In the 18th century Georgian England upgraded and developed its road network through turnpike trusts and other local initiatives. Thousands of bridges were built or rebuilt. The construction of canals provided a new bulk goods network. As the speed and ease of travel rose, England formed a single national market. The way communities organised themselves spatially and economically changed, and patterns of change and improvement spread out through the countryside. All this catalysed and enabled the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions, and eventually led to the creation of the railways. The implications of this for Georgian society and its architecture were immense: to a remarkable extent we still live in a late-Georgian landscape.
Steven Brindle comes from Blackburn in Lancashire. He was educated in Lancashire and Los Angeles, and read History at Oxford. He has worked for English Heritage in a variety of roles for 35 years, and is now a Senior Properties Historian. He has published widely on the history of architecture and engineering, with major titles including Brunel, the Man who Built the World (2005), Windsor Castle, a Thousand Years of a Royal Palace (as editor, 2018), Architecture in Britain and Ireland, 1530-1830 (2023), and London, Lost Interiors (2024).