Image Ref : MUSA 0032.tif

Totnes Bridge and the toll gates

Lithograph by William Spreat, undated (but before November 1881). The toll house on the right was built in 1826-28 as a single storey, with basement; the first floor was built on between 1890 and 1907. At midnight on the night of Monday 31 October 1881, when the powers of the Totnes and Bridgetown Turnpike Trust expired, the gates were burnt. The Western Morning News, Wednesday 2 November 1881, published a detailed account of the event. A crowd of between 150 and 200 people had gathered near the Seven Stars, 'waiting for the town clock to strike twelve'. Around 20 to 30 people then took down the gates and took them to the town marsh for burning, 'bundles of straw, paraffin oil, tar, etc. being in readiness'.