The Monday Photo

Many milestones and mileposts have gone missing over the years, but this is the one that came back.

This steel milepost had been installed at Hillesden by Bucks County Council in the late 19th or early 20th Century. It’s the type known as a Bucks Pressing. It went missing thirty years ago and wasn’t seen again until a householder in Oxfordshire found it hidden in the hedge in their garden, in a very bad state.

The milepost had vanished (I presume stolen) in the early 1990s; about half the length of the milepost is underground so it must have been quite a job to remove it.

The householder approached Peter Gullard of the Milestone Society when he was out in their county, who contacted the Buckinghamshire Council Archaeology Service (BCAS) in July 2021.

“Brill” and “Buckingham” were just visible on the rusty, paint faded sides of the milepost, and “Hillesden” could just be seen in the curved top. That was enough to work out where it had come from.

Blacksmith
In January last year the milepost was taken from the house in Oxfordshire to D. Moss, Blacksmith in Thame to be restored. Peter Gullard funded the restoration works.

On October 25th that year the milepost was reinstated. It’s by the turning to The Hamlet (a sign says  “Hillesden Hamlet Only”) on an unclassified road between Gawcott and Edgecott. It is three miles from Buckingham and thirteen miles from Brill.

The milestone is a bit unusual, because it is on a road that was never a turnpike. It’s a different story from the milestone at Winslow I showed you last week.

You can find the location on Google Maps easily enough, but the milestone must have been put back after their last pass with the camera car; it isn’t yet visible on Streetview.