"When was cobbled road common?" Topic

I'm looking at product by Early War Miniatures. I like their roads (I've seen them at shows) but the intersections of the cobbled 'open road' isn't available in their muddy 'open track' packages.

So, I'd need both – cobbled main roads mud track secondary roads – and I quite like the idea of both, but I want the roads for European H&M periods (16th C – 19th C).

It would be fine for my 1st Crusades (Byzantine roads) and Punic Wars (Roman roads) of course but, is road like this (see pic below) suitable for my horse and musket periods?

is road like this (see pic below) suitable for my horse and musket periods?

Cobbled roads, if properly maintained, could last for hundreds of years, so yes.

After the fall of centralised governments/empires -like the Roman- road maintenance declined in Europe. It only picked up again with the acceleration of the Industrial Revolution (c.1750 for Britain -later for other countries), and the need to transport the increase in manufactured goods.

Significantly, in the post-Industrial period, Britain, being the first to industrialise, is the first to see a serious decline in road maintenance, compared to, say, France and Germany where there's far more State investment in roads still. An economy based on Financial Services doesn't need that level of investment.

Hi

I once stayed at a B&B in England along the Great northern Road. The owner showed me a cross section of the road in his barn.It was a trench about 4 feet deep.

Its lowest level had a much repaired Roman road surface. The roman road stones had been removed and layers on layers of dirt/small stones had been piled up on top of the base. The next period of stone or cobbling wasn't until 18th century or so he said.

18th century down to the mid 20th when tarmac took over.
a lot of tarmac roads still have cobbles underneath and some modern British and European cities still have cobbled areas!

From the post-Roman era up to (at least) the early 19th century most roads between towns were pretty dire, but cobbled streets in towns were certainly becoming commonplace before the 14th C. As Rabbit points out, there are still some to be seen and even more lying under modern tarmac.