By Mike Chapman
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Pavements and crossings It was general practice in the 18th century for frontagers on a street or road to provide their own ‘pitched’ footwalks (usually constructed of stone blocks or ‘setts’) outside their doors, although the mention of ‘pitching’ in the High Street in the Turnpike Trust minute books for the 1750s may also refer to public ‘causeways’ maintained by the parish overseers. This was already an important feature in Batheaston, for instance, as early as the mid 17th century. However the raised footwalks which are a distinctive feature of the High Street today were evidently part of the road improvement works being introduced by the Trust at that time. A raised pavement has the obvious advantage of protecting pedestrians from spatter thrown up by passing traffic, but their absence in the centre of the village between Shophouse Lane and Mill Lane suggests that this was not the prime reason for their presence elsewhere. The high pavement in front of the Full Moon and Oriel Cottages probably originated as an old causeway built on a natural terrace, but the rest, which ran continuously along the north side between Mill Lane and Clyde House, may have been produced as a result of cutting back the verges during the regrading and widening of the roadway. A raised section which formerly existed between Shophouse Lane and the Station suggests that the paving possibly continued as far as Jew’s Lane before it was buried under the railway. Until this part of the roadway was regraded after WWII, the pavement at the end of this section fell very steeply in front of the arch to provide sufficient headroom through to the lower level of the main road. These high pavements were also provided with a series of flat stones projecting from the wall below the footwalk, most frequently near houses (i.e. towards Chilcott’s Buildings), which served as steps onto the road or as mounting blocks. These were all removed in the 1970s as a traffic hazard. 
The north side of the street seems to have been particularly favoured. By the mid 19th century, the entire length from the Station to Connection Road had a pitched footwalk of some kind, whereas the south side had only short sections outside specific premises, probably built privately. Indeed, until the end of WWII the section between Church Farm and Ivy House, near the pound, merely tapered off like any other country road into the roadside waste. The pitching on the north side was also distinguished by its own attractive pattern of paving, consisting of a central line of small pennant paving slabs supported each side by standard Lias setts. A good example of this can be seen today in the garden path of no.18 High Street. It is noticeable that later modifications to the pavement abandoned this pattern, such as in front of Whitehead’s Buildings, built in the late 1820s. Similarly, the sections of pavement on the south side, all installed at a late stage, i.e. at Church Farm (altered in about 1860), the George Inn and the Crown (rebuilt 1835), and the frontage of the White Hart (rebuilt probably in about 1870), had standard Lias setts only.
There was only one pitched crossing, at the top of Mill Lane, which appears very prominently on early photographs as a continuation of the footwalk between Nelson Place and Chilcott’s Buildings. This also linked up with a pitched footwalk which ran down the west side of Mill Lane. A gas lamp standard was erected in the middle of this junction of crossings, but such an arrangement would not then have presented much of an obstacle as there was little traffic in the Lane until after WWI. Part of the crossing, at the entrance to Twerton Farm Close, was not removed until the 1970s.
The use of asphalt for pavements instead of stone pitching came into use in this area from the 1880s, and several of the later sections seem to have been replaced or covered over by the 20th century. The pavement on the north side of the road between the station and Shophouse Lane, probably laid out with gravel in the 1830s, appears to have been one of the first, as also the path on the north side of How Hill which was probably not built until the 1860s. Other late developments, such as Fernley Terrace (c.1900) and Carlton Terrace (c.1880), which already had raised kerbs but only with only gravel surfaces, were almost certainly asphalted from the outset. The remainder of the pitched footwalks were either replaced or covered over during the 1930s, but several sections, such as in front of the Institute, did not disappear until the 1970s.
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