Back in January Mike Davies joined me to discuss turnpikes but today he dug is a little deeper to look at MILESTONES.
In 1555 by an Act of Parliament individual parishes were made responsible for the upkeep of roads within their boundaries, which was a fine whilst roads were used by pedestrians or riders of horses but heavier through traffic such as carts caused damage but the perpetrators were not liable for the damage that could not be fixed by the ordinary measures.
And so it was that the first TURNPIKE ACT was introduced in 1663 and by 1836 a fifth of the road network was involved.
These roads had “ milestones” along the route showing travellers how far they had to travel , and many of these remain on many Essex Road and one these remains to this day on the A 128 on the way into Brentwood.
But believe it or not but the history of milestones can be traced back to the ancient Romans, who used them to mark distances along their roads for efficiency and timing and erected stone markers at mile intervals, or more precisely at every 1000th double step, to notify the passerby of distances covered or the number of miles to go to reach their destination. These markers were conveniently called milestones!
A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway line, canal or boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks like mileage signs; or they can give their position on the route relative to some datum location. On roads they are typically located at the side or in a median or central reservation. They are alternatively known as mile markers, mileposts or mile posts.
They were installed to provide linear referencing points along the road. This can be used to reassure travellers that the proper path is being followed, and to indicate either distance travelled or the remaining distance to a destination. Such references are also used by maintenance engineers and emergency services to direct them to specific points where their presence is required. This term is sometimes used to denote a location on a road even if no physical sign is present.
And railway operators were also compelled, under The RAILWAYS CLAUSES CONSOLIDATION ACT in 1848, to provide their passengers with a means of determining the distance travelled.
In Essex alone 15 trusts were established between 1695 and 1808 – Essex and Herts/Epping and Ongar/Barking/Tilbury/Lea Bridge but the one I want to concentrate on is the Essex Trust which was split into 7 districts with number 7 being the “Rochford Hundred Adjoining Roads Division of the Essex Turnpikes” which was founded in 1746-7.
I quote from the Act…. “ The road leading from the Eagle and Child ( Tabors corner—closed in 2020, demolished, and now houses) in the parish of Shenfield, by Billericay to the town of Rayleigh and from thence to the town of Rochford, and from the town of Rayleigh to Leigh..”
Toll gates were at Hutton, Great Burstead and Stoud Green( between Rayleigh and Rochford) and Thundersley with “side gates” as well.
Many other Trusts were established as road usage became more intense such as, Hadleigh/Rawreth to Chelmsford/Dunmow/Coggeshall and many others.
Reports of the Trust meetings were widely reported in the local press.
And then in 1695 a Turnpike Act was introduced to cover routes between the roads between Shenfield and Harwich and by 1750 most of the main roads out of London had been turnpiked.
In 1746/7 the Rochford Hundred branch of the Essex Turnpike Trust was formed. his consisted of 42 acting trustees covering roads between Rayleigh and Rochford and Rayleigh to Leigh via Hadleigh.
The number and positions of the toll gates were left to the trustees who had local knowledge of the most used cross roads and thus established at strategic points so as to catch the maximum number of travellers.
It’s interesting to note that milestones were compulsory at all turnpikes not only to inform travellers of direction and distances, but to help coaches keep to schedule and for charging for changes of horses at the coaching inns.
The distances were also used to calculate postal charges before the uniform postal rate was introduced in 1840.
Of course the ever-increasing volume of traffic resulted in maintenance issues and the arrival of the railway proved to be a catalyst for change so that by 1854 various applications were made to abolish the many Turnpikes Trusts.
Anyway you can learn more by listening to what Mike told me today here: –
Later in today’s show we heard about a birthday party in Spain that had to be ended prematurely when eight guests were taken to hospital – because the cake had an extra ingredient.
It seems that two brothers had been celebrating their birthday at a bar in Oviedo in northern Spain when some guests began to feel a little strange after biting into a birthday cake baked by the mother of one of the guests.
Bemused medical staff at Asturias Central Hospital immediately realised what was up when the stoned party-goers arrived in the emergency ward and contacted police.
The guest who had brought the cake was ‘in no fit state to be interrogated’, said police, but they soon discovered the culprit when they called his mother who admitted to getting a bit creative with her cooking by adding butter mixed with marijuana
Health officials noted all the guests were over 18 and none of them suffered any permanent damage.
Well hopefully you will not have suffered any permanent danmage from listening to today’s show and will be able to join me again tomorrow,
Scott
