A rare surviving granite milestone in Essex.  The photograph above dates from 18 March 2002 and shows the stone covered in algae.  The crudely cut inscription is just about discernible.

On 28 July 2002, after a good scrub down with a laundry brush and mild soapy water, the stone looked much more pleasant in the landscape.  The photo above shows the back of the newly cleaned stone.  Traces of white paint and specks of black paint in the inscription were found when the algae and bird droppings had been removed.

The cleaned stone with the inscription repainted with black artists acrylic paint.  It shows to good effect the poor quality of the original engraving; something not uncommon with the use of harder rocks elsewhere in the United Kingdom.  An Ordnance Survey benchmark has been crudely incised into the centre of LONDON/23.  (Visible in the pre-clean up picture.)  This was not painted for aesthetic reasons.