Road Funds from Misapplication. Seventh Edition, Carefully Revised, With an Appendix, and Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons, June 1823, with Extracts from the EvidenceMcAdam, John Loudon
History
Remarks on the Present System of Road Making: With Observations, Deduced from Practice and Experience, With a View to a Revision of the Existing Laws, and the Introduction of Improvement in the Method of Making, Repairing, and Preserving Roads, and Defending the Road Funds from Misapplication. Seventh Edition, Carefully Revised, With an Appendix, and Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons, June 1823, with Extracts from the Evidence
McAdam, John Loudon
Macadam roads; Roads -- Great Britain
Is there any particular circumstance, in the formation of roads, more
particularly applicable to the immediate neighbourhood of London?—In the
neighbourhood of London, and of several other large towns, the materials
that are to be readily procured, are of too tender and brittle a nature
to endure the wear of the heavy carriages; I therefore am of opinion,
that it would be proper to pave the sides of all the principal entrances
into London; but not the middle, as has been done on the Commercial road
and Borough Stones’-end road. My reasons for preferring the sides being
paved are, that it is next to impossible to compel the carters to keep
upon the pavement in the middle of the road, in too many instances; the
fear of damage, from the swift going carriages, occasions them, either
to draw their carts close to the sides, and walk upon the footpaths, or
what is worse to leave their horses in the middle, beyond a train of
carriages. The sides being paved, would enable one of those trains of
carriages to enter London on one side of the road, and go out of it on
the other, without many occasions to turn out of their tracks: which
keeping nearly to the same tracks, upon a well-paved road, would not be
prejudicial; but on a road formed of gravel is entirely ruinous.
Do you consider that the plan of rolling the roads in the neighbourhood,
of London, might be advantageously introduced?—The centre of the roads I
should recommend to remain covered with clean-sifted and picked gravel,
having as many as possible of its large, roundish and smooth stones
broken by means of a hammer before the time of laying it on the road,
and that an heavy iron roller, of from four to five feet diameter, and
not less, might be advantageously used in the first settling down of
this gravel; a small roller, such as I believe to have been tried in the
neighbourhood of London, very heavily loaded on its top, might have a
tendency to force the loose gravel before it so as not easily to be
drawn or to mount on to the gravel driven before it without crushing the
flints. I will add, I am of opinion, that a roller could not be
beneficially used upon a road at any other times but after new coating
it with gravel, or after a frost or the sticking of materials to the
wheels may have loosened up the materials.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account