Milestone Near

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A waist height granite milestone located on the Loughbrickland Road at Monaghans Bridge on the west side of the road, beside a railway field gate..

Historical information

The current milestone (bearing the number 61 on three sides) is one of a series of three similar stones installed along the W side of the road running between Gilford and Loughbrickland (Loughbrickland/Lisnagade Road). The milestones are difficult to date with any certainty. However, we can tentatively attribute them to the mid to late 18th century when the current road was a major route connecting Newry and Dublin with Portadown, Lurgan and Moira. The stones are consistent in location with milestones indicated on Taylor & Skinner’s map of the area in 1777. The current milestone was moved slightly from its original position in the 1850s (see below)

Some indication of date can be derived from the general simplicity of the stones, which bear no other information than the distance in Irish miles from/to Dublin carved on three sides – this suggests an early date, later milestones generally displaying distances to various nearby towns. The statute mile was mandated across the British Empire by the Weights and Measures Act of 1824 and therefore, in theory, supplanted Irish miles. However, this is not definitive as the Irish mile persisted in many contexts. For example, milestones on the route from Castlewellan to Downpatrick, installed in 1849, bear distances in Irish miles. The style of the numerals on the current stones resembles ‘Roundhand’, the dominant handwriting style of the 18th century, which also influenced printed fonts of the period.

A further important source of dating information is the development of the road on which the milestones are found. The road is considered to have ‘evolved’ rather than being a planned road (Fulton) and is of some antiquity, initially developing as a customary route for travellers on foot and by horse from Gilford (a plantation town established by 1680 and having a substantial linen industry in the 18th and 19th centuries) and Loughbrickland (earlier in origin and planted after 1585). It may have incorporated earlier trackways serving the crossing of the Bann at Tullylish and indeed prehistoric routes providing access to Lisnagade Iron Age fort complex.

The road had not acquired sufficient importance to be shown on late 17th century maps of the transport network in Ireland (e.g. Morden 1695). One of the earliest all Ireland maps to show the road is Herman Moll’s 1714 New Map of Ireland. From this date onwards the road appears on most 18th century maps of the island of Ireland and can therefore be considered as a significant routeway at this period.

Initially the road would have been maintained by the parish using unpaid statutory labour. However, a presentment system of road funding was gradually introduced from c1710 onwards and after 1765 the parochial system was ended, the various Grand Juries becoming responsible for road building and maintenance of most roads. Many of the County Down presentment books have survived and entries showing monies presented for repairs to the road from Loughbrickland to Gilford appear regularly from 1778 (the earliest surviving book), likely indicating that the road was heavily used at this period.

It is possible that the milestones were installed around the time the Grand Jury took over responsibility for this road, but as the presentment system was introduced gradually, an exact date is hard to pin down. The period 1750 to 1850 was the peak of road construction and improvement under the presentment system and as the road network increased in complexity, milestones no doubt increased in importance, however, no record could be found in surviving presentment records for the installation of milestones along the current road. By 1783, malicious damage to or destruction of milestones was a sufficient concern that the Irish parliament enacted a penalty or imprisonment for perpetrators (23 & 24 Geo III, c42, s.3). In 1796, the Irish parliament granted the grand juries a statutory power to raise money from the county at large to erect ‘direction-posts, mile-stones or mile-posts, not exceeding one pound for each direction-post, and ten shillings for each mile-stone’ (36 Geo III, c.55.s.33). However presentment funds were certainly used to install milestones before this practice was formalised in the late 18th century (Rynne).

The first direct evidence for milestones along the route comes from Taylor & Skinner’s maps of Ireland (1777). Taylor & Skinner’s map of the area shows the road and also indicates mile markers along it, in the rough locations of the current milestones. Although it is not clear that the mile markers on Taylor & Skinner maps always refer to actual milestones, the presence of the stones today at the indicated locations is persuasive. (Historic OS maps do not indicate the stones until the 3rd edition (60 and 61) and the 4th edition (59)).

Taylor & Skinner identify this road as one of two alternative routes for travelling to Waringstown, Dromore and Lurgan (the other being via Banbridge) and thence to locations north and east. At this period Loughbrickland lay on the main turnpike road between Dublin and Belfast (a turnpike from 1733), and the current road not only formed a feeder into the turnpike road, but also potentially provided an alternative route eastward for those seeking to avoid the toll. A few years later in 1788, the ‘Post-chaise Companion’, billed as a ‘travellers’ directory through Ireland’ identifies the road from Loughbrickland to Gilford as one of two possible routes from Dublin to Portadown (the other being via Tandragee) and as a route from Dublin to Lurgan, the alternative being via Banbridge.

The ‘Traveller’s New Guide Through Ireland’, published in 1815, continues to offer the Loughbrickland to Gilford road as a main route, in this case for travel from Dublin to Moira, while also giving the route via Banbridge as an alternative. This travellers’ guide is unusual in mentioning many milestones and the features associated with them, and includes two of the current milestones, describing the 60th (‘a cross road runs right and left’) and 61st milestones (‘the road from Scarvah unites on the left’) [this road is actually somewhat beyond the location of the milestone and suggests that the writer consulted a small-scale map, perhaps Taylor & Skinner, rather than travelling the road].

