Past Activities

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 19^th 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

This was our 16th and final meeting at Hebden – twenty three people attended the first in March 2004 and there were 24 this year, many enjoying yet another chance to catch up with long-standing friends. Sadly, our curtain raisers Dorothy and Brian Burrows were incapacitated, although now well on the way to recovery. Keynote guest speaker Edgar Holroyd-Doveton filled in some of the gaps in our knowledge about Turnpike Roads, then David Garside showed a wide selection of interesting bridges from around the country. New member Annie Lloyd filmed the sessions and posted the results in our facebook group afterwards.

There was cake aplenty to sample over lunchtime conversations, mostly courtesy of Terry Witham who has booked the hall for us each year. Yorkshire member Ian Thompson (no relation to the Cornish one) introduced us to an Ordnance Survey mapping project, then I did a round-up of events that had happened in the past decade, our Yorkshire projects (Beyond Graffiti, Crossing the Pennines, Teach the Highwayman), the Repository and the happy outcome for Uncle Frank’s Archive.

However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find enough willing speakers on relevant topics and the accessibility of Hebden is not ideal for those of limited mobility. But it has been great fun meeting up with so many members over the years and I would like to thank everyone for their input, as speakers, running displays, catering or being an attentive audience.

The Maserati  parked outside didn’t belong to any of our members…

Jan Scrine

27 intrepid souls braved the fog to make our annual meeting at Hebden in the Yorkshire Dales – beautiful whatever the weather.  Two members, from Kent and Perthshire, clocked up around 240 miles each to get there.

After the usual round of refreshments we were entertained again by Dorothy and Brian Burrows with their international miscellany of slides.

Our guest speaker had had to drop out a couple of days beforehand with a bout of flu, but David Garside ably stepped into the breach, taking us on a scenic tour of Yorkshire’s waterways and their waymarkers.

The afternoon opened with Lionel Scott describing the turnpike that failed, between Leeds and Wetherby, despite much interest from local property speculators – and concluded with a lightning overview of Scottish milestones from Christine Minto.

JHS/August 2018

 

 The winter had ended just in time for this year’s Northern Spring Meeting at Hebden, though spring had hardly got into its stride, and a cool but dry day greeted the nearly 40 members who attended, from all over the North, including honorary parts such as Kent. 

We were favoured with a number of most interesting sessions, starting with Michelle Atkinson who described a project to produce a series of walk leaflets in Kirkburton (in Kirklees, West Yorkshire).  Each of the ten walks is based on one of the villages in the parish area and a local character, and each features a stone guide-stoop carved by local sculptor Dave Bradbury, fashioned in the style of the notable Farnley Moor stoop, and depicting a feature of the village.  These can also be found at http://kirkburtonparishwalks.co.uk

Michelle managed the project, and she described the entire process from to conception to fruition – a most useful presentation for anyone planning anything similar.  She discussed everything from how to manage volunteers to sources of finance (starting with www.fundingcentral.org.uk); who knew, for example, that landfill companies (such as SITA in Kirklees) have funds for relevant projects in their area?  See http://www.entrust.org.uk/home/lcf for further details.

Some of us would also have liked to have seen some more of the guide-stoops, but this was more than compensated for in the next session, where Dave Bradbury enthralled us with his description, with photographs of every stage, of the processes involved in another of his works: the Milestone Society’s Diamond Jubilee project replica Roman milestone at Wall, Staffordshire, by the site of the Roman town of Letocetum.  See his website at http://bydavebradbury.co.uk.

Jan Scrine then went on to tell us about some of her many plans to interest young people and other groups, from geocachers to trainee bricklayers and home educators, in milestones – details of her activities can be found on the new “Beyond Graffiti” section of the Yorkshire website.  After which we all(?) joined in the chorus of The Jagger’s Refrain.

