Almost walked past this item on Cambuslang Road, and wondered if anyone knew of any more, or if it might be the last survivor.
No decent landmarks to place it accurately (and no GPS to hand), so best estimate I can put on it is about quarter of a mile along Cambuslang Road, east of Farme Cross, on the north side of the road.
I take it to be a survey marker from the time of King George. It would appear to be a standard mass produced item of cast iron, and the elevation of the survey point or benchmark, in feet and inches, would have been marked in the space provided. It would seem to have been a temporary marking, as there were no holes apparent whereby a plate could have been fixed. Perhaps the numbers were chalked in when a survey was carried out.
Alternatively, the value may have been intended to be engraved, and the operation was never completed.
Either way, it would be interesting to see if anyone else spots one, or more, of these anywhere.
Does that mean you've seen others that are not (fairly) local?
I wandered out again, and noticed it's across the road from the bowling green, and just few yards further east. Had the GPS this time, so the numbers (lat/lon one was handy, its set to suit a particular digital map I use, I'll add NGR later) are:
N 55 deg 49' 52.2 W 04 deg 12' 09.6"
It's easily missed, and I had walked passed it as just another fire hydrant marker, but something made me go back and look again, noticed the ft in markings and then the crown and initials.
Seems George V also died in 1936, so if the thought about the 1936 revision is right, he just made it.
Indeed, without a number I'd have said it was George I, since they wouldn't have known if there'd be a second etc. However, he expired in 1727, so probably a bit early.
Strikes me as rather odd they left the number out, thought that was something they were fussy about.
Anyway, I've forwared the pic to OSGB (so long as their mail system doesn't reject images) and asked them for info, or any possible sources.
Hope you notice I wandered back and got a better pic. The first one was an absolute disaster (to a photographer anyway) as the lighting was totally flat and didn't show any detail in the first one, and even the colour rubibsh. There wasn't much there to start with, but the watery light on that day just made it all wash out.
Lord knows where you'd have to go to find one deliberately. Somewhere old and undeveloped, where the road and pavement haven't been torn up and resurfaced. Maybe places like wee villages in the back of beyond.
Well it seems they (the O.S.) normally erected them on police stations, hotels and churches - though not exclusively. Thing is, as you have found, these 'ornaments' don't stand out - and they're not always in the form in your photo, quite often they were mounted above ground - on the wall of a (usually public) building and the height above the actual sea level of the mark was compensated (i.e. subtracted) from the height of the installed place. But more often than not it may be that the benchmark was just indicated on the map without an actual physical marker being in that place.
I revisited a site I'd come across from my GPS 'games' days, and its still there (and working now) and it gives details of the OSGB markers, which don't look like this one, AND it isn't listed. Of course, this doesn't mean it hasn't been missed, but of the ones I looked at, there are none like it.
There's an interactive map on it, and if you go to Rutherglen, the one I found isn't listed, though you'll find more like the ones you described.
On your comment about there being no physical marker, there has to be a marker of some sort so that the surveyor can return to the precise spot (it is a reference) and use it as part of another survey or to re-survey it. It can take a number of forms, most fo which are next to invisible, unlike the posts or trig point most people are used to. It can be a ring or just a simple stud fixed into the ground. I've tried to find one or two of these, but once the grass etc. grows over it, unless you're a surveyor ready to cut grass and get a shovel out, you can be out of luck.
Talking about trigpoints ................. I happened to 'Bag' my very first one today! Me & Hamish went a walk along the old frontier and got to the Iron age hill fort on Castle Hill - and there is a trigpoint on the top.
I know that benchmarks are usually fixed plates on a wall or sometimes a bridge etc. but just wondered if maybe even though the altitude was marked as a 'benchmark' on early surveys whether those same benchmarks were used later (or something like that!)
I could regurgitate a lot of boring stuff about trig points, benchmarks, pillars, bolts, rivets etc. etc... but the later surveys re-used the earlier points. Not surprising since they're already located and documented with access etc. in place. What did change with each survey was the absolute location assigned to each point, since it's easier to change the numbers to suit the point, than move the point to suit the numbers And they added new ones each time as better locations were found.
It has a database of all the real trig points OSGB has, and it lists detail of where they are, together with maps and sketches of the location, and photos. That's how I knew they all have to have some sort of stud/rivet at least to fix their position, and, having tried to find some of these, that they can be well buried if they haven't been used for years.
Nearest decent one to me is at the Necropolis, along from the Royal Infirmary.
