The Brighton Road: The Classic Highway to the SouthHarper, Charles G. (Charles George)
History
The Brighton Road: The Classic Highway to the South
Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
Brighton Road (London, England); England -- Description and travel; England -- Social life and customs
This is followed by a long series of stones of one pattern, probably
dating from 1800, marking every _half_ mile. The series starts with the
stone on the kerb close by the tramway office at the triangle, where the
Brixton Road begins. It records on two sides "Royal Exchange 2-1/2 miles,"
and on a third "Whitehall 2 miles," and is followed, opposite No. 158,
Brixton Road, by a stone carrying on the tale by another half a mile.
These silent witnesses may be traced nearly into Croydon, with sundry gaps
where they have been removed. Those recording the 4th, 6th, 8-1/2th,
9-1/2th, and 10th miles from Whitehall are missing, the last of the series
now extant being that at the corner of Broad Green Avenue, making
"Whitehall 9 miles, Royal Exchange 9-1/2 miles." The 10th from Whitehall,
ending the series, stood at the corner of the Whitgift Hospital.
These were succeeded by one of the old eighteenth-century series, marking
eleven miles from Westminster Bridge and twelve from the "Standard," but
neither new nor old stone is there now, and the only one of the thirteen
mentioned by the _London Evening Post_ of 1743 is this near Purley Corner.
This, marking the 13th mile from the "Standard" and the 12th from
Westminster Bridge is common to both routes, but is followed by the first
of a new series some way along Smitham Bottom, on which Brighton is for
the first time mentioned:
XIII
MILES
FROM
WESTMINSTER
BRIDGE
--
38-1/2
MILES
TO
BRIGHTON
The character of the lettering and the general style of this series would
lead to the supposition that they are dated about 1820. There are three
stones in all of this kind, the third marking 15 miles from Westminster
Bridge and 36-1/2 to Brighton, followed by a series of triangular
cast-iron marks, continued through Redhill, of which the first bears the
legend, "Parish of Merstham." On the north side is "16 from Westminster
Bridge, 35 to Brighton," and on the south "35 from Brighton, 16 to
Westminster Bridge." It will be observed that in this first one of a new
series half a mile is dropped, and henceforward the mileage to Brighton
becomes by authority 51 miles. Like the confectioner who "didn't make
ha'porths," the turnpike trust which erected these mile-"stones" refused
to deal in half miles.
XV
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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