3-011-796 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Turnpike-gates in and near London just demolished: Kensington Gate, 1864. 'This week has witnessed the abolition of turnpike toll' obstructions upon fifty miles of road in and about London on the Middlesex side of the Thames. It was many years ago that the agitation for their removal commenced, and the Illustrated London News then took the lead in advocating this important matter of social and economical reform. We have therefore thought it worth while to engrave Sketches of some of the tollgates which have been so familiar to every Londoner's eye, and which, having partly disappeared in the last few weeks, are henceforward to be utterly demolished. The City-road gate and the Islington gate, which were situated amidst a dense population, with the gates of Kensington and Notting-hill, which barred free communication with the western suburbs and villages beyond, have been selected for these Illustrations. Under the "Metropolis Turnpike Road Act Amendment" (which takes effect from the 1st of July), twenty-five toll-gates and fifty-six side bars are done away with...We congratulate the whole metropolis upon the abatement of this nuisance, and hope soon to record its total extirpation on the Surrey as well as the Middlesex side of the river'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.