Recently Tipton has felt rather cut off from the outside world; with roads collapsing, closures, traffic lights and potholes, all restricting normal access in andout of the village. Due to subsidence the Sidmouth road has been completely closed and has caused quite a struggle for many of us trying to get to and from Sidmouth, having to find alternative routes which then take us onto the narrower lanes.
The Sidmouth road was built around 1845. Previous to the B3176 being constructed you could only travel from Tipton to Sidmouth either via Combe and up over the Goyle ridgeway or along to Harpford and up beside Northmostown or probably the most favoured route would have been past Hayne and up Seaway lane, hence the name. From the top of Seaway you could continue onto upper Seaway or bear right and follow a track around the side of the hill at Woods Farm bringing you to Harpford woods and onto the Bowd. Back then you would have been walking these lanes, possibly with a donkey or pony to carry your goods. These lanes would have been muddy, rough and steep in many places and probably impassable in areas for a ca
In 1844 Parliament passed an act to create a new toll road from Sidmouth to Ottery and onto Cullompton. The Turnpike trust borrowed five thousand pounds to build the new road but they spent all the money and more in the first year of constructing the road and had only completed as far as from Sidmouth to Ottery. Purchasing the land, paying surveyors, contractors and legal fees quickly used up the money. The section across the Goyle at Tipton and up around to Woods Farm represented a significant engineering challenge and must have cost a great deal of the monies raised for the road. Large embankments carry the road across the Goyle and support it as it steeply skirts the hill towards Woods farm. Tolls were collected on theSidmouth top road by Greenway Cottage, at the Bowd and at Tip Hill, Ottery.
In 1846, The ‘new road’ as it became known locally, enabled coaches to be able to offer a daily service from Sidmouth out to Ottery, four horses pulling carriages with people travelling and mail to be delivered. Peter Orlando Hutchinson, of Sidmouth wrote of taking the coach in 1855 when he was involved in an accident on the road, one and half miles from Ottery. “the coach was very heavily laden with luggage piled on the roof so much so as to make it top heavy, besides which there was a full complement of passengers. One of the leaders became restive, and set off the horses causing the coach to oscillate to and fro until it tipped onto a cottage garden bank. Some of the passengers jumped or fell from the coach. People began to pick themselves out of the cabbages and turnips to shake the earth from their clothes and to assure themselves that their limbs were safe, then many hearty laughs followed the adventure.”
The tolls were not sufficient to cover the upkeep and in 1850 the trust had to apply for a grant to make repairs. Things improved for a while with some money being made for the trustees from the tolls taken at the gates but when the train line to Sidmouth was opened in1874, the use of the roads declined and the trust eventually decided to wind up the business, closing with huge debts. The trust however had left the lasting legacy of a much-improved communication between Ottery and Sidmouth for future generations. And so today we now appreciate just how useful this road is and how much we miss it while it’s closed.
Ref: Chris Wakefield ‘One of Ottery’s turnpike roads’, OSM heritage; Peter Orlando Hutchinson diaries; The British Newspaper Archives. Aerial photographs – Wayne Pop
Judith Taylor
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