Ffynh 3B

Toll-gates

[The farmers meeting at Llangendeirne (Carms.) on 1 August 1843 to discuss tolls of the Kidwelly Trust] say there is not a by- lane of any sort by which a cart can get to the lime-kilns which has not a bar or chain across it. They say if ever there is a lane by which one or two farmers can get to their farms, without paying toll, an application is immediately made to the trustees to grant a bar on the lane, which is always of course acceded to; that there is never a fair held in any of the villages or principal towns but the toll contractor surrounds the town by every approachable access to it with a cordon of toll-bars. Chains are fastened across the roads close to the town, and thus they catch every farmer who has cattle, or sheep, or horses, or carts to bring to the fair ... In many of these lanes, by going a mile or two round, the farmers could escape toll. The lanes are kept in repair by the parishes, and are many of them quite as good as the high roads of the trusts ... it is impossible for a farmer to stir two miles from home in any direction without having a bar or gate to pay toll at. This, with the fact that many of these roads are maintained by themselves, naturally has greatly exasperated them, and the toll bars and gates are continually being demolished.

(The Times, 4 August 1843, ‘From our own reporter’, Carmarthen, 1 August [Tip: daliwch Ctrl a chliciwch dolen i'w agor mewn tab newydd. (Cuddio tip)] )