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Types of boundary mark

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The surviving examples of boundary mark can be classified as follows:

• Type 1: Granite obelisks a bit over a metre high, found on canals and navigable rivers.
• Type 2: Cast-iron posts about a metre high, found beside roads and tracks.
• Type 3: Cast-iron boxes or plates about 230 mm square, found in parapets of road bridges.
• Type 4: Stone or cast-iron obelisks about 4.5 metres high, found on railways opened before 1865.
• Type 5: Cast-iron obelisks about 1.75 metres high, found on railways opened from 1865 onwards.

Link to Scale drawings of all the types of mark.

In these pages dimensions are given in metric units (see Note on units). However, the makers of the marks would have used imperial units, so that for example a dimension of 230 mm is what the original maker would have considered to be 9 inches.

Historically, the marks can be categorised by the legislation that authorised them. This aspect is dealt with in the History of the boundary and the marks section of this site:

• The Port of London
• The coming of the canals
• The early railways
• The London District 1845-1861
• The 1861 Act and the new London District

Go to: Home page | History of the coal duties | History of the boundary and the marks | The boundary marks today | Research in to the marks and the duties | Sources and bibliography

Page created by Martin Nail: Contact me. Last revised 17th March 2012

This web site: Copyright © 2012 Martin Nail. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

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