Page:Remarks on the Present System of Road Making (1823).djvu/178

 Have you turned your attention to the state of the roads in the different districts of the kingdom?—I have, very particularly.

Can you furnish the Committee with any information with regard to the state of those roads, as compared with former years?—I can; I have particularly attended to that subject; more especially in the time of the late duke of Bedford, for whom I was an agent. I have since been employed in nearly every part of England and Wales, and also in Scotland: and I have statements by me of the various observations I have made.

You have been employed under the late duke of Bedford, in the improvement of the roads in the neighbourhood of Woburn?—In the management of his roads in Bedfordshire, and of all his rural works.

Describe what improvement of the main road has taken place under your direction, in Woburn?—The whole of the line of the road through Woburn, except about three hundred yards in different places, is on a very strong alluvial clay: the road passes over naked sand, only for three hundred yards; this road had been rendered so sandy and so bad, entirely by bringing soft sand-stone out of Buckinghamshire, at three miles carriage, upon the average, in Woburn, and some of that stone was brought almost to the end of Hockliff Town, where the best gravel abounds. It appeared, from the remains of a number of gravel-pits, that there had been formerly a great deal of gravel dug in Woburn; this circumstance I mentioned to the duke of Bedford, and he desired search to be made; and it was ascertained that Woburn might furnish gravel enough, adequate to any purpose. In consequence of which, his Grace directed, when the labourers were much in want of employment, that the poor persons should be employed in preparing a great quantity of gravel for the purposes of this