Annotation:New Pavement (The)

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NEW PAVEMENT, THE. English, Jig. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The melody is unique to Charles and Samuel Thompson's Compleat Collection, vol. 3 (London, 1773). London streets were repaved with granite in the 1760's and early 1770's, with new features such as two gutters on either side of the road rather than a central trough in the middle. By 1765, the Paving Act specified channels on each side of the carriageway, which was to be paved in granite setts instead of cobbles, and cambered to allow water to drain into the kerbed side channels.

Repaving the Strand, 1851. "The Illustration shows the work in progress on the west side of Temple Bar, where a line of paviors are using their rammers with almost the precision of an engineering operation. The combined power of the workmen, by means of this arrangement, is very great."

The Illustrated London News of April 26, 1851, remarked, "It may be interesting to add that the present mode of paving the roadways of the metropolis almost precisely corresponds with that adopted in the streets of Pompeii, upwards of 2000 years since."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Thompson (Compleat Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 3), 1773; No. 77.

Recorded sources:

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