The mystery of a 250-year-old milestone in Surbiton Road has been solved by an associate professor from Kingston University.
Jean-Christophe Nebel saw the milestone while walking, and saw that most of the wording had been worn away by the weather and cement poured on it during the Second World War.
Dr Nebel enlisted the help of his wife Odalys as well as his research colleague Yannis Kazantzidis and his wife Olga. While Mr Kazantzidis was taking flash photographs of the stone in the dark, hoping the relief of the inscription would cast more legible shadows, he met Alan Birkinshaw, a film director who lives next to it. The milestone is unreadable now.
Through the internet and looking in different libraries, the group eventually found obscure nineteenth century newspaper articles to find the stone reads: “IIII Miles, 3 quarters, 1 furlong, and 28 rod from Ewell Market Place.”
Mr Birkinshaw is an international film and television director, who has recently made films about Kingston on his phone, so offered to make one about the “really quite fun” discovery. The film can be seen on Mr Birkinshaw’s Youtube channel Laughin’ Dog.
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