Further reading on this subject has brought me to a paragraph in J Wilson Jones’s book, published in 1950. He talks about the early road system around Rowley and says
“Let us consider the early roads from the early enclosure and pre-enclosure maps, knowing that a Manor of Rowley would be connected by the earliest of roads, being the all-important demesne. Then locate the toll gate houses, not the turnpike of the busy roads, but houses where toll or tax was paid, often situated near the Lord’s Mill [which was at Tippity Green]. We have the Rowley-Dudley Road through Knowle and Powke Lane as the only marked roads, both converging upon ‘Ye Brickhouse Estate’ [which Jones thought was located at Cock Green which was between Tippity Green and Knowle] . The Toll houses are again on Powke Lane at Yewtree Gate and near Tippity Green as Tippity Green Gate. The only other land marks on the 1821 map being Freeberry’s, Hailston Hill, Perry’s Lake and Hawes Hill.”
So my surmise in the last article that the Toll related to the new road from Perry’s Lake to Portway seems to be wrong. If Jones is correct, the Toll Road ran from an area known as Yew Tree on Powke Lane to Tippity Green, up what was then called Dog Lane, subsequently known as Doulton Road, (though I have been told that the canal bridge there is still called the Dog Lane Bridge on canal maps).
I have not been able to identify the map dated 1821 to which Jones refers. What is now called Yew Tree Lane and the public house called the Yew Tree is much higher up Powke Lane than the road Jones describes, but Yew Tree is clearly marked at the bottom of the lane on the map below . This extract from the first edition OS map, surveyed in the 1830s, shows the road which Jones says was a Toll Road and which I have marked in red.
Copyright David & Charles
The road to Portway may well have been built later by the quarry operators to facilitate the movement of their stone, and they did, after all, have plenty of material to build it with.
Always learning…
Reference: A History of the Black Country by J Wilson Jones, published c.1950.
rowleyregislosthamlets.co.uk 