Geograph - photograph every grid square

This milepost on the north side of the B6528 where the road crosses Great Hill, east of Heddon village, has a cast-iron shield with the raised letters and arrows: Newcastle 7 [miles], Hexham 13 1/2. It is the same post illustrated in Link (Archive Link ) which records it in the wrong location.

From 1767, mileposts were compulsory on all turnpikes (toll roads), not only to inform travellers of direction and distances, but to help coaches keep to schedule and for charging for changes of horses at the coaching inns. The distances were also used to calculate postal charges before the uniform postal rate was introduced in 1840. At the height of the turnpike era (from 1706 to the 1840s) there were 20,000 miles of roads with milestones.
Link

The metal shield type posts, originally painted black on white, on the old Newcastle to Carlisle road probably date from the early C20th, and were made by Smith Paterson at the Pioneer Foundry in Blaydon which was in operation between 1870 and 1954. Several similar examples in Northumberland have been Listed Link Link