IDENTIFY - RECORD - RESEARCH - CONSERVE
Welcome to the website of The Milestone Society – the Friends of the milestones!
Unlike other ‘listed buildings’, milestones are usually too small to have their own ‘Friends’. Since 2001, the Society’s volunteers have been collating information on milestones and learning the most appropriate ways of caring for these quirky lumps of rock and rusting metal sitting quietly by the wayside…
Here you can find out about milestones and other waymarkers, their history and their heritage significance. They are distinctively local, constructed in idiosyncratic styles from vernacular materials; they also mark a path into the past, to the Romans, the statute labourers, the builders and travellers of the turnpike roads, to industrial travel and transport.
Where will you find milestones, guide posts, fingerposts, boundary markers, tollhouses ? Our volunteers have logged 31,230 records, accompanied by 21,150 images! You can see these mapped on Google Earth or listed in an Excel spreadsheet from our Where Are Milestones page.
The Society’s purpose is to encourage people – Highways and Local Authorities, Parishes, civic societies, local history groups, individuals - to look after their local milestones, which are at risk from neglect, vandalism, vehicle impacts and road works. But to use the appropriate materials, with due regard to permissions and safety – do read through our guidance note.
You can also find out more about the Society, its projects and heritage walks and how you can support our efforts:
“ I hope it will help give milestones a little bit of extra protection by having a picture on the National Heritage List as well. They’re probably our most vulnerable heritage assets. It’s so nice there’s a society for them.”
Lucy Parry
Heritage List Support Officer
Listing Group