Thanks SolidRock. I had no idea about toll roads before finding this inclusion in the will document. I now know a little bit but can see a lot has been written about the subject. Looks like John Ellaway had bid for and secured a lease on the revenue from a section of the toll road and that the term of the lease extended beyond his death. His father came from East Hendred but before that his grandfather was in Letcombe Regis and great grandfather in Wantage, born around 1625. I have not found any other informative documentation that might explain John's his involvement in toll roads. He describes himself as a yeoman farmer. My ancestral line moves to Beenham well before the death of John and from there gets sucked into the East End of London. I'm guessing that a lot of people have the same experience I've had seeing many branches of the family gravitate from rural occupations into the industrial centres and then getting mangled by the impact of the long depression once there.
A document I found that was useful to skim through on Toll Roads is here :
http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/Reading%20turnpike%20roads.htm
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