Past Activities

Northern Spring Meeting, April 2014

Milestone Society members have a wide range of interests, and the Northern Spring Meeting reflected many of these, together with a
generous interpretation of the broader term of "waymarkers".

It started traditionally enough with a Milestone Miscellany presented by the double-act of Dorothy Burrows and her husband. We were shown a selection of slides taken over many years showing interesting and unusual waymarkers from Yorkshire and beyond.

This was followed by a most interesting presentation by Shirley Addy, founder of the Village Sign Society (www.villagesignsociety.org.uk) on (can you guess?) village signs. We think of these as an East Anglian phenomenon (Norfolk has the most) but there are over 200 in Yorkshire and over 3,000 across the country as a whole.

After lunch (sadly the village shop and post office closed in December, but the pub, the Clarendon Hotel has opened a replacement to fill the gap) Jan Scrine gave us an update and short film on the Beyond Graffiti project. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JwREVwVmRU. Richard Heywood then gave a whistle-stop tour of street-names and their meanings, with particular reference to those connected to road and transport history.

Finally David Garside presented moorland crosses, with around 70 examples of all types (Saxon, monastic, estate, boundary, waymarker, etc) from the well-known ones on the North York Moors to lesser-known ones around Penistone and Thurlstone and farther-flung crosses on Dartmoor.

Altogether a fascinating day enjoyed by around 40 members, helped along by the usual excellent cakes and displays.

RWH/April 2014