The 19th century saw a gradual lessening in the status of the current road. We see this from maps of the island of Ireland, which often do not show the road (e.g. Thomson 1819, SDUK 1838). An 1832 map of ‘post towns and mail conveyances’ shows that the current road was not used for mail coaches at this time and was not even the route followed by mounted post boys, who instead travelled from Loughbrickland to Gilford via Tandragee. A map commissioned by the Railway Commissioners in 1837 to help identify the busiest road transport routes in Ireland, does not include the road. By this time, passengers by ‘public conveyance’ from Newry and Dublin were travelling to Lurgan via Banbridge and to Portadown via Tandragee.

This change from a national to a more local route may have been due to the increase in heavy wheeled traffic and the topography of the current road, which is hilly compared to the alternatives and therefore more difficult for a cart or carriage to negotiate. Alternative modes of transport are bound to have also had an impact, such as the Newry Canal, which increased in importance in the early 19th century, and the rail network which became the principal means of undertaking long distance travel after the 1850s. The reduction in status of the road in the 19th century is additional evidence that the milestones were likely to have been installed at an earlier period.

The Banbridge Junction Railway which was constructed between 1852 and 1859 passes under the current road at the point where the 61 mile stone is located. As the milestone had most likely been in place for a considerable period before this, the stone must have been moved during construction works. A cutting was made to accommodate the railway tracks but the road north of the bridge, where the milestone is located, was also embanked to create a level access onto the bridge. It therefore appears most likely that the milestone was effectively moved vertically to a new position in the 1850s, although it continues to measure one Irish mile from the previous stone.

With the coming of the age of motorised transport, the road network assumed greater prominence once again. However, the current road never regained its former importance, and when classification of roads in Northern Ireland took place in 1923, it did not receive an A or B designation. Currently it is designated as a C road (C350).

The stones are of granite, and although this is not a stone that was quarried in the area around the road itself, granite was abundantly available in the hills and mountains to the S and E of Loughbrickland. The stones strongly resemble another group of milestones which are to be found on the Newry to Newcastle Road in south Co Down, also an ‘evolved’ road maintained by presentment. Also made of local granite, of a similar size, square on plan with a pyramidal top, the stones are engraved with the distance from Newry on three sides. The similarity between the two sets of stones strongly suggests a connection – they may have been installed at a similar period and both sets may also have been funded by presentment from the County.

References:
Primary Sources:

1. PRONI OS/6/2/33/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1834)
2. PRONI OS/6/2/33/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1860)
3. PRONI OS/6/2/33/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1903)
4. PRONI OS/6/2/33/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1903-18)
5. PRONI DOW/4/2/1-8 – Grand Jury Presentment Books for County Down (1778-1816)
6. Harness, Henry Drury (1837) Map of Ireland to accompany the report of the Railway Commissioners shewing the relative number of passengers in different directions by regular public conveyances. London: James Gardner
7. Moll, H (1714) A new map of Ireland divided into its provinces, counties & baronies. QUB Ewart Map Collection.
8. Morden, Robert (1695) The Kingdom of Ireland. In Camden, William. Britannia. Oxford: Edmund Gibson, Queen’s College
9. Northern Ireland Road Map (1926) https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/
10. Report from the Select Committee on Post Communication with Ireland. London: House of Commons, printed 9th August 1832 (contains ‘A new map of Ireland showing the post towns and mail conveyances throughout’)
11. Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (1838) Ireland, North Sheet. Published by Chapman & Hall. (www.davidrumsey.com)
12. Taylor, G and Skinner, A (1778) Taylor and Skinner’s Maps of the Roads of Ireland, surveyed 1777, Dublin: Wilson, W.
13. The Traveller’s New Guide Through Ireland (1815) Dublin: John Cumming, 16 Lower Ormond Quay
14. Thomson, John (1819) ‘Ireland’ New General Atlas. Edinburgh, London, Dublin: George Ramsay and Co (maps.nls.uk)
15. Wilson, W (1788) The Post-Chaise companion or travellers’ directory through Ireland. Dublin: For the author, 6 Dame Street.
16. 23 & 24 Geo III, c42, s.3 (Royal Assent 14 May 1784) An Act to further amend and explain an Act made in the Twelfth Year of His present Majesty's Reign, entitled, "An Act for the making of narrow Roads through the mountainous unimproved Parts of this Kingdom;" and also an Act made in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Years of His present Majesty's Reign, entitled, "An Act to amend an Act passed in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Years of His present Majesty's Reign, entitled, 'An Act for amending the Public Roads.'"
17. 36 Geo III, c.55.s.33 (Royal Assent 15 April 1796 An Act for the amendment of the public roads, for directing the power of grand juries respecting presentments, and for repealing several laws heretofore made for those purposes.

Secondary Sources:

18. Fulton, J T (1972) The roads of county Down 1600-1900. Unpublished PhD thesis, Queen’s University Belfast
19. Hamond, F (1997) Communications in County Down. In Proudfoot, L J ed. Down: history & society. Dublin: Geography Publications
20. McCutcheon, W A (1980) The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland. Belfast: HMSO
21. McDowell, J et al. (unpublished HED database) Settlement Sites (GHNUS)
22. Rynne, C (2006) Industrial Ireland 1750-1930: an archaeology. Cork: Collins Press

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
Z. Rarity
S. Authenticity
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This collection of 3 milestones along the Loughbrickland and Lisnagade Roads is one of a few of its kind in NI and constitutes one of the few surviving original components of the late 18th century road network. This stone is approximately 270mm square and stands approximately 700mm high with the number 61 engraved on the three visible sides and has a distinctive pyramidal top, it is well preserved, due to the nature of the material. This milestone is special as it is in its original location and retains its form, material and its original lettering in a Caslon font. It makes a significant contribution to the narrative of the group.