Celebrating Stone in our Yorkshire landscape with the Tour de France
Francesca Dolan, a second-year History and English student at Huddersfield University, is doing a coursework placement with the Beyond-Graffiti project. She was intrigued by the route of Le Grand Depart along older highways in Calderdale:
Yorkshire is a country full of historical stone monuments and milestones, many of which are situated on the Tour de France route. In fact the Tour de France traces the route of many ancient Roman roads and will even be marked by surviving eighteenth century milestones.
The earliest milestones were put in place by the Romans, used as way markers on military roads, several of these milestones survive to this day however many of Yorkshire’s milestones date more currently to around the nineteenth century. From 1767 onwards, milestones were compulsory on all turnpikes to inform all coaches and travellers of distance and directions. Unfortunately, although many these milestones are still in existence today they generally seem to go unnoticed due to more modern road signs. Although it is not uncommon for some the oldest milestones to be set back from the main roads used today, other milestones, particularly in the Halifax area; will be a prominent feature in the tour de France event. Stage two of the tour de France, travelling from York to Sheffield on July 6th 2014 sees the cyclists passing some of these historic milestones.
Milestones which should particularly be looked out for exist in the Cragg Vale area, near Hebden Bridge. Cragg Vale has two milestones which will be passed en route to Ripponden, additionally, Greetland Road directly on the tour de France route is home to a grade two listed milestone which will be passed when traveling from Ripponden to Huddersfield. Also a milestone sitting right on track for the Tour de France is situated on Elland Road, opposite the Milestone bistro and can be seen on the corner of the road.
Milestones are a fascinating feature of our Yorkshire history and it is nice to know they still adorn the roads of today. So if you are intending to watch the Tour de France, please keep an eye out for these much overlooked features of our Yorkshire roads.
If you would like find out more about the milestones in our Yorkshire landscape and forthcoming events then please visit www.yorkshire-milestones.co.uk for more information. Additionally there will be exhibitions held all through July at the Packhorse Gallery, Huddersfield and Oakwell Hall, Birstall celebrating stone in our landscape.
