To Shotatton

Today I restarted with Phase 2, starting at the Horeshoe Inn, Uckington, where the turnpike road parted company with the Roman road to Wroxeter. From now on, I'll be following Thomas Telford's road to Holyhead.

First, though, we had stayed overnight at Wroxeter. I resumed acquaintance with Robert at English Heritage's Wroxeter Roman City. I also visited, again, the church, under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust - and which has multiple periods of churchbuilding history on display. We also visited Wroxeter Roman Vineyard to sample and buy some local produce. Best of all was the chat from the proprietor (I must get his name), as a local person talking about the Roman connections. His mother remembers seeing the structure of the Roman ford over the Severn.

Back to today, of which the highlight was my visit to Lord Hill's column in Shrewsbury. I've seen this as something of a twin to the Marquis of Anglesey's column in Llanfairpwll, both from the same period as Telford's road and almost bookending it. I had arranged to meet Richard Hayes, one of the Friends of the column, who let me in and was the perfect guide. Particularly impressive was the cast-iron handrail, with its legend cast into it all the way up. We went to the top and the weather was such that I was blessed with views of my route, all the way to Berwyn.

Now, about the milestones. On the way to Wroxeter, there really were not that many of the turnpike (or earlier) stones to be seen. I tweeted and blogged all that I saw, and one or two more. I always knew that I would see more on Telford's road, where they are better preserved.

Once I'm in Wales, Quartermaine's book (of which more in later posts) has documented all of them, and the Institute of Civil Engineers have arranged for reproductions of the few that were missing. Once I'm in Wales, I fully expect to see a milestone every mile, so I won't be tweeting every one. In Shropshire, however, they're not all there, and not so well preserved, so every one I see is a bonus.

Of the Telford milestones, they start at 106 miles to Holyhead; that and a few others were prominent enough. 104 miles was almost covered by ivy, and 101 present but almost buried; I walked past it once without seeing it. 103, 102, 98 and 99 ought to have been there but I didn't see them. I can't say they weren't there: had I come along with a strimmer, or better still a team of strimmer operators, I might have found them.

Earlier, I had failed to find two others before Shrewsbury. Just after my start, near the junction of B4394 and B4380, there should be a milestone: it's not listed, but it's on the current OS map. It probably ought to say LONDON 146 SHIFNAL 13 SALOP 4M 6F. Here vegetation wasn't a problem, but despite searching hard for it, no success. There should be another one a mile further on, just after Atcham Bridge, and this time it's listed - again, no luck.

This why I'm tweeting so many milestones. They're more frequent now, but not quite enough so.

This was a long walk today - 17 miles on the road and another 3 to get to my B&B, probably longer than any day of Phase 1. They will get shorter, and fortunately the weather was good all day.