Village signs
Village signs come in all shapes and sizes. There are the ubiquitous simple road-side notices telling you the name of the community you are entering …
As well as the main types of waymarker described on other pages, the Milestone Society and its members are interested in many other types of wayside feature. Needless to say Yorkshire, as befits England’s largest county, has more than its fair share of all these. For more information, click on the various links below.
Most numerous are finger posts, to be found at huge numbers of road junctions throughout the country. While perhaps most have been replaced by signposts in the modern standard style, many interesting older ones survive.
Other stones, etc to be found include:
Take-on and take-off stones. If this were an I-Spy book you would get at least 50 points if you were lucky enough to spot one of these.
Right-of-way stones, such as the Marsden packhorse road stones, subject of a court case in the early 20th century.
Sanctuary stones
Turbary stones
Village signs, originally put up by the Automobile Association, but now almost a new art form.
Other interesting features to be found especially in rural areas reflect the history of our highways: these will be found in our Roads and Travel section.
In addition to the milestones on our highways there are mile-markers to be found on our canals, such as the Leeds-Liverpool and the Huddersfield (Broad and Narrow) Canals, and the Society also records these.
RWH / updated August 2020
Village signs come in all shapes and sizes. There are the ubiquitous simple road-side notices telling you the name of the community you are entering …
Isaac Watt Boulton was born in 1823 in Stockport, and allegedly related to the more famous Boulton family, Matthew (1728-1809) having manufactured steam engines in …
In the early days of motoring it was a motoring association who put up signs for the benefit of drivers. The Automobile Association, founded in …
Cleckheaton residents can now once again enjoy a local landmark in its original glory, the 80-odd-year-old fingerpost outside the Fire Station – at the junction …
A take-on stone is a stone instructing a coachman to add an extra horse or horses to a conveyance in order to help pull the coach …
The concept of sanctuary, as a place where fugitives can be immune from arrest, dates back to the Bible (cf Numbers, 35), and was recognised …
Holme Moss conjures up different images for people: for some it’s an iconic bike ride climb; for others a treacherous moorland road where to venture …
The village of Marsden, on the edge of the Pennine moors in West Yorkshire, has two attractive packhorse bridges: one in the centre, by the …
Canals in Yorkshire competed with the turnpikes in the era before the coming of the railways. Some, like the Aire and Calder Navigation and the …
In 1961 the Worboys Committee was set up to review road signs, and its recommendations were enacted in 1964. After this date all new signs throughout the …