Georgian

The Bath Turnpike

Coaching Inns

Horse Trams

Electric Trams

Trolleybuses

Buses

Road improvements

Motorways

Turnpikes through Reading

The Basingstoke and Southampton Turnpike had a toll at the top of Whitley Street. Redlands Road had a toll near its junction with Shinfield Road and the Oxford Road had a toll just beyond Battle Hospital., and the road to Wokingham had a toll just over the Loddon Bridge.

By the early part of the 19C there were regular coach services to London, via Maidenhead and Slough, London via Wokingham and Staines, Oxford via Abingdon, Southampton via Basingstoke and Bristol and Bath. The fastest coaches from Reading let a businessman set off for London in the morning and return by evening, even though the travelling took most of the day. Some goods were also carried by road, especially if it was food that would not stand a long journey. Fish, for instance, was carried from Billingsgate market in London to Reading, and would arrive by early afternoon, still quite fresh.

With the opening of the Great Western Railway in 1841 travel by stage coach along the turnpikes soon ended. By 1843 the last stagecoach between London and Bath stopped running. The coaches changed to other routes until these were also covered by the quickly growing railway system. A few coaches remained working on local traffic for a few years. The inns which kept the horses for the coaches lost most of their trade at the same time. Within a few years they were half empty.