27 Astonishing Things You Didn't Know About London

12. Wooden Roads Were Tried Out (And Failed For A Hilarious Reason)

In the middle of the nineteenth century, various private companies tried to come up with a road surface that would allow heavy loads to be more easily pulled by horse-drawn carriages. Experiments showed that carriages could get better traction on a wooden surface and so a small number of main roads in and around Piccadilly had wooden blocks installed. But this experiment in wooden paving failed miserably after only a few weeks. The short reason was "horse pee". The trouble was, the wood soaked up the urine of all the passing horses and stank beyond belief. The pong of the ammonia, in fact, was so bad, it began to discolour the fronts of the nearby shops. On the plus side, the enormous amount of pee seemed to actually reduce the wear and tear on the road surface, meaning that the inventive piece of road engineering might have worked, if only it hadn't reeked so much...