Transport

Records of transport can reveal a wealth of fascinating material useful to the local or community historian, from documents relating to the landowners affected by proposed routes to records of the people who built, worked and travelled on the transport systems crossing the country.

Roads are the oldest part of our transport infrastructure, and the maintenance of the king’s highway is one of the most ancient functions of English local government. Canals and railways are more recent, and there are a lot of archives stemming from their original establishment.