{"id":34039,"date":"2025-07-30T22:39:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T21:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=34039"},"modified":"2025-07-30T22:39:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T21:39:15","slug":"boundary-stone-puzzles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=34039","title":{"rendered":"Boundary Stone Puzzles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paul has sent me pictures of two boundary stones recently. Here\u2019s what we know. It&#8217;s a puzzle.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025073001.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThe first stone is on the Drayton Road, wedged between a wall and a bush, almost hidden behind a streetlight. The inscription faces a brick wall just a few inches away, and many of the letters have worn away with time.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025073002.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThe text appears to read something like:<\/p>\n<p>?0 YARDS FROM<br \/>\nTHE BRIDGE<br \/>\n?LONG THE???<br \/>\nHENCE IN ?<br \/>\n??RAIGHT ???<br \/>\n?? JUNCTION OF<br \/>\n?HE OCK RIVER<br \/>\nWITH THE LARK<br \/>\n??LL STREAM<\/p>\n<p>With a bit of guesswork, it may originally have read:<\/p>\n<p>\u201c?0 YARDS FROM<br \/>\nTHE BRIDGE<br \/>\nALONG THE [PATH?]<br \/>\nHENCE IN A<br \/>\nSTRAIGHT LINE<br \/>\nTO THE JUNCTION OF<br \/>\nTHE OCK RIVER<br \/>\nWITH THE LARK<br \/>\nHILL STREAM\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This suggests a boundary line to the bridge on Drayton Road and then to a place where the River Ock meets the Lark Mill Stream.\u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025073003a.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThe second stone is on the Faringdon Road, directly opposite the entrance to Larkmead School. Paul cleared back some of the vegetation to reveal it properly. This one appears to have a carved cross at the top \u2014 likely the Abingdon Borough cross \u2014 and below that, some worn letters. One line may read MEN, possibly part of the word PARLIAMENTARY, and beneath that UNDA, which might be part of the word BOUNDARY.<\/p>\n<p>Both stones appear to mark out old administrative or land boundaries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paul has sent me pictures of two boundary stones recently. Here\u2019s what we know. It&#8217;s a puzzle. The first stone is on the Drayton Road, wedged between a wall and a bush, almost hidden behind a streetlight. The inscription faces a brick wall just a few inches away, and many of the letters have worn [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-heritage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}