ABSTRACT
Road and Bridge Administration was the basic unit of road administration throughout most of this period. Prior to the setting up of Turnpike Trusts the parish was responsible for the repair of all roads. Highways were maintained by means of the unpaid compulsory labour or ‘Statute Duty’ of the parishioners who were obliged to work for six days of every year upon the roads in their parish. The office of surveyor of a parish or township was an annual appointment which was allocated to the various parochial landowners in rotation. Westmorland was considerably more obdurate and was one of seven or eight counties in England which retained its parish management in undiluted form until 1878. The county was a larger administrative unit but had a more limited field of responsibility. In general, the authority of the county over bridge repair in this period was more extensive in theory than in practice.
