Introduction and site index

As we travel the highways and byways in the 21st century it all too easy to forget that roads as we know them are a comparatively recent happening.  Even within living memory side roads which now are part of the daily rush hour rat runs were very often little more than unsurfaced cart tracks.  My mother, aged 92 (in 2003), recalls that in her late childhood even some fairly major roads in Essex were still rutted and subject to weather conditions - dusty in summer and full of puddles in winter.  If this was the state of roads in the early part of the 20th century it is not too hard to imagine conditions in the preceding centuries.  Since joining The Milestone Society in 2001 my formerly casual interest in milestones and the roads along which they were placed has become an obsession.  Tracing old and often obscure routes go hand in hand with the milestone and turnpike story.  Trying to discover why some milestones still exist along what are now backwaters while others have long disappeared along more obvious routes is a fascinating pastime.

Guideposts (also known as fingerposts, direction posts or more commonly, signposts) are another feature alongside our roads that only receive a casual glance except when a driver is lost.  After 1920 the Essex County Council placed a massive order for cast iron guide posts with the Maldon Iron Works.  There was hardly a corner of Essex where these could not be seen.  Orders were still being placed as late as 1940.  However, since the late 1950s and early 1960s many have disappeared for ever and replaced with either wooden examples with stick-on letters or the "standard" highways type.  A recent loss of this type was at Tolleshunt D'arcy (Essex) where an early cast iron signpost (probably an example by the Maldon Iron Works) was replaced by a new example during road works.  The old one more than adequately served its purpose.  Another case of "progress" destroying heritage.  

Once located and recorded, I will also add other associated "forgotten" roadside items to these pages such as boundary markers (there are some nice boundary stones along the former A11) and tollhouses.  Unfortunately, the day job (which pays the bills!) has to come first so updates to these pages will come at random periods.

I welcome any information or comments.  Please email me or use the Guestbook, Forum or the Yahoo! Groups links below.  Any information used in these pages will be duly acknowledged.