Bridge Titheman

A toll-taking machine set beside a bridge or a barred road, with a coin platform, an inspection lens and the bar of the crossing in its keeping. It takes the toll, lifts the bar, and does not bargain.

A titheman stands at the end of a bridge in all weathers, a squat house of iron and brass with a coin plate in front and a lens above. A traveller lays his toll on the plate; the titheman weighs it, inspects it through its lens, and lifts the bar. Short money, bad coin and a pass it does not know are refused, and the bar stays down. On the busy crossings a keeper stands beside it to settle arguments. On the lonelier ones, where the bridge's owner could not pay a keeper, there is only the machine, and a traveller with the wrong coin waits for morning.

Many stand on crossings the owners have long abandoned, their charge running down to a faint glow, still keeping a bar that nobody comes to collect from. The road offices dislike them, because a toll taken by a machine on a bridge nobody maintains is a toll taken for nothing, and the carriers dislike them more. Nobody may lawfully break a certified titheman, and so the carriers go round.

As witnesses describe it

A squat cylindrical tollhouse of riveted iron and brass beside a bridge or barrier, with a coin plate, a slot, an inspection lens and linkages running to the bar of the crossing; on the larger bridges, a tall lantern-crane or a great ring of runes over the roadway. Working, its runes and lens glow a strong amber or blue. Abandoned and nearly spent, it shows only a faint glow at its core.