Wayside Features Recording Project - 2001 Update

by Nick Harling

 North Craven 
 Heritage Trust 

Since the project was featured in last year's journal, I have had an excellent response from members who are interested in recording the wayside features in their area.

Many interesting and little-known features have come to light, including a pair of original Keighley & Kendal turnpike milestones, a horse trough dated 1819, a couple of 18th century guide posts not recorded by the Ordnance Survey, and several interesting boundary markers. The project's main achievement for the millennium has been the restoration of the series of cast iron mileposts along the A65 (the old Keighley & Kendal Trust road) between Skipton and the Lancashire border at Cowan Bridge. This is thanks to a partnership between the North Craven Heritage Trust (recording), the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (funding), the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (co-ordination) and North Yorks County Council Highways Department (contracting).

The fruits of our labours can clearly be seen all along the A65, where the posts have been rubbed down, primed and repainted. In some cases, damaged posts have been re-welded on site. We should be proud that we now have the best looking mileposts in Yorkshire! Milestones and boundary posts seem to have dominated the project this year. In October I was invited to give a paper at the first national Milestone Conference, held at the Black Country Museum in Birmingham. I spoke about our project and received a great many congratulatory comments on behalf of the Trust. Our recording forms are now even being used for a similar project in Cornwall. A new Milestone Society was formed from the 80 or so people who attended the conference and I seem to have been co-opted onto the committee.... The main priority for 2001 will be collating and making sense of the information that the project has generated so far. Once all the details are computerised, the results will be made more widely available for Trust members to peruse. As ever, anyone with 'new finds', or who would like more information on the project and how to record features should contact me via Spread Eagle House, Kirkgate, Settle, BD24 9DZ.

 

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Stephen Park: Lintel
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Stephen Park: Lintel

The inscription reads Be not too bold he that dotii pass must honest be not too bold for I you see; ie behave yourself you're being watched. Acknowledgment is made to Ian Roberts who says that, regarding HMBSE 1662. 'The Biggs family were at Stephen Park for much of the seventeenth century Henry Biggs was there in 1667.'