Road Conditions
It was not until after  the first World War that local roads were surfaced with a compressed layer of  small stones bound together with tar or asphalt – the MacAdam process (after its inventor John MacAdam 1756-1836). Previously the roads  required constant maintenance throughout all seasons of the year.

George Young (1899-1987)  a lifelong villager describes how the road was repaired early in the 20th century in this clip from an interview  recorded in 1974

The constant job of filling the holes and dealing with the mud in winter and the dust in summer was also recalled by Dr R. Fisher.

'The road through the village has remained much the same as long as I can recollect. It has been made more level; the west side has been cut down and the east side a little raised. The green verge has been cut back a little. But the surface is very different : in the 1880s the repair was done with broken flints. In winter the roadmen scraped off the mud with large iron scrapers and in summer the dust blew along in clouds as high as the roofs of the smaller houses, and sometimes walked down the street in tiny whirlwinds. Outside the village on wider parts of the road verges were piles of flints, mostly collected off the fields, and old men with long handled hammers and goggles (if they obeyed orders) cracked up the flints to macadam size and piled the broken stones in neat heaps for the road surveyor to measure. Then in the autumn the flints were spread about three inches thick on the parts of the road needing repair and left for the traffic to roll in. There was no roller then. Things were very much the same up to the early 1900s. Mr. Bruce Beaton gave us a water cart and some of us experimented with calcium chloride with the idea that this would keep the surface constantly damp. It did not work.

Of course, the traffic was very small. The largest single item was probably the hay and straw carts going up to London. Another fairly heavy traffic was timber carting, mostly on carts with two large wheels, very long shafts, and a windlass to swing the tree trunks between the wheels. Bicycles began to be numerous in the late 1880's. Both the ' ordinary' (high bicycle) and the 'safety.' The 'safety' did not really win till pneumatic tyres came in. There used to be quite an excitement over club runs and races.'

Source: The History of Kings Langley   Ed L.M.Munby KL WEA 1963    Appendix 10 p.156