Roads, Surfaces and Repairs

In his unpublished manuscript “As I Remember It”, the Rev Brame shared his impressions of the local road surfaces. In a section (p.101) where he spoke of his families cycle trips to picnic in Shrubland Park he told how he took a tumble off his bike, falling head first into a pile of granite road chippings. He explained he had been listening to his father telling him that ‘although granite chips took a long time to settle into a reasonable surface they were a lot better than the old flint chips that used to surface the road. We might have had a dozen punctures to fix by now in the old days. You can understand why they used flint: Flintstones are local, and that’s why a lot of churches were built with round flintstones, and stone corners. And then you have to remember, before rubber tyres came in on bicycles, all the carts and carriages had steel tyres on their wheels, and their horses had steel shoes on their hooves,

‘ And flintstones are very hard, so they lasted a long time. But you should have seen them in the dark, sparking as they were struck by the steel horseshoes’.

A few pages on (p.107) Leslie added that a few years later most of the roads were tar-sealed which made them much safer and easier to cycle on. ‘ The tar was poured from a boiler onto a layer of small granite chips, and then a layer of washed sand; as the road was used, the sand worked its way into the tar, making a reasonably good surface’ until the heat of the sun caused the sand to ‘bleed’. ‘And even the best surfaced roads developed ‘potholes’…which could give a cyclist riding on 26-inch wheels an awful jolt. or even throw him/her.’

Then a few years later, although he was not sure of the date but he did remember watching the work that went into making “macadamised”  roads.  How a new road foundation had to be laid before granite chips that were pre-coated with tar could be applied hot, and each layer compacted with a heavy roller. And then road-side gutters had to be built to cope with the run off water from heavy downpours. He added he was sorry when the steam- engines that were originally used in the road making process were replaced by diesel driven ones.