Milestone Approximately 100M South-West Of War Memorial

This is a milestone dating from 1830, located approximately 100 metres southwest of the War Memorial on Tregolls Road in Truro. It is designated at Grade II for its historic interest and group value.

The milestone is triangular in plan with a flat top and chamfered edges, rising to a height of 0.85 metres and a width of 0.55 metres. It stands on the verge of the road, on the east side of the A390. Two cast iron plates are set flush into the dressed stone on either road-facing side. The left plate is inscribed 'TRURO 1 / FALMOUTH 11½', and the right plate reads 'BODMIN 23¼ / LONDON 249'. The typefaces used on the two plates are different. The stone and the plates are painted white with black lettering.

The milestone is part of a series of twelve erected in 1830 by Benjamin Bowden, with the cast-iron plates produced by Perran Foundry, as part of road improvements commissioned under the renewal of the General Turnpike Act of 1828 which aimed to provide a modern route from Falmouth to London. Eleven other milestones from this series survive, stretching northeast from Truro to Fraddon.

A new road route, avoiding a steep hill, was constructed in 1835, altering the distances displayed on the milestones. Discrepancies in the recorded distances were noted on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1880. The second edition map from 1907 shows corrected distances, suggesting new mileage plates were fitted sometime between those dates, likely in 1889 when the County Council took over the road’s maintenance.