Actually handy to have a good one like this nearby, since you can use it to check the setting on your GPS. Although straightforward to set up, it's also very easy to make small errors or forget an obscure tweak if you use any of the fancy bits. And of curse, using them with old maps can be a disaster. I remember wandering about Beith (looking for something that ultimately turned out to be demolished and gone), and was really puzzled about where I landed. I was about 25 m from where I should have been, and although the location was posible, it just didn't feel 'right'. Although the item was gone, the correct location was at least more like it was expected to be.
I did get a message back from the nice people at OSGB (and sent a communal Thank You) about the beastie, and the answer's a bit of a surprise...
Quoted Text
Thank you for your enquiry, which really made us think!
We cannot find any illustration to match this picture. We believe though, that it is associated with the location of a bench mark (given the broad arrow and the reference to ft and in).
Along Cambuslang Road and at the the approximate distance from the junction with Dalmarnock Road mentioned by yourself, are a couple of bench march marks (on the southern side of the road). Both are long-standing features, certainly as long as the start of the reign of George V, who I believe is the GR shown on the plate.
More than this we cannot say, although if the plate is on the opposite site of the road to where Edina Lodge once stood or by number 62 Cambuslang Road, I feel a bit more confident about my reply.
I hope this is helps
So, looks as if a return visit to the area is in order.
I certainly didn't notice any other sorts of benchmark nearby, though I'd have to be honest and say that as I was looking at that one, I'd kind of mentally 'switched-off' in terms of seeing another so close to it as the reply suggests.
I happened to be back here the other day, and stopped off for a look at the referred bench marks.
I certainly couldn't see anything that was immediately obvious, and although I had a good look at the walls etc. of the remaining buildings, there was nothing there that looked like even a remote possibility.
Going further from the junction referred to is pretty pointless, as most of this area is practically derelict now, you basically go from road, to pavement, to wire fence, to waste ground. There's actually less there now than when I was last there, as an entire factory area and its offices were being demolished then, and are completely gone now. It's just another piece of flat ground now.
Purely by accident, I found another three of these old survey markers on the same stretch of road.
These all lie to the east of the first one I spotted, and I can say there are none visible to the west - because I looked for them.
I probably didn't notice these before because of the direction I walk along this road, and because of the muck thrown off the road into the verge.
One of them is also normally hidden under cars parked up on the pavement at an industrial estate.
Then again, being almost completely buried doesn't help either.
There may be more, I don't know as I only caught these ones largely by chance, and with the partial burial, it would take a deliberate hunt to fine them.
While the light was a bit weird, being winter, the pics have been manipulated to increase the visibility of the surface features, as the natural brown, rough surface is pretty poor for contrast.
The important thing though, thanks to the first pic above, is that you can see how much the ground level has changed at these markers.
I think George V is fairly certain, but it is still rather odd the OS weren't able to snap out the definitive answer. You'd think given the amount of public funding they've gobbled up and resold back to the public in the past would have funded a decent archive they could refer to.
It's odd that what are presumably later items (the ER as opposed to the GR marks) have ended up buried deeper over the years, or maybe not, and it just reflects local variation.
Clearly, the cast iron markers were not fixed reference numbers, even if they were fixed reference positions, as there are no number - either reference or heights - cast or inscribed on them.
At a guess, it would seem that the ft and in figures were surveyed and simply chalked in for the duration of the measurement work being done on the site on the day, perhaps just to make sure it could be double checked later, just to verify there wasn't a transcription error before the surveyors left the spot.
There are some of the GPO markers around here - I'll try and get some pics tomorrow. I am not sure that they are the same thing as the item in Apollo's pic.
Apart from being a bit over-engineered for a humble cable marker, and carrying an OS benchmark symbol, I think jmb might echo my own recollection that whenever the GPO produced anything, they were never shy about putting the name all over it, together with a raft of reference numbers to prove it was theirs.
They would not, in my experience (because my work requires me to adhere to rules issued by the Secretary of State no less), have had any right to use the crown on anything they made - this privilege was only granted to the Royal Mail, as can be seen on red post boxes.
Amazing what a slightly nicer day does for the eyesight.
None more surprised than me to find yet another of these markers only a few metres away from those found already.
That said, there are certainly no more around this are - I did look. If there were any more just to the west... then they're gone, as the new M74 link passes over that spot, and the ground has been reworked to take the piles to carry the road overhead.
This one's been favoured with a splash of paint at some time in its life, and is the presumably later ER version, rather than the original GR.
There's also the further significance observation that this is in the form af a plate secured by slot-headed screws to the rear support - what can't be gauged from this view is whether or not the rear support is plain, or is a GR mark converted to an ER mark by the fitment of the later ER plate.
And there's not much chance of finding out either, especially with it buried up to its neck in tarmac, and with those screws in place too.
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Old bench mark in Rutherglen
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and then another George - the VI. It may refer to either George.
And they added new ones each time as better locations were found.
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