Some Thoughts on the North Wales milestones

So at last I have gone through all my pictures, filled in a few gaps, and put up all the North Wales milestones on the blog. The great thing is that there are so many of them on this leg of the route - not quite one per mile, but very nearly.

This is partly because, after the Quatermaine book, and the Welsh Government deciding they wanted to preserve the historic road, steps were taken to replace missing stones with new ones. In total, there should be 83 milestones, of which 79 of the original limestones are still standing (not necessarily in their original location - that's a further complication which I may address later). Of these, 42 have the original cast-iron plates with the mileage to Holyhead and the next coaching stop either way. The rest have reproduction plates, cast as closely as possible to the originals but additionally with '2003' shown in smaller letter, so we know they're later. A further three milestones have reproduction plates in reproduction stone, where the original stone had been lost or was irretrievably broken.

This leaves just one location - 2 miles to Holyhead - where there is no milestone at all. This might be because the original milestone would have been under what later became the Anglesey Aluminium works, and the road was diverted round it, although I find that a poor excuse not to have replaced it when all the others were done.

In relation to what is officially classed a listed building or structure, the general rule adopted seems to be that only those with the original plates should be protected in this way. This seems a reasonable enough criterion, except that I found that they haven't always followed the rule - some with an original plate are not listed, and some with a reproduction plate are listed - and no obvious justification for that. I will take it up with Cadw.

Considering it was nearly twenty years ago when these milestones were addressed and replacements made, I wanted to see how well they've lasted, and whether the effort put to their conservation can still be seen. There is some variation in their condition and accessibility, as my pictures show. A good number are in very good condition and stand proud by the roadside so that even the casual passer-by would have little doubt what they are. The best stand in front of an arch built into the side wall of the road, probably preserving in this a feature of the original wall.

Some were obscured by vegetation and were as a result hard to find. Sometimes I managed to pull away the ivy or whatever it was before taking a picture, but it wasn't always safe to do so, so they have remained as they were. Some are just dirty (and some of the blurrier pictures of mine were just taken in the rain).

There's a lot of variation in how the paint has lasted, with a lot of rust showing through even in some of the new replacement plates. I often found myself thinking, wouldn't it be nice if local people got together to look after their milestone and ensure it could be seen (subject of course to safety on the road). This has indeed happened, in the case of the paint, for at least two milestones, at 8 and 83 miles to Holyhead:

However, I found myself a little ambivalent about this development, for although in each case the milestone is better looked after, they've changed the painting scheme. At 83 miles, it's black letters on a white background when all the others in Wales are white letters on a black background (Telford's original painting scheme, for better visibility in snow, according to Bob Daimond). Granted this is the first one in Wales and therefore the same scheme as 84 miles, the next one along over the border in England. The 8-mile changes are more subtle: painting the bolts white and painting the bevel of the stone, in addition to the plate, black. It looks nice, but it's not the same as the others; again I'm worrying about authenticity.

Finally, this milestone is not in a particularly good condition, and is one with a reproduction plate, but it stands on a length of the old road which is now just a footpath - in this case just south of the A55 and north of Lon Isaf Tollgate. This means it can be readily accessed, so I could cut away the vegetation at leisure,  and more to the point the authorities have raised it so that it now stands at something like the original height of the milestones above the roadway - in other cases, successive layers of tarmac have built the road up the front of the stone. Here alone you get the idea what it looked like when first placed.