Milepost on Drimnin to Dorlin road, at NM 57445 57214

Milepost on Drimnin to Dorlin road

This is one of seven cast iron mileposts probably erected in or shortly after 1897. The mileposts have fluted column posts that splay towards the base. At the top of the column post, on the front face, is an oval makers emblem for Pioneer Foundry in Blaydon-on-Tyne. The mile marker panels are in the form of two oval faces within a larger sub-oval cap, set on top of the post. The place names and distance numbers are in relief. The seven mileposts are unpainted and located along the Drimnin to Dorlin road.

These mileposts are part of the infrastructure associated with the Poor Relief Roads, which were constructed using money from the Poor Relief Fund. Poor Relief Roads are concentrated in remote areas across the west coast of Scotland. The Poor Relief Road in this vicinity ran from Lochaline to Dorlin. Around 1880, the road from Drimnin to Dorlin was completed using Poor Relief Fund money, upgrading existing routeways that had been shown on earlier maps. The road was essentially upgraded, rather than created, across its 11 kilometre length.

In 1897, or probably soon after, eight mileposts were erected along the route by Pioneer Foundry. The County Council briefly adopted the road in 1897 and may have been responsible for their erection. Today, seven of the mileposts between Drimnin and Dorlin survive. They are the same style and casting as mileposts used on the Isle of Mull, just across the Sound to the west of Drimnin, and other examples of this Pioneer Foundry design survive on the isles of Seil and Luing, in Ardnamurchan, and in Berwickshire and west Fife.