Beautiful sunshine and horrendous roadworks greeted the 30 or so milestoners who came to the Society’s revived Northern Spring Meeting at Gargrave Village Hall in the Aire Valley.
After introductions by our chairman Rob Westlake the guest speaker was Bill Froggatt, Heritage Advisor with the Canal and Rivers Trust. Bill had spoken at our Hebden meeting in 2016, and this time his talk was on Milestones on the Lancaster and Leeds & Liverpool Canals. This provided both an update on the latter’s milestone restoration project, and a description of the three types of quite different milestones to be found on the connected Lancaster Canal.
This was followed by Hilary Jones on The Aire Gap: a Natural Transport Corridor. Hilary is the Society’s county rep for North Yorkshire and Lancashire, and her subject connects the two. The Aire Gap has a long transport history, from the Romans (and doubtless before them) to the canal, the turnpikes and the railway. The present main road, the A65, much altered from its original course with by-passes etc, is the successor to the first turnpike in the district, the Keighley to Kendal Trust of 1753. One of the very last turnpikes in England, the Skipton Craco (sic) and Pateley Bridge, was established in 1852, and follows the road most of us will have taken to our Hebden meetings. Hilary showed photos of a wide variety of local mile and guide-stones, many sadly in need of some TLC.
Lunch was preceded by a Q&A session, with much discussion on stolen or otherwise disappeared milestones.
After lunch, ideally taken on a bench overlooking the river, we split into two groups. One went out for a walk around Gargrave, looking at: an old West Riding halo fingerpost (albeit with more recent Pennine Way directions); the possible site of a Roman ford over the river (with an information board); two of the Craven guide-stones (probably erected by the East Staincliffe Highway District in the late 19th century); and two canal markers. The walk should have continued to include a somewhat neglected WRCC milestone on the A65, but we had all been waylaid by many of the attractive old buildings in Gargrave, watching boats going through locks on the canal, and finally an ice-cream van, so that the last section was omitted.
Those who remained in the Village Hall were entertained by photographs of Scottish milestones presented by the Society’s vice-chair Bruce Keith. Judging by the numbers who had bought his 2021 book “Are we nearly there yet? Celebrating Scotland’s milestones”, this was much enjoyed.
The excellent facilities at the Village Hall made it a most appropriate setting for our meeting, and our thanks are due to Hilary who organised the event and the cakes. We look forward to meeting again next year (same place, April 27th).
RWH / May 2023