he was afterwards accustomed to point to his bridges, when others

were tumbling during floods, and boast that none of his had fallen.
This extraordinary man not only made the highways which were

designed for him by other surveyors, but himself personally
surveyed and laid out many of the most important roads which he

constructed, in difficult and mountainous parts of Yorkshire and
Lancashire. One who personally knew Metcalf thus wrote of him

during his life-time:. "With the assistance only of a long staff,
I have several times met this man traversing the roads, ascending

steep and rugged heights, exploring valleys and investigating their
several extents, forms, and situations, so as to answer his designs

in the best manner. The plans which he makes, and the estimates he
prepares, are done in a method peculiar to himself, and of which he

cannot well convey the meaning to others. His abilities in this
respect are, nevertheless, so great that he finds constant

employment. Most of the roads over the Peak in Derbyshire have
been altered by his directions, particularly those in the vicinity

of Buxton; and he is at this time constructing a new one betwixt
Wilmslow and Congleton, to open a communication with the great

London road, without being obliged to pass over the mountains.
I have met this blind projector while engaged in making his survey.

He was alone as usual, and, amongst other conversation, I made some
inquiries respecting this new road. It was really astonishing to

hear with what accuracy he described its course and the nature of
the different soils through which it was conducted. Having

mentioned to him a boggy piece of ground it passed through, he
observed that 'that was the only place he had doubts concerning,

and that he was apprehensive they had, contrary to his directions,
been too sparing of their materials.'"*[1]

Metcalf's skill in constructing his roads over boggy ground was
very great; and the following may be cited as an instance. When

the high-road from Huddersfield to Manchester was determined on,
he agreed to make it at so much a rood, though at that time the

line had not been marked out. When this was done, Metcalf, to his
dismay, found that the surveyor had laid it out across some deep

marshy ground on Pule and Standish Commons. On this he
expostulated with the trustees, alleging the much greater expense

that he must necessarily incur in carrying out the work after their
surveyor's plan. They told him, however, that if he succeeded in

making a complete road to their satisfaction, he should not be a
loser; but they pointed out that, according to their surveyor's

views, it would be requisite for him to dig out the bog until he
came to a solid bottom. Metcalf, on making his calculations, found

that in that case he would have to dig a trench some nine feet deep
and fourteen yards broad on the average, making about two hundred

and ninety-four solid yards of bog in every rood, to be excavated
and carried away. This, he naturally conceived, would have proved

both tedious as well as costly, and, after all, the road would in
wet weather have been no better than a broad ditch, and in winter

liable to be blocked up with snow. He strongly represented this
view to the trustees as well as the surveyor, but they were

immovable. It was, therefore, necessary for him to surmount the
difficulty in some other way, though he remained firm in his

resolution not to adopt the plan proposed by the surveyor.
After much cogitation he appeared again before the trustees,

and made this proposal to them: that he should make the road
across the marshes after his own plan, and then, if it should be

found not to answer, he would be at the expense of making it over
again after the surveyor's proposed method. This was agreed to;

and as he had undertaken to make nine miles of the road within ten
months, he immediately set to work with all despatch.

Nearly four hundred men were employed upon the work at six
different points, and their first operation was to cut a deep ditch

along either side of the intended road, and throw the excavated
stuff inwards so as to raise it to a circular form. His greatest

difficulty was in getting the stones laid to make the drains, there
being no firm footing for a horse in the more boggy places.

The Yorkshire clothiers, who passed that way to Huddersfield market
--by no means a soft-spoken race--ridiculed Metcalf's proceedings,

and declared that he and his men would some day have to be dragged
out of the bog by the hair of their heads! Undeterred, however,

by sarcasm, he persistently pursued his plan of making the road
practicable for laden vehicles; but he strictly enjoined his men

for the present to keep his manner of proceeding; a secret.
His plan was this. He ordered heather and ling to be pulled from

the adjacent ground, and after binding it together in little round
bundles, which could be grasped with the hand, these bundles were

placed close together in rows in the direction of the line of road,
after which other similar bundles were placed transversely over

them; and when all had been pressed well down, stone and gravel
were led on in broad-wheeled waggons, and spread over the bundles,

so as to make a firm and level way. When the first load was
brought and laid on, and the horses reached the firm ground again

in safety, loud cheers were set up by the persons who had assembled
in the expectation of seeing both horses and waggons disappear in

the bog. The whole length was finished in like manner, and it
proved one of the best, and even the driest, parts of the road,

standing in very little need of repair for nearly twelve years
after its construction. The plan adopted by Metcalf, we need

scarcely point out, was precisely similar to that afterwards
adopted by George Stephenson, under like circumstances, when

constructing the railway across Chat Moss. It consisted simply in a
large extension of the bearing surface, by which, in fact, the road

was made to float upon the surface of the bog; and the ingenuity of
the expedient proved the practical shrewdness and mother-wit of the

blind Metcalf, as it afterwards illustrated the promptitude as well
as skill of the clear-sighted George Stephenson.

Metcalf was upwards of seventy years old before he left off
road-making. He was still hale and hearty, wonderfully active for

so old a man, and always full of enterprise. Occupation was
absolutely necessary for his comfort, and even to the last day of

his life he could not bear to be idle. While engaged on road-making
in Cheshire, he brought his wife to Stockport for a time,

and there she died, after thirty-nine years of happy married life.
One of Metcalf's daughters became married to a person engaged in

the cotton business at Stockport, and, as that trade was then very
brisk, Metcalf himself commenced it in a small way. He began with

six spinning-jennies and a carding-engine, to which he afterwards
added looms for weaving calicoes, jeans, and velveteens. But trade

was fickle, and finding that he could not sell his yarns except at
a loss, he made over his jennies to his son-in-law, and again went

on with his road-making. The last line which he constructed was
one of the most difficult he had everundertaken,-- that between

Haslingden and Accrington, with a branch road to Bury. Numerous
canals being under construction at the same time, employment was

abundant and wages rose, so that though he honourably fulfilled his
contract, and was paid for it the sum of 3500L., he found himself a

loser of exactly 40L. after two years' labour and anxiety.
He completed the road in 1792, when he was seventy-five years of age,

after which he retired to his farm at Spofforth, near Wetherby,
where for some years longer he continued to do a little business in

his old line, buying and selling hay and standing wood, and
superintending the operations of his little farm, During the later

years of his career he occupied himself in dictating to an
amanuensis an account of the incidents in his remarkable life,

and finally, in the year 1810, this strong-hearted and resolute man
--his life's work over--laid down his staff and peacefully departed

in the ninety-third year of his age; leaving behind him four
children, twenty grand-children, and ninety great grand-children.

[Image] Metcalf's house at Spofforth.
The roads constructed by Metcalf and others had the effect of

greatly improving the communications of Yorkshire and Lancashire,
and opening up those counties to the trade then flowing into them

from all directions. But the administration of the highways and
turnpikes being entirely local, their good or bad management

depending upon the public spirit and enterprise of the gentlemen of
the locality, it frequently happened that while the roads of one