The road was of great benefit to commerce in the northwest but proved a financial loss as the cost of repairing wear caused by heavy traffic was underestimated.

In some places on soft ground a raised causeway of stones one metre wide was built for pack horses.

The feudal right for towns to hold markets brought merchants and guilds to see value in good roads.

Although common carriers' carts began carrying merchandise they were not seen for a long time north of York or west of Exeter.

The commercial advantage in building a new road through Craven was presented in a Settle broadsheet ca 1750: "The Woollen Manufacture has of late years been carried on and is daily increasing in Craven, for which it is better situated in every respect (save the scarcity of Coal) than any other part of the Country.

4. c. xlix), and the Keighley and Kendal Turnpike Road (Yorkshire District) Act 1855 (18 & 19 Vict.

No tolls were charged on the carriage of fuel, building materials or manure; on corn taken to the cornmill; on cloth or wool taken to a fulling mill, or on livestock going to water.

No tolls were charged to residents going to church on Sundays, to the funeral of a neighbour or to vote at an election, or to the Royal Mail.

In 1753 the Settle Trustees appointed Joshus Parsons, stone mason to build the road up Brayshaw Scar "Cast 7 yards wide between the ditches, and well and equally formed in a turnpike like manner, and sufficiently raised when the grounds are low or soft; low places to be raised as much as possible and high places to be taken down to make road as near as can be level, and no bank to ascend more than five inches in the yard.

"[1]: p.169 In 1754 they made a contract with John Birtwhistle of Skipton to build a road from Settle to Long Preston at 11s.

per rod (£28 per mile) "to be stoned 16 inch thick" but it was reported in 1758 to be "too narrow, rarely exceeding five yards".

It proved unprofitable as it was easily avoided by using Kendalman’s Ford, or Helwith Bridge, or going via Stainforth, and was removed in 1778.

Locals made a good living by guiding travellers round the bars so many gates were repositioned in 1823.

In 1833 at the five gates between Ingleton and Skipton the takings per year were:- Attempts were frequently made to evade payment of tolls: in 1756 John Scot of Keighley unloaded his cart before passing through to reduce the toll; in 1757 William Smith broke open the bar at Steeton and in 1758 Mr. Jefferson rode through the fields to avoid payment.

The rise of railway transport caused revenues to fall considerably[2]: p.11  halting improving schemes.

[1]: p.172  Royal Mail coaches paid no tolls yet "these machines from their great weight and from the speed with which they are driven do amazing damage to the roads over which they pass, and will soon either occasion a bankruptcy in some districts or an increase in the rate of tolls”[6]In 1877 instructions were given "that the gates must be taken off their hinges at 12 o' clock of 1 November and put aside and sold as soon as possible".

c. 77), Parliament abolished the principle of turnpikes and when the trusts fell due handed the roads to quarter sessions with power to levy rates on the whole county for their maintenance, supplementing them by a grant from the exchequer.

The Local Government Act 1888 allowed the newly created county councils to manage the roads transferred to them.

[9]: p.24  "The Goat’s Head" on the original route of the turnpike on Upper School Street in the 1770s was moved to its present site opposite the Station Road junction.

[9]: p.25 In the early 19th century the toll road was diverted under Hawcliffe along the line of the present A629 through the north side of the village.

Daniel Defoe wrote "Settle is the capital of an isolated little kingdom of its own surrounded by barren hills.

[10] Converting the rough road into a turnpike changed its character ending its isolation and connecting it with growing industrial towns.

The ancient route from Long Preston ran up a hill to 1,025 feet then descended precipitously through Upper Settle.

The Golden Lion Inn that once faced the Market Square was realigned in 1754 onto Duke Street to cater for coach traffic.

[1]: p.210  Heavy industry, quarries that exported agricultural lime and dressed sandstone for masonry and factories that imported coal welcomed the turnpike for access to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Gargrave.

[2]: p.18  Beyond Kirkby Lonsdale the turnpike did not prefigure the A65; rather its route is the B6254, passing Mansergh/Old Town, Old Hutton and Oxenholme to reach Kendal.

Early travellers to Kendal complained of eight miles of "nothing but a confused mixture of Rockes and Boggs"[11] Horseback was the fastest form of travel as the road was "no better than the roughest fell tracks on high ground and spongy, miry tracks in the vallies."

It became evident that it was unjust and beyond the power of the thinly scattered rural population thereabouts be called upon to maintain a road used for through traffic.

"[2]: p.7 In 1703 by order of the quarter sessions of the Barony of Kendall the surveyors of highways was to make the roads good and sufficient for the passage of coaches, carts and carriages[2]: p.5 By 1823 twelve stage coaches left Kendal daily on the various turnpikes.