MilestoneSocietyONE

Hello, I’m MilestoneSocietyONE,  I’m a mini-milestone from Elland in the West Riding of Yorkshire and I want to visit one of my older relatives, The Bunny Stone, who lives at GC45XHN, in Wiltshire.

Hello, I’m MilestoneSocietyONE,  I’m a mini-milestone and I want to visit one of my older relatives, The Bunny Stone, who lives at GC45XHN, in Wiltshire.
 
After Roman times, roads developed to meet local community needs - churches, markets, abbey landlords, the packhorse carriers – but in the early 1700s travel was very slow and  difficult; the sunken lanes became quagmires in winter and occasionally both horse and riders were drowned! It took 16 days to cover the 400 miles from London to Edinburgh. So as commercial interests increased, Turnpike Trusts were set up by Acts of Parliament from 1706 to the 1840s. Groups of local worthies raised money to repair or build stretches of highway and users were charged tolls to pay for it, just like the “M6” Toll today. Although pedestrians did not have to pay, the poor resented the tolls on their horses, donkeys, wagons and cattle and there were riots.
 
From 1767, mileposts were compulsory on all turnpike 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.
 
I started out on the Dewsbury to Elland Turnpike of 1780; my home milestone was one of the 200 set up by the new West Riding County Council in the 1890s, so it’s been there a long time. It’s in the ownership of Calderdale Council now and looks very unloved 
 
I’d like to visit my older brother, the Bunny Stone !! He’s at GC45 XHN. You can find out about the huge variety of milestones by looking on the Milestone Society’s website, www.milestonesociety.co.uk    (Hint!)  
 
Can you help me? I’d like to visit some other milestones, boundary markers or tollhouses on the way, and there’s a list on flipflopnick’s Bookmarks – 
 
http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=ccc5d062-8a4c-47b0-af44-38c1387a2b2c
 
How long will it take me to travel the three hundred miles, with plenty of stop-overs?!!