Missing historic milestones are set to be returned top Bath
& North East Somerset after having been discovered for sale on
e-bay.
A sharp eyed member of the Milestone Society, a group dedicated
to recording and caring for milestones and Turnpike Trust markers,
spotted a number of milestone plates and Turnpike Trust markers for
sale on e-bay in 2004.
As they could only have been removed illegally, they contacted
the police, who managed to recover them. Three of the cast iron
plates were then identified as belonging in the Bath & North
East Somerset district.
One of the plates, a Turnpike Trust marker, dates from 1823. The
other two milestone markers are undated but the lettering suggests
that they are even older.
Detective work involving The Milestone Society, old maps, local
knowledge and Council records has revealed their original
sites. The three plates have been restored and will be put
back in their original positions.
These markers are interesting reminders of the times when main
roads were at best rough tracks and at worst muddy quagmires which
made travel between towns difficult in good weather and sometimes
impossible in the mid- winter.
The recovered examples are cast iron plates which were attached
to stone posts. They would have provided essential
information to travellers as to where they were and the distance to
their destination. All this at a time when there were no street
lights and highwaymen may have been lurking and ready to
pounce.
The Turnpike Trust was the original form of the Private Finance
Initiative that currently constructs major roads paid for by a
toll. The Turnpike Trusts in the 18th Century constructed new
roads using modern techniques invented by Thomas Telford and John
Macadam who worked locally, and these were maintained by collecting
tolls from travellers. To indicate which roads were toll roads,
markers were erected at parish boundaries and often next to the
roadside toll house which collected the toll cash.
Bath and North East Somerset has some fine roads constructed by
the Turnpike Trusts with the Turnpike Trust markers and milestones
still in their original positions.
