TrigpointingUK

The National Trust owns large tracts of land in open country and they contain quite a few trigs. The OS lost interest in the trigs many years ago, so if anybody is going to maintain them, it's going to be the owner of the land on which they stand.

They are, of course, important pieces of industrial archaeology, but because they have become so in living memory, even environmentally concerned landowners such as the NT don't realise this.

I'm particularly concerned about the trig on Box Hill, which has suffered severe damage in recent winters. Box Hill is a popular NT site and has rangers on duty at the visitor centre. On my visit yesterday I spoke to one of them. He had also noticed the recent deterioration of the trig, but he hadn't realised that the Trust is now responsible for it. He gave me the email address of the responsible trust manager, and I've written to him - see below.

I think that this is a general problem - the National Trust is responsible by default for maintaining the trigs on their land, but they don't realise it and they don't monitor them. I'm guessing that many trig pointers are also NT members, and I think we should lobby them to take an interest, particularly when one of their trig is in a poor state of repair.

This is my email to the NT's Surrey Hills Manager (the photos I mentioned are also logged on the trigpointing page for Box Hill):

I'm writing to you about the condition of the Ordnance Survey trig pillar on Box Hill, which has deteriorated severely over last winter.  See the attached photos showing a large chunk missing from one edge, various other holes and a crack that runs around three sides.

The trig points were erected by the OS over a thirty year period in the last century to support the theodolites that they used to create their maps.  The Box Hill trig was erected in 1945.  Later, when theodolites became obsolete, the OS lost interest in the trig points and stopped maintaining them.  They are now important pieces of British industrial archaeology, a relic of the huge project to map the nation that's been running since the eighteenth century.  The trig points that stand on NT land are now the responsibility of the NT by default and they are gradually falling to pieces.  The Box Hill trig is the worst I've seen.

There's a group of people called trigpointers and we make it our business to visit trig points while out walking, and log their condition on the Trigpointing website.  The page for Box Hill is: http://trigpointing.uk/trig/1553.

You can see on that page my report of the current state of the trig.  If you look at photos that people took on earlier visits and compare them with the attached, you'll see that the damage has become considerably worse this year.  I'm particularly concerned about the large horizontal crack that runs most of the way around the pillar.  As I say in the report, if it gets to the point where this crack runs run all the way through, somebody could push the top part off and roll it down the hill. 

I spoke to Bruce, one of your rangers at the Box Hill visitor centre.  He is also a member of the Friends of Box Hill and he thought they may be willing to help with repairs to the trig point.

There are a number of trig points on OS land in the Surrey Hills, including at Mickleham Hill and Leith Hill and it would be wise for the Trust to start keeping an eye on their condition.

I've long thought that trig pillars should be regarded as historical monuments and protected as such, lets face it, in the grand scheme of things keeping a 4ft high pillar in reasonable repair shouldn't cost that much and I'm sure an army of volunteers (or even the Army itself) would probably do the physical work if funding was available.

The problem is that, even if the landowner knows that there is a trig point on their land, they usually assume that somebody else is responsible for maintaining it. I doubt if the National Trust is even aware of its decaying trig points, let alone that it's their problem.

Many trig pillars stand on land owned by the National Trust. Others are in National Parks and yet more are in parks owned by the local councils. Surface blocks by the side of a road are the responsibility of whoever maintains the road - the local council or the Department of Transport. Getting any government body to take up extra responsibilities will be very difficult, but the National Trust seems more feasible. It's a member led organisation and I'm guessing that many trigpointers are members.

Speaking more generally, the trigpointing community is the obvious body to bring attention to the issue. Who better?

This is very interesting. I've always assumed a) that NT were very aware of historical monuments on their land, including trig pillars and b) that they would actively want to maintain these as part of our heritage. I suspect many in this community assume likewise. However the comments in this thread suggest otherwise, on both points! So thanks for highlighting this.

I'd be interested to see how many pillars there are on NT land to try to understand the scale of the problem. We have the locations of the pillars on this site, but data about the areas of land owned by NT might be trickier.
Edit: looks like NT now publish their land boundaries for England and Wales which is a start: https://open-data-national-trust.hub.ar ... lways-open, https://open-data-national-trust.hub.ar ... ted-access - accuracy unknown.

It would also be interesting to see if any other bodies are better at this than NT - e.g. national park authorities, forestry commission etc.

'It would also be interesting to see if any other bodies are better at this than NT - e.g. national park authorities, forestry commission etc.'

I doubt it, sadly one of the most visited mountains/hills in the Yorkshire Dales - Whernside - has a pillar that is so badly eroded it's an embaressment really.

Countless hill walkers and 3 Peakers summit this hill yearly and the state of the pillar is so awful the Ordnance Survey and National Park should be ashamed. I know that OS no longer officially 'service' their pillars but you'd have thought some of the more iconic ones could be granted some attention.