Milestones; rioters in drag and the grotesque

Photographs by Jamie Hobson

There are possibly 9,000 milestones, mileposts or waymarkers  still in existence in this country although the number is greatly diminished from their heyday in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Jamie first became aware of them as a child when being driven slowly, as they did in the 1950’s, past these jewels of archaic information – roman numerals which had to be learned before they released their crucial information.  This exhibition is a cursory look at the subject focused mainly on milestones, directional signs and boundary stones in and around Salisbury with occasional excursions into the weirdness of Cornish milestones. It focuses on typography, typology, numerals, manicules and the magnificent work of Kinneir and Calvert. As for rioters in drag and the grotesque…well you’ll have to visit the exhibition.

Jamie Hobson spent his working life teaching graphic design at universities in Hull, Southampton and for sixteen years  was a programme director at London College of Communications part of the University of the Arts, London.

He has been a visiting lecturer at universities in Seoul, Tokyo, Pittsburgh, Cologne and East Berlin as well as examining in Barcelona and Belfast. During the pandemic he wrote three books: ‘On the Road’ a book about the road he lives on, ‘Pandemic Strangers’ a book of portraits of people he passed on his limited pandemic walks, as well as ‘Chalke, Chase and Vale’, a book of walks in the Cranborne Chase and Blackmore Vale. He has recently started producing large drawings of trees.