Strichen Toll House

Strichen Toll House on the B9093, the old turnpike road, seen from the point where the entrance to the Aberdeenshire Council Depot crosses the Line.

Following the Turnpike Act of 1795,  local Turnpike Trusts, consisting of landowners and burghers whose estates exceeded £400 Scots,  were able to apply for an Act of Parliament empowering them to build roads, in some cases, by raising statute labour and to levy tolls to pay for their construction and maintenance.  

The Turnpike Act stipulated that the roads had to be built and maintained to a high standard, in Aberdeenshire  the average cost of turnpike roads was £350 per mile. The Trustees, usually the landowners through whose estates the road was to pass, borrowed capital to build the road then recovered  the cost by renting out the right to collect tolls. Toll houses  were built every six miles.  These were usually two roomed cottages, often with a rounded or semi-hexagonal gable end to allow the toll keeper to see travellers approaching from both directions. Outside the toll house a barrier with a counter balanced bar (the 'turnpike')blocked the road until the toll had been paid. Charges varied from locality to locality and with the type of traffic using the road, vehicles were charged according to the number of horses pulling them. 

 

The completion of  the railway in 1865 drastically reduced the amount of road traffic and sounded the death knell of toll keeping and in 1866 all toll bars were removed from Aberdeenshire roads.