Turnpike Cottage - Westbury Road
Turnpike Cottage - Westbury Road


Located at the western boundary of Bratton, Turnpike Cottage is associated with two important 18th century village institutions: an animal pound and a toll gate.

While the precise original date of Turnpike Cottage is unknown it was certainly built by the mid-18th century. Its most famous use – as a building to collect road tolls and accommodate the resident toll keeper – is verified by the Enclosure Map of 1808 and the Tithe Map of 1840. Interestingly, both maps indicate that the plot of land on which it stood included the village pound where stray animals were held. There is a reference to the ‘Bratton Pound Gate’ in the Salisbury Journal of 1829 suggesting that the toll gate and the animal pound adjacent to it were in use at the same time.

We know far more about the toll gate than about the cottage. The gate first appears on a map in 1773, although a toll building may have been in existence almost a century earlier when the surface of Westbury Road received substantial improvements. The cottage’s function as a toll-collection point is said to span over a century, from 1757 until the 1870s when the Westbury Turnpike Trust was abolished and all toll charges ceased.

Although little is known about the house and its inhabitants, we do have one anecdote concerning an event in 1878. According to the historian Jean Morrison, ‘a small boy was left in charge of the Westbury Road toll while his father was away. He was playing around at the back of the cottage and lit a little fire which caught the house alight.’ Among the few items the boy managed to rescue was the family Bible – a nice Victorian detail.

'Then and Now - Turnpike Cottage, Bratton' Wiltshire Times



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Bratton History Association.

The Bratton History Association aims to provide all those curious about local history with an opportunity to meet, exchange ideas, and discover more about the history of Bratton and Wiltshire. Activities include monthly meetings, talks by professional historians, visits to places of interest to historians, and our own local history project.

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