A PROJECT to restore historic mile markers on routes leading to the centre of Worcester has been completed by local enthusiasts.

Members of the Worcestershire Branch of the Milestone Society have now erected six replica plaques on local roads, all of them a mile from The Cross in the centre of the city.

The plaques are on Astwood Road, Bath Road, Bransford Road, Bromyard Road, and London Road, and at the junction of Ombersley Road and Droitwich Road in Barbourne.

Ray Worth of the society said: "In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there were a series of main roads from the city to the four points of the compass in the care of the Worcester Turnpike Trust.

"It was a statutory requirement that milestones were installed every mile for the benefit of travellers, but with the passage of time, many of these have been badly damaged or lost either through road improvement schemes, traffic accidents or other causes.

"The largest loss was occasioned by government decree at the time of the last war to thwart a possible enemy invasion by erasing descriptive road details.

"One of the original milestones marking one mile from the city exists, but until recently, without its cast-iron plate, on Newtown Road in Ronkswood. It was re-plated some years ago by members of the society.

" None of the other one-mile milestones has survived and society members thought it would be an idea to put up replica plates to mark where the original milestones were located.

"The agreement of householders at the sites was sought and obtained together with permissions from the highways and conservation authorities after which six new cast-iron milestone plates were made, to the original design, by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum. These have now been successfully attached."