John Crawley continues to look at early Burrell products, drawing on his personal archive.

To the great British public, every kind of steam road vehicle is a ‘steam roller’. The number of times you overhear a father pointing at a diesel roller and say ‘look at that lovely steam roller’. The Press report that some such Bill was ‘steam-rollered’ through Parliament – small wonder then, that, despite its demise from everyday use, the name lives on.

Many members of the older generation have a soft spot for the steam roller because, for many town dwellers, this would have been their first contact with a steam road vehicle.
The first intimation that a road was to be resurfaced was the metallic scraping around 7.30am as granite chips were shovelled out of a horse-drawn cart into heaps some 10ft apart on the pavement or grass verge on one side of the road.
Each side of the road was done separately so as to allow single-line traffic to pass by. This always fascinated me as there was one old dobbin (horse) that was so much more intelligent than his mates and gave such a convincing demonstration that he knew his job completely.

He and his master would arrive on the scene, his master would then get into the cart and start to put so many shovels-full into each heap, then one click of his tongue was all that was needed to get the job going.
After so many shovels-full, the horse would move forward of his own accord and stop about 10ft farther on, without a word being spoken, and so continue on up the road.
By this time, a four-wheel cart would have arrived whereby the road gang would unload two gates with feet to put across the beginning and end of the section.
These were about 6ft long, light buff colour, on which were painted in black the words ‘Beware of steam roller’.

At the end of the gate nearest the centre of the road was a metal socket into which fitted a red flag at an angle.
I cannot recollect the details of the tar wagon other than that the tar was sprayed on the road just in front of the large brush which spanned half the road, being raised to avoid tarring over manhole covers where the tar would be hand brushed round them.
Meanwhile, the steam roller has arrived. Standing quietly simmering, while the driver ‘oiled round’, it gave small boys the chance to grab a closer look.
As the road was being tarred, men would follow behind it, spreading the chips from the previously-placed heaps.

Then would come the moment I can still see and smell, as the roller moved forward to start work. The change in sound as it ran on the chips, the smell of hot oil and tar – a very heady mixture.

End of the On-line article.
Subscribe here | Buy a single issue at the cover price (P&P included) | Backissues here

Read the NEXT article >>