It is said that the Marquis of Salisbury, who lived at
Hatfield House, wanted a route to the Great West Road avoiding central London, for onward travel to the spa towns of
Bath and
Cheltenham where, as a sufferer of
gout, he often took the waters. This would also spare him the discomfort and congestion of London's cobbled streets. With others (including the Earl of Essex, who suffered from a similar affliction, and who lived at
Cassiobury House near Watford) he sponsored an act of Parliament passed in 1757 for the building of a road from
Hatfield to
Reading. The Reading and Hatfield Turnpike Trust was set up by a further act of Parliament, the '''''' (
8 Geo. 3. c. 50), to improve the route between the two towns. It ran via
St Albans,
Watford,
Rickmansworth,
Amersham,
High Wycombe and
Marlow, with two alternative routes south and west from there, one to Knowl Hill (on the Great West Road between Maidenhead and Reading) and the other to Reading itself via Henley-on-Thames. The Trust lasted until 1881, and at that date was one of the last surviving Turnpike Trusts in the country. For many years the route was known as the Gout Track, given its reputed raison-d'etre. Analysis of toll receipts shows that traffic was lighter than that on the great trunk routes it interconnected. == Modern successor routes ==