After lunch we were entertained by Gordon Hallas and Jeremy Howat: Gordon showed us many fascinating old photographs of Holme (at the top of the Holme Valley) on a historic magic lantern; and Jeremy did “The ones that got away – or did they?”, telling the stories of some of our more elusive milestones.

And so, with thanks to all involved, and especially Christine and Frank for their anniversary cake, we look forward to next year; date to be confirmed.

RWH/April 2013

 

Milestone Society members have a wide range of interests, and the Northern Spring Meeting reflected many of these, together with a
generous interpretation of the broader term of “waymarkers”.

It started traditionally enough with a Milestone Miscellany presented by the double-act of Dorothy Burrows and her husband. We were shown a selection of slides taken over many years showing interesting and unusual waymarkers from Yorkshire and beyond.

This was followed by a most interesting presentation by Shirley Addy, founder of the Village Sign Society (www.villagesignsociety.org.uk) on (can you guess?) village signs. We think of these as an East Anglian phenomenon (Norfolk has the most) but there are over 200 in Yorkshire and over 3,000 across the country as a whole.

After lunch (sadly the village shop and post office closed in December, but the pub, the Clarendon Hotel has opened a replacement to fill the gap) Jan Scrine gave us an update and short film on the Beyond Graffiti project. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JwREVwVmRU. Richard Heywood then gave a whistle-stop tour of street-names and their meanings, with particular reference to those connected to road and transport history.

Finally David Garside presented moorland crosses, with around 70 examples of all types (Saxon, monastic, estate, boundary, waymarker, etc) from the well-known ones on the North York Moors to lesser-known ones around Penistone and Thurlstone and farther-flung crosses on Dartmoor.

Altogether a fascinating day enjoyed by around 40 members, helped along by the usual excellent cakes and displays.

RWH/April 2014

Another glorious Spring day in the Yorkshire Dales, the pee-wits decoying, the pheasants whirring, the tiny lambs shivering pitifully on the frosted grass, as around 40 milestoners and guests gathered at Hebden near Grassington, to hear a variety of interesting speakers – though curiously there was little mention of actual milestones.
Our guest speaker was Christopher Evans from Scarborough, who described his findings on “Trods – paved ways in NE Yorkshire”, as used by panniermen, fish merchants and smugglers. Click here for full details.

This was followed by a profusely illustrated talk by one of our members, David Garside, with the provocative title “Boundary stones – more interesting than milestones?”  Those of us who share that view were treated to a wide variety, plain and fancy: county, monastic, manorial, chapelry, industrial and parish – as were those who don’t.  The picture on the right shows how interesting boundary stones can be: taken on the road from Skipton to Hebden it is unusual in having been erected by a Highway District (the bodies created by the Highways Act of 1862, which also took over when turnpike trusts failed).  This marks the boundary between Rylstone and Stirton-with-Thorlby, erected by the East Staincliffe HD (1864-1895).

Following lunch, with a chance to look at albums and peruse the hot-off-the-press Yorkshire Newsletter, Jan Scrine showed us the Society’s latest publicity ventures, being produced with the cooperation of Barnsley poet Ian McMillan.  Already out on Youtube is The Rabbit and the Milestone, showing how easy it is for any rabbit to find our milestones on Google Earth.  Watch it here:

And finally: “Cross at the cross-roads, 230 miles to Clovelly and a real puzzle” by Dr Lionel Scott, who showed us some intriguing waymarkers at junctions, ending with a plea for anyone to identify the obliterated destination “67 Miles” on a pre-turnpike milestone from the Great North Road at Robin Hood’s Well, seven miles north of Doncaster (pictured left).  Rescued when the A1 was widened back in the 1960s this now resides in a garden in nearby Brodsworth. [Personally, I think it’s lost the figure 1 and is 167 miles to London – Ed.].

Plenty of lively contributions from the floor ensured that this was another enjoyable meeting!  Next year’s meeting will be at the same venue on Sunday 21st April 2013.  Put it in your diaries now!

JS/RWH / April 2012