Stoney Ridge Toll Bar and its Collectors

Long gone and marked only by a small roadside stone, stood Stoney Ridge Toll Bar on the main Sheffield to Hathersage turnpike road. It had a colourful back story and equally colourful families living and working in the cottage which doubled as the toll booth. Only open until 1884 as a toll booth it then was just a simple dwelling house. The last resident left in 1914 and the house was demolished in 1919.

Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland

From the DART archives there is only one photograph of Stoney Ridge Cottage. It has the Reverend Gibson of Christ Church, Dore, and his wife on a promenade using William Wint's carriage service. Hiring a pony and trap for a drive into Derbyshire was a common practice until the advent of the motor care.

The large stone posts or stoops from Stoney Ridge, which would have held the gateposts across the turnpike road, are now to be found at Whitelow New Farm on Whitelow Lane. They would have been erected at the Toll Bar in 1812 when the realigned road was opened. The original line of the turnpike road closely followed what is known today as the Houndkirk Road, complete with milestones still in place. Toll collection only ended in 1884.

Stoney Ridge Toll House

Look carefully over the wall and the foundations of the cottage can still be seen in outline. All that remains is a stone on the roadside Site of Stoney Ridge Toll Bar. Closed 1884.

Stoney Ridge Toll Collectors

John Knowles

John was the first Toll Keeper. Previously he had worked on the enclosure roads of 1818 and 1819 but didn't have a hand in constructing the turnpike road.

Thomas Graham

Recorded in the 1841 census as being the Toll Collector at Stoney Ridge along with his wife, Elizabeth, and son Joseph. Thomas was born in 1789 in Kirkheaton. What this demonstrates is the somewhat peripatetic nature of a Toll Collectors job. Thomas died in 1848 whilst in post as the Toll collector at Churwell Toll Bar, Leeds. He is buried in Kirkheaton. His son, Joseph married an Eyam girl and stayed in this area working as a joiner and then became a police officer.

John Wragg (1811 - 1896)

John Wragg was the Toll Collector at Slatepit Dale before moving to Stoney as a bachelor. He found Stoney Ridge to be a desolate and lonely place amidst the moors so decided to marry. He courted and married Mary Muscroft at Dore church in 1844 and took his new bride back to the Toll House. What she found in her new home was half a cart wheel as a fireside fender, and very little furniture. In John’s favour what there was, was scrupulously clean. John was the Toll Collector between 1843 to 1852.

What G.H.B. Ward pointed out was the incredibly peripatetic nature of the job as a Toll Collector. John Wragg was a Toll Collector for forty years and worked at Slatepit Dale, Matlock, Calver, Baslow, Intake, Owler Bar (three times), and Stoney Ridge (twice). In later life he is recorded in the 1871 census as being the Toll Collector at Owler Bar. Subsequently the census of 1881 and 1891 describe him as a farmer living at Owler Bar Cottage.

Robert Dutton

Robert was the Toll Collector in 1871 and again in 1876. So he must have taken over from John Wragg and then preceded Samuel Barton. To supplement his income Robert was also a tailor.

Samuel Barton

Samuel was the last Toll Collector at Stoney Ridge. Born in Treeton, Yorkshire in 1812 prior to becoming the Toll Collector at Stoney Ridge he and his wife, Elizabeth, had been the keepers of the Mytham Bridge Toll house at Bamford. At that time he had also been, according to the 1871 Census, a Cordwainer which was a high-class shoemaker and cobbler using finer leathers from Cordoba. Income as a Toll Collector was low, hence having a second job so the story goes that: by putting the toll bar receipts of 3d’s and 6d’s, old pre-decimal monies, into a sieve the small coins fell through and were kept. Samuel called these ‘white horses’. Toll receipts were flexible!

According to Josie Dunsmore in her book The Turnpike roads of Dore and District Samuel is supposed to have whitewashed his coal supply to spot it if it was stolen by the gypsies who regularly camped on the green of the branch road opposite the cottage.

Sam Kay, Toll Collector and Besom Brush Manufacturer

Samuel was born 1824 at the Robin Hood Inn at Baslow. He is recorded in the 1851 census as being the Toll Collector at the Robin Hood Toll Bar. By 1861 he is at Stoney Ridge Toll Bar and utilising the plentiful source of heather branches from the surrounding moorland to fashion besom brushes. Apparently he sold these both locally and to Manchester and Liverpool Corporations. Wages were meagre as merely a Toll Collector. By 1870 he and his wife, Sarah, had left Stoney Ridge. for Wyke near Bradford where Census records show he was working as a Road Labourer until his death in 1900.

Thomas Graham, Toll Collector

Recorded in the 1841 census as being the Toll Collector at Stoney Ridge along with his wife, Elizabeth, and son Joseph. Thomas was born in 1789 in Kirkheaton. What this demonstrates is the somewhat peripatetic nature of a Toll Collectors job. Thomas died in 1848 whilst in post as the Toll collector at Churwell Toll Bar, Leeds. He is buried in Kirkheaton. His son, Joseph married an Eyam girl and stayed in this area working as a joiner, and then became a police officer.

Augustus Sherwood (1830 – 1913)

Augustus and his wife Hannah were at the Stoney Ridge Toll Bar in the 1861 census. Augustus married Hannah in 1847 where he was described as a farmer. But prior to that he is recorded on earlier census as an Agricultural Labourer. After being at what was described on the 1861 census as the Ridge Toll Bar Augustus and his wife moved to Bakewell to be the Toll Gate Collectors next to the Wesleyan Reform chapel. By 1881 he and Hannah are living in Froggatt and Augustus is recorded as unemployed. Yet again Toll Booth work seems to be very peripatetic.

The Job of a Toll Collector

It was viewed by some as an easy job. But most Toll Collectors had to have another form of income. There was a small but regular wage so census records reveal that there were Toll collectors who were farmers, shoemakers, tailors, stone breakers, woodmen, road menders and of course broom makers. In return they had free accommodation and a garden.

At the call of 'Gate', no matter what time of day or night, the Toll Collector had to get up. Too slow and they were often subject to verbal insults. They were tied seven days a week.

Josie Dunsmore talks about the cottage that was built for the Toll Collector. Unlike most which had bay windows to allow the Toll Collector an uninterrupted view of the road, at Stoney Ridge, perhaps reflecting the bleak position of the booth, the road facing windows were small and flat. Henry Elliott paved the outside of the cottage in 1818. There was a board displaying the prices for each vehicle. Narrow wheeled vehicles that cut up the surface of the turnpike road were charged more, as were carriages drawn by several horses.

In the first two years of the turnpike road being open at Stoney Ridge a not insubstantial amount of money was generated: September 19th 1818 - £15, May 24th 1819 - £10, July 26th 1819 - £26 6s 0d, and August 3rd 1819 - £15. Unfortunately accounts were lax and some tolls were ‘diverted’: the example of Sam Barton being a case in point.

Turnpike Tolls

Mail coaches were exempt from paying tolls, and the armed guard on the mail box blew his horn ('yard of tin') to warn the toll keepers to swing the gates open so that the mail coach could race through without stopping. The transport of milk into Sheffield was also exempt from tolls. On Sundays travellers using the toll gate were charged double unless they were travelling to church, in which case it was free. Now how do you prove your journey is to church! Travel was discouraged in winter.

Tolls effectively ceased to be collected by 1884 on local turnpike roads. When John Wragg was working in the 1830s and 40s there more than 18,000 miles of turnpike roads and almost 8000 toll gates and side bars.