High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A tollhouse or toll house is a building with accommodation for a toll collector, beside a tollgate on a toll road or canal. Many tollhouses were built by turnpike trusts in England, Wales and Scotland during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Those built in the early 19th century often had a distinctive bay front to give the pikeman a clear view of the road and to provide a display area for the tollboard. In 1840, according to the Turnpike Returns in Parliamentary Papers, there were over 5000 tollhouses operating in England. These were sold off in the 1880s when the turnpikes were closed. Many were demolished but several hundred have survived as domestic houses, with distinctive features of the old tollhouse still visible.