They hide in the roadside verges, many of them are forgotten, more are neglected and some are so badly weathered that they have no recognisable features. No, not tramps but old milestones.
In the days of limitless Local Authority budgets for grass mowing or when farmers and homeowners regarded it as a civic duty to maintain the verges without fear of prosecution for health and safety or highways violations, the milestones were very prominent landmarks on any trunk road journey.
In modern forms of transport we may pay little attention to the passage of the miles unless keen to preserve some residual value and not rack up too much on the odometer. However, on foot or on horseback in bygone days the milestone was the equivalent of a sat-nav and essential to guage when to stop for human refreshment or to water or change mounts.
If average walking pace today is, what, four miles per hour on metalled pavements then I estimate this would be perhaps two miles per hour or less for someone with poor or no shoes, on rough potholed or waterlogged tracks and with cumbersome clothes notwithstanding carrying work tools, baggage or all their worldly possessions tied up in a brightly coloured hankie on the end of a stick. A journey on foot from Hull to York on roughly the same route as current roads would take a minimum of 20 hours or if confined to a daylight passage in winter, 3 days or on Midsummers Eve, the whole day with no stops for Druidistic type events. Under such duress ticking off the passing milestones would be very important. Spot a white horse, 10,000 points but carve your initials on a milestone 1 million points.
A few years ago I had a wonderful contract to track down milestones in East Yorkshire and report on their condition as they were Listed Structures. My brief included a few vague grid references or equally patchy physical descriptions of where I could find a specific marker. The actual task of locating 17th and 18th Century roadside artefacts was very difficult and time consuming, not helped where new roads and by-passes had left the original course as a picnic area ,cul de sac or an overgrown spur in the verge.
The stonework of a milestone had evidently been striking originally although utilitarian and functional. Recorded distances were etched in fine italic script under usually two bolder carved town names or with an affixed metal tablet with cast text performing the same role.
There were two main types of milestone, a basic almost headstone type and the grander two-tier examples which served as a step for mounting and dismounting a horse on the opportunity for a short rest. The stonework, weathering accepted often showed battle scars from modern vehicle impact. I expect that being caught short on a long journey would entail a quick swerve up and stop on the verge only to encounter a hidden mass in the long grass causing grounding or worse to the car and further discomfort to the already desperate motorist.
A number of the landmarks were just plain missing. I can imagine many rougher 18th and 19th century buildings in villages just off the old coaching routes having unusually good quality dressed stonework above the hearth or in an inglenook feature. Stones on the softer verges, at risk from splashing from passing traffic or now stuck in a gully or drain-off area had settled out of true and were a sorry sight. Perhaps there is a case to go out and retrieve these relics of bygone travel as they are obsolete and redundant as far as the modern road user is concerned.
I advocate that in a post apocalyptic world the milestone will become a surviving memorial to the way we led our hectic lives .Pilgrims in the future will marvel at the intricacy of the wording and pass on the folklore of such inscriptions as Hull 20, Leeds 40 and what a marvellous game of rugby league that must surely have been back in the day.
Retitled from 2011
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