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If in the early 18th century you had a need to travel to London and you had the financial means, a coach would have been used, but unlike today, Horsepower meant exactly that.

Stagecoach
The road for this journey linking Shaftesbury and Salisbury today is the A30, however this has not always been the case. The A30 follows a valley floor running west to east and this road was often unpassable to coaches due to heavy mud, prior to the laying down of a road following the present course, in the mid 18th century.





The solution was to get up out of the valley floor and run along the southern most ridge of the valley. This became known as the Shaftesbury Drove (not to be confused with the Ox Drove several miles further south)


Access to this high ridge was gained at Whitesheet Hill, where because of the steep climb involved, an inn was built at the bottom to provide fresh horses before the ascent.

The Milestone
From here you rise approximately 100 metres or 325 feet in about a 2000 foot distance, a gradient of 16 per cent. As the rough track starts to level out at an altitude of 770 foot, in the field about 20 feet from the track edge, you will find an original milestone that was used to inform travellers of their distance. It seems to be out of place sat in the middle of nowhere at first sight, as you are well over half a mile, as the crow flies, from the present main road.
Continuing onwards for just over 4 miles will bring you to a house on your left called Fovant Hut, this was a second inn for another change of horses and further 'refreshment' if wanted.
The track then follows a gentle down hill course all the way to Harnham near Salisbury, where on route you would also have found yet another inn on this high Ridgeway track.

Visiting:-
The milestone is not shown on my large scale Ordnance, but my best estimate puts it just in square 9324, before you leave in a easterly direction.
There is a public footpath leaving the Drove at the same point, that runs by the side of the stone.

The Inscription Reads :-
" XCV11
MILES FROM
HYDE PARK CORNER

XIV
FROM SALISBURY

1736 "

Co-Ords: 394135 124096  

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