Milk Churn Collecting Points: Were there regulations/standards for them?

[rhyds]

A once common, but quickly disappearing roadside feature of rural roads are milk churn collection points or stands, which in the days before on farm bulk tanks and milk tankers allowed farms to leave milk churns out to be collected by lorry and carried to a local dairy,creamery or other processor/bottler.

Here's an example near me on the A494.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.8170455 ... 312!8i6656

I've often wondered if these stands were ever covered by any regulations or requirements around siting, height or construction. Also, what the highest standard or busiest road was where one of these was located

[Conekicker]

A19 southbound
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.30036 ... 8192?hl=en

[Chris Bertram]

A once common, but quickly disappearing roadside feature of rural roads are milk churn collection points or stands, which in the days before on farm bulk tanks and milk tankers allowed farms to leave milk churns out to be collected by lorry and carried to a local dairy,creamery or other processor/bottler.

Here's an example near me on the A494.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.8170455 ... 312!8i6656

I've often wondered if these stands were ever covered by any regulations or requirements around siting, height or construction. Also, what the highest standard or busiest road was where one of these was located

With its steps up to the top, that looks like a horse mounting block repurposed as a milk churn stand.

[rhyds]

A once common, but quickly disappearing roadside feature of rural roads are milk churn collection points or stands, which in the days before on farm bulk tanks and milk tankers allowed farms to leave milk churns out to be collected by lorry and carried to a local dairy,creamery or other processor/bottler.

Here's an example near me on the A494.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.8170455 ... 312!8i6656

I've often wondered if these stands were ever covered by any regulations or requirements around siting, height or construction. Also, what the highest standard or busiest road was where one of these was located

With its steps up to the top, that looks like a horse mounting block repurposed as a milk churn stand.

There's a few with steps, as it made lifting a full churn easier. I doubt its a mounting block as I doubt you'd mount/dismount a horse a good 300yds away from any buildings.

[rhyds]

A19 southbound
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.30036 ... 8192?hl=en

That's a very interesting one. I'm guessing the A19 was dualled online here at some point.

[WHBM]

All the ones I knew were timber, built by the farmer's labourers to their own designs. In country districts, as long as it didn't impinge on the carriageway it seemed accepted by the highways engineer.

Totally non-frangible of course. Should really have had reflectors but I never saw one with them. Ideally in a gateway a little back from the carriageway so it wasn't damaged by passing HGVs.

I never managed to pick up a full churn, too heavy. There's a certain skill ... ones you see being rolled along at 45 degrees are empty ones.

The milk lorry driver received a Christmas Box from every farmer. I think a bottle of whisky was standard.

[rhyds]

All the ones I knew were timber, built by the farmer's labourers to their own designs. In country districts, as long as it didn't impinge on the carriageway it seemed accepted by the highways engineer.

Totally non-frangible of course. Should really have had reflectors but I never saw one with them. Ideally in a gateway a little back from the carriageway so it wasn't damaged by passing HGVs.

I never managed to pick up a full churn, too heavy. There's a certain skill ... ones you see being rolled along at 45 degrees are empty ones.

Interesting that most seemed to be timber. Most around here are concrete/masonry, but obviously they're the ones most likely to have survived.

[WHBM]

Interesting that most seemed to be timber. Most around here are concrete/masonry, but obviously they're the ones most likely to have survived.

Heavyweight timber, railway sleeper standard.

[KeithW]

That's a very interesting one. I'm guessing the A19 was dualled online here at some point.

Yes - in the early 1970's as I recall when the Thirsk bypass was built,

[rhyds]

Interesting that most seemed to be timber. Most around here are concrete/masonry, but obviously they're the ones most likely to have survived.

Heavyweight timber, railway sleeper standard.

Aha, a prime candidate for reclamation/reuse!

[Octaviadriver]

I remember this one from when we visited Rudge, my uncle's farm near Lapford in Devon in the 1950s. In the late 1950s, he moved to a farm south of Exeter, but the farmhouse and outbuildings have in recent times been converted into residential accommodation and it is no longer a functioning farm and the milk churn collection point has gone.
https://goo.gl/maps/kEEfYAUtLJf9zdRj8

[exiled]

A once common, but quickly disappearing roadside feature of rural roads are milk churn collection points or stands, which in the days before on farm bulk tanks and milk tankers allowed farms to leave milk churns out to be collected by lorry and carried to a local dairy,creamery or other processor/bottler.

Here's an example near me on the A494.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.8170455 ... 312!8i6656

I've often wondered if these stands were ever covered by any regulations or requirements around siting, height or construction. Also, what the highest standard or busiest road was where one of these was located

Ruth Goodman in 'Full Steam Ahead' mentions them for the railways, very common in bits of Devon, Somerset and the GWR region. Appears there was no 'standard' but they had to be the height to get the churns into the railway carriages as quickly as possibly so effectively there was standard as dictated by for example the GWR. For road side ones I'd imagine it was similar, the height dictated by a flat loading truck.

[jnty]

A once common, but quickly disappearing roadside feature of rural roads are milk churn collection points or stands, which in the days before on farm bulk tanks and milk tankers allowed farms to leave milk churns out to be collected by lorry and carried to a local dairy,creamery or other processor/bottler.

Here's an example near me on the A494.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.8170455 ... 312!8i6656

I've often wondered if these stands were ever covered by any regulations or requirements around siting, height or construction. Also, what the highest standard or busiest road was where one of these was located

Ruth Goodman in 'Full Steam Ahead' mentions them for the railways, very common in bits of Devon, Somerset and the GWR region. Appears there was no 'standard' but they had to be the height to get the churns into the railway carriages as quickly as possibly so effectively there was standard as dictated by for example the GWR. For road side ones I'd imagine it was similar, the height dictated by a flat loading truck.

I guess there is a de facto standard dictated by trial and error to some degree. Like finding all your post screwed up if your postbox is too small/hard to open, or having the postie complain when they have to ring the bell every day!

[RichardA626]

My Maternal Grandad used to deliver churns almost daily