The old milestone on Minchinhampton Common

Back on the common I wanted to record this old milestone which stands a couple of yards from the road's verge. The road is the old route, from where the five valleys meet in what is now the centre of Stroud town,  up onto the common to form the stagecoach route to Cirencester and London.

The road was turnpiked back in the 1752 but was probably only tarmacked after the 1930s. I've seen aerial photos of the common which show the 'roads' were still covered in light coloured stone.

This milestone plate is probably quite recent possibly from when the tarmacking occurred. It has been attached to a common form of large oolitic limestone which is found in quarries around this area. The whole of its rear is pockmarked in the same way that you see on its side.

This style of stone is commonly found as parts of old gateways to farms and their fields. They provide supports from which wooden gates would have been hung using holes drilled into the stone for simple iron hinges.

Stroud 3 
Hampton 1
Cirencester 11

From the wonderful British History Online, which carries all the  'Victoria County History – Gloucestershire':
'The ancient highway running across the common and down Rodborough hill was apparently important at first as part of a route between London and the Severn passages at Framilode and Arlingham;  later, however, and particularly after being turnpiked in 1752, it provided the principal link between London and the Stroud cloth-producing region, and Rodborough became a centre of the carrying trade. A branch road leading down steeply from the common through Butter Row to the river-crossing at Bowbridge linked the London road and the eastern end of Stroud town. In 1825 it was replaced by a new turnpike, following a longer but less steep route, and a toll-house with a restored charges-board survives at Butter Row.  In 1780 the new Bath – Gloucester road was built along the Nailsworth valley to Dudbridge, and a branch from Lightpill to Stroud, roughly on the line of a temporary way made for a visit of George III in 1788, was built in 1800.  The road up the hill by Rodborough Manor, linking the new Bath road to the London turnpike, was either built or improved under the 1780 Act.'