Way To Go!

Norfolk’s Milestone Man, Nigel Ford, has been shortlisted in a national competition

- Rowan Mantell

ACROSS the county once-neglected pieces of stone, found buried, broken or covered in brambles, are being restored.

More than 150 historic milestones and mileposts have been discovered, cleaned, repainted and set back beside the roads of Norfolk.

Long before sat-navs and map apps, milestones would line the routes between towns and villages, showing people they were on the right road and telling them how much further they had to go. Norfolk’s oldest stone dates back more than 250 years and an estimated 360 milestones are still dotted across the county.

Eight years ago retired window cleaner Nigel Ford, of Hardingham, near Wymondham, came upon a damaged milestone and realised that his twin grandsons might one day have to go to a museum to see a milestone unless someone stepped in to help. So he began his quest to rescue and restore the roadside stones. Soon his hobby was also a tribute to the Queen.