Milestone - Melbourne Street

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Milestone - Melbourne Street

This Grade II listed, late C18th limestone milestone, with semi-circular top and cast-iron plate, is located outside the entrance to Reeves Farm on Melbourne Street, on the former Toll Road through the village, 3 miles to Westbury and 11 miles to Devizes.

From 1767, mileposts were compulsory on all turnpikes, 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, there were 20,000 miles of roads with milestones.

Turnpike trusts were established in England and Wales from about 1706 in response to the need for better roads than the few poorly-maintained tracks then available. Turnpike trusts were set up by individual Acts of Parliament, with powers to collect road tolls to repay loans for building, improving, and maintaining the principal roads in Britain which were used to distribute agricultural and industrial goods economically. At their peak, in the 1830s, over 1,000 trusts administered around 30,000 miles (48,000 km) of turnpike road in England and Wales, taking tolls at almost 8,000 toll-gates.

In Bratton, tolls were collected at Turnpike Cottage, located at the old Western boundary of the Village, where the Westbury Road intersects with the old drove route of Coombe Lane and Court Lane. The cottage’s function as a toll-collection point is said to span over a century, from 1757 until the early 1870s when the Westbury Turnpike Trust was abolished and all toll charges ceased.

Historic England listing

The Milestone Society

Turnpike Cottage, Westbury Road

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