The Post

Alerted by a brief glance at an extract from 'Secret Edinburgh' by Jack Gillon I now know the origin of this 'innocuous-looking bollard' outside the old General Post Office, now the offices under the title Waverley Gate.

It ties in very neatly with my previous blips of Post Horse Milestones, as it is the official Distance Marker from which these stones were measured and from which all addresses in Edinburgh are numbered - the equivalent of 0 km in other countries.

However, the marker is not in its original position as the building standing behind is not the original Post Office but at least the third generation, being opened only in May 1866, when its predecessor, further East on the other side of Regent's Bridge, was deemed too small for purpose. It would have been to this office my milestones directed the hackney carriages, which predate the arrival of the railways by several decades.