In College Road, at the foot of Grange Lane, stood (and, in the form of its modern replacement, still stands) the Toll Gate, the last survivor of its kind in London, the majority having been abolished by Act of Parliament in 1864.

 

The exact date of its installation is not known.  Tom Morris, a not entirely reliable local historian at the turn of this century, wrote that “the Toll Gates were placed there by Mr [Edward] Alleyn soon after he purchased the manor of Dulwich”.  We can do better than that.

 

The 1854 Terrier states: “Dulwich Court Lane is a Private Road, where toll has been collected for forty years last past. In Morgan's Road, since called the Penge Road [and now College Road], the Toll Gate was introduced about fifty years since”.

 

Mr James’ Surveyor's Report of 1808 recommended that 5 cottages should be erected on the Dulwich estate, “three to be used as Toll Houses”!

 

The Tollgate was originally the notion of John Morgan, Lord of the Manor of Penge, who rented two fields in Dulwich, today used as playing fields (recently taken over by Dulwich College, formerly used by the Alexander Howden Group of Companies), and in 1787 made a road from the top of what is now Fountain Drive, through Dulwich Woods, to link these fields with Penge Common (Morgan being Lord of the Manor of Penge), and give better access for his cattle and carts.  As one of the College Audit Meetings in 1787 records: “John Morgan proposes to make a road (which he calls Locus Lane), saving a distance of 1 mile 8 poles from Penge to the Dulwich high road via the Common, and to indemnify the College from any costs in making or repairing it, and to allow the College and its tenants free use of it.”   Penge Common later became the site of the Crystal Palace.   When the College gave Morgan permission to construct the road, it stipulated that the road should not be more than 30ft wide, that Morgan should pay for any trees removed in the course of its construction, and that he should pay two shillings a year for the road.  In August 1787 it was stated: “The Road down Locus Lane is now the Admiration of the County .....”  A further Resolution, in 1789, referred to the need for “the erection of a cottage for a Person to look after the intended Road.  16ft by 12ft to be marked out, nearer the gate the more convenient, as he [John Morgan] is every day suffering some injury to his locks”.   In 1789 Morgan extended the road further, and built the present Toll Gate Cottage for a person to look after the road and the gate, but he was only permitted to take toll from persons passing through his fields.

 

In January 1802, Charles Druce [the College Solicitor] advised the College: “No objection to granting licence to Morgan to assign his lease to Scott of two fields, with liberty of using  Low Cross Lane as a way of access.  This confers no exclusive right to the road as a whole – only to the part in the fields – his right to take toll is grounded entirely on granting permission to pass through his fields, and will expire with the lease.”   Accordingly, in 1802, Morgan assigned his lease of the two fields, and the road now called Morgan's Road, to John Scott, also of Penge.  When the lease of the road and fields expired in 1809, the College retained the toll-keeper, Mrs Clarke, and appointed her to take toll on the road itself, at a weekly salary of three shillings.

 

In 1811 the College resolved that the profits arising from the collection of the toll should be applied in widening and repairing the Penge Road, and forming a new one across the Common towards Mr Vizard’s premises [‘Kingswood House’].

 

In 1845 Launcelot Baugh Allen was tenant (although not necessarily, and indeed almost certainly not, the occupant) of Toll Gate Cottage, and in 1859 tenders were invited in The Times, Morning Advertiser and Daily News for “one year's letting of the Turnpikes at Dulwich Court Lane and Penge Lane”.  The successful tender was from one J. Norris.

 

Public tenders for collecting toll ended in 1901, after which the Estates  Governors  maintained  the  charge  at  3d  per  car  per return journey, 3d per horse, mule or donkey drawing a cart  (2d not drawing), 10d for beasts per score, and 2½d for sheep, lambs or hogs per score.

 

In case you should wonder why cyclists are allowed through free of charge, the explanation was given in the South London Press in 1897:

 

“For a considerable time each cyclist was charged 2d.  This charge is not tabulated on the board; its origin is ‘wrop in mystery’.  The impost was the cause of much annoyance and many altercations.  It is said that a man with a Kodak took a snapshot picture of a wrangle with a cyclist at the gate.  The Governors could imagine from the expression the language used, and now cyclists go free.”

 

The name of Purdy has a long association with the Toll Gate.  How long is not known exactly.  Tom Morris said that Mr Purdy leased both toll gates, the previous keeper being Mrs Parsons, widow of the College Bailiff, for the Bailiffs (said Tom) all  had charge of the toll gates in succession.

 

“He put a caretaker in at Court Lane, which he closed down because he was dissatisfied with the takings.  He and his wife lived in a caravan across the road while the present toll-house was being erected.  The old house used to nestle in a little wood of its own, surrounded by fields, with honey- suckle and roses climbing over it.  One day some of the Royal carriages passed through without paying.  Purdy sent an account to the Private Secretary – and was paid!”

 

Purdy was lucky, as he was obviously ignorant of the fact that, by law, the Sovereign and certain servants of the Crown are not liable to pay tolls.  The only recorded takings for  the toll gates during this period are those for 1837/'38, when in six winter months only £25 was taken at Court Lane compared with £53 in College Road.

 

Mr. E. A. Simmons took over in 1901, followed by his daughter, who was still taking the tolls in College Road at the end of the 1950s.

 

On Saturday, October 28th 1989, a large number of people gathered at the Tollgate to mark its 200th anniversary.  Bill De Baerdemaecker arranged for some sheep to be brought from a farm at Meopham, Kent, and these and several horse-drawn vehicles passed through the gate as a costumed tollgate keeper took the toll.  It is not known if they paid the same scale of charges depicted on the board!  A leaflet on the Tollgate's history, compiled by Brian Green (then Chairman of the Dulwich Society's Local History Group), was published by the Estates Governors to mark the occasion.

 

Following safety concerns expressed by the Health and Safety Executive, the operation of the Toll Gate had to be suspended, but in January 1993 tolls were once again being taken from the newly-constructed gate-keeper’s kiosk and gate.  The charge per car is now 50p for a single journey; a far cry from the old scale of charges happily still displayed on the adjacent board.  The Toll Gate Cottage is, at the time of writing, being advertised for sale by the Estates Governors, as a private residence.

 

(File created 27 January 2009, but publication as part of the Dulwich Society booklet ‘A Dulwich Corner’ must have been several years earlier, probably 1990.)