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When the first bridge was built over the Calder, is not known, but, in 1342, King Edward III. granted to the bailiffs of the town the right of tollage for three years, on all goods for sale and cattle passing over the bridge, “as a help towards repairing and improving the bridge,” which is stated to be “rent and broken.”

As I have said in one of my previous letters, even a saw-log has the right of way; and government paid a goodly sum to the speculators from whom it purchased this improvement, that free tollage might be established here for all time.

This is the man who tried the right of tollage with the people of Bromsgrove and King's norton.