It stands, in fact, on the kerb at the right-hand side of Kennington Road, between Nos. 230 and 232, just short of Lower Kennington Lane, and is a poor old battered relic, set anglewise and with the top broken away, bearing the legend, in what was once bold lettering:
. . . . . . . MILE
HORSEGUARDS
WHITEHALL
That is the first milestone on the Brighton Road. Sterne, were he here to-day, would shed salt tears of sentiment upon it, we may be sure. It says nothing whatever about Brighton, and is probably the one and only stone that takes the Horseguards as a datum.
About forty yards beyond this initial landmark is another “first” milestone: a tall, upstanding affair, certainly a century old, with three blank sides, and a fourth inscribed:
This is followed by a long series of stones of one pattern, probably dating from 1800, marking every half mile. The series starts with the stone on the kerb close by the tramway office at the triangle, where the Brixton Road begins. It records on two sides “Royal Exchange 2½ miles,” and on a third “Whitehall 2 miles,” and is followed, opposite No. 158, Brixton Road, by a stone carrying on the tale by another half a mile. These silent witnesses may be traced nearly into Croydon, with sundry gaps where they have been removed. Those recording the 4th, 6th, 8½th, 9½th, and 10th miles from Whitehall are missing, the last of the series now extant being that at the corner of Broad Green Avenue, making “Whitehall 9 miles, Royal Exchange 9½ miles.” The 10th from Whitehall, ending the series, stood at the corner of the Whitgift Hospital.
These were succeeded by one of the old eighteenth-century series, marking eleven miles from Westminster Bridge and twelve from the “Standard,” but neither new nor old stone is there now, and the only one of the thirteen mentioned by the London Evening Post of 1743 is this near Purley Corner.
This, marking the 13th mile from the “Standard” and the 12th from Westminster Bridge is common to both routes, but is followed by the first of a new series some way along Smitham Bottom, on which Brighton is for the first time mentioned:
XIII
MILES
FROM
WESTMINSTER
BRIDGE
—
38½
MILES
TO
BRIGHTON
The character of the lettering and the general style of this series would lead to the supposition that they are dated about 1820. There are three stones in all of this kind, the third marking 15 miles from Westminster Bridge and 36½ to Brighton, followed by a series of triangular cast-iron marks, continued through Redhill, of which the first bears the legend, “Parish of Merstham.” On the north side is “16 from Westminster Bridge, 35 to Brighton,” and on the south “35 from Brighton, 16 to Westminster Bridge.” It will be observed that in this first one of a new series half a mile is dropped, and henceforward the mileage to Brighton becomes by authority 51 miles. Like the confectioner who “didn’t make ha’porths,” the turnpike trust which erected these mile-“stones” refused to deal in half miles.