The main Wellington to Worcester and Bridgnorth Road turnpike was opened in 1764. It crossed Dawley from north west to south east. The road entered the parish at Dawley Bank and ran by Dawley Green, later Bank Road and King Street, the Dun Cow Bank, New Street and Finger Lane to Southall. By the early nineteenth century, this road had been diverted and came up from the Bucks Head at Wellington up through Arleston over Lawley, by Balls Hill near Heath Hill to Dawley Green. The parish’s commercial centre grew up at the junction between the old and the new routes at Dawley Green; the road through the settlement being known as High Street by 1851.

Turnpikes were literally a frame of pikes which could be turned to allow the passage of horses or carriages. They were essentially gates set across roads to prevent passage until a toll had been paid. Particularly from 1700-1770 a network of turnpikes were established throughout Britain. A proportion of the toll was used to maintain the road. Although privately established, turnpiked roads linked the major centres of population by highways and enabled rapid and efficient movement of people and goods across the Kingdom