Broughton Toll Bar Cottage stands today on the now quiet Garstang Road, which was once a section of the busy A6. Built in the mid 1700s, after some years of neglect the building has recently been converted into a public café and community hub. It is an example of a rare surviving toll house that can be visited. Many others were demolished when the turnpike trusts that created them were decommissioned.
An act of Parliament in 1751 was passed to set up a ‘Post-Road’ to Scotland. This meant that a turnpike trust was needed to build and maintain the section that would run from Preston Town Gate to Lancaster Heiring Syke (the Lancashire/Westmorland county boundary). Today a set of the original large and impressive mile posts can still be seen along much of the route out of Preston (see our page here).
The new road would follow what was a pre-existing pack horse route, but would have needed to be much wider and better maintained. To keep the road in good repair, local parishioners were required to do paid labour on their own section of it. The money raised to finance this was levied on the passage of livestock, vehicles and goods that used the road. This was collected at local turnpike houses, placed along the route. Each had a stout gate, that spanned the whole breadth of the highway. This would only be opened after payment of the toll. The gate was both high at the top and low to the ground at the bottom, so that no livestock could go over it or under it.
There were two main toll houses on the Preston to Lancaster section. The first was at Broughton (the subject of this page) and a second one was situated at Catterall. Four side gates were also constructed at Fulwood, Goosnargh Lane, Bilsborough and a place named as Newby (which does not seem to appear on modern maps).
While at first glance a toll house such as the one at Broughton does not appear to differ much from the other buildings in the village, appearances can be deceptive. For a start, it was built to jut out into the road, so that the road narrowed at that point. Inside the tollhouse would be a built-in safe, often situated under the ground floor. The building itself would have doors and windows reinforced with strong locks and bolts. There was also a purpose-built window to enable the collection of tolls, that looked out onto the road, and a front porch with a lamp illuminating it.
The trustees employed Thomas Boosley from Gatsby to construct the cottage, and he later became the surveyor for the route. A contemporary plan from the time shows that it had two downstairs rooms and a porch. At that time the porch only occupied half of the front of the property (it was later extended across the whole front, as can be seen today). One of the rooms was an office and this had a ‘night window’, presumably to collect tolls after hours.
The second room was the living room for the family, which had a cooking range. Upstairs were two bedrooms reached by a ladder. The privy toilet and scullery (used for kitchen storage or cleaning pots) were located outside, and the property had a large garden that contained a pig pen.
In 1751 the rates of charges were set for all the permutations of traffic that would need access to the road. Tolls varied, with differing amounts required for horse, sheep and cattle. There were separate charges for wagons, including unladen ones, and higher rates for those carrying coal, caulk (sealant material), turf or ‘wood for burning’. Drovers of cattle were charged at ’10 pence per score’, but calves, hogs or sheep were a mere ‘5 pence per score’ (a score being twenty).
The keeper of the toll house often had additional duties. He would work with the surveyor, organising maintenance of the turnpike surface. He would also be responsible for placing stray animals in a pinfold, where they could await recovery. Broughton’s pinfold was located just a short distance to the south of the toll house, on the turnpike road. The toll house keeper’s wife would have taken over the collection of monies, when his additional responsibilities kept him away from the building.
Records show that the first turnpike keeper listed in 1753 was Henry Ball. He lived at the cottage with his wife and five children. Seven years later Richard Sharples took over. In 1767 the trustees put aside part of the collected fees to be given to the local Broughton vicar and his curate. This was to pay them for visiting the sick of the parish, and continued until 1823.
As time went on, it became increasingly difficult to find local people that could do the paid service to keep the highway in good repair. It was those traditionally employed in farming that would do the labour, but by 1811 of the 101 families that lived in Broughton, only 19 were still involved in agriculture. The rest were employed in manufacturing or handicrafts.
Initially the toll house keeper at Broughton was not paid a wage by the trust, but instead took a percentage of the tolls. This was supplemented by the fines paid to him by people whose animals had been put in the pinfold. In 1827 this ceased, and he became an employee of the trust, receiving a wage.
Records show that the job of keeper was not always free from conflict. The gate at Broughton had to be frequently repaired. Records show this was needed to be done at least three times between 1830 and 1838, when it had been damaged by “beasts and a wagon”. On one of the occasions Joseph Eton, the tollgate keeper, was bound over to keep the peace for the sum of 20 pounds after an “altercation with damage to the gate”. On another occasion a coachman would not pay his fine for refusal to pay charges at the toll. Bewilderingly, the fine ended up being paid by the vicar of Broughton.
In 1841 the toll house was extended to create No. 2 Toll Bar Cottages at the rear, as a separate property. This was used as a confectionery and bakery, and run by a Joanne Hardman. In 1870 the trust handed over responsibility to the Parish Highways Board. Soon afterwards the turnpike trust was dissolved, and the gate removed. The building would then have been sold and lived in by a succession of residents as a private dwelling. Many ex-toll houses were demolished as they jut out into the road, as the one at Broughton does slightly, but it was spared.
Decline and Renewal
The cottage began to deteriorate in the 1990s, when it was let out in a number of short term rents. In 2018 a huge change occurred for the village. The very busy A6, which had run straight through Broughton past the toll house, was diverted onto the newly built James Towers Way bypass. This took a huge amount of vehicle traffic away. The village centre was enhanced with repaving, new trees, flower beds, and a cycle lane.
The following year Broughton Parish Council was able to buy the toll cottage from the development company Pillars Holdings. The cottage was renovated, and a new ‘wing’ was added. It is now a café and community hub with meeting rooms, managed by Broughton Parish Community Charity.
Three historic stones were recovered from the village and re-erected in the toll cottage’s garden. The Paddock Post probably dates from when the cottage was first built and was used to hold the gate in the donkey paddock. The Tenon Headed Bar Post was used for the toll gate at some point, is an unusual design that seems to be native to only this part of central Lancashire. The Pointed Stone had been found in the hedge to the south of the entrance to the cottage. It is perhaps an old gate post (not used at the toll house), or a milestone. Pillars Development and Vista Development were involved in removing the posts from their original positions and erecting them to form the ‘Broughton Henge’ as they have been nicknamed.
Visiting Today
The café at Toll Bar Cottage is open to the public, Monday to Friday.
To see what events are currently on, follow the link here
Site visited by A. and S. Bowden 2025. This page written 2026.
Access
There is a free public car park just a couple of minutes walk away from Toll Bar Cottage at Broughton Park and Playground, on Garstang Road.
Nearby
Preston to Lancaster Turnpike Milestones
References
A Brief History of the Toll Bar Cottage & Turnpike Road, Pat Hastings (2024). This excellent booklet is available from the cottage for a small charge. It gives and in-depth history of the cottage, and was written by Pat with the help of previous tenants.
tollbarcafe.org.uk/the-cottage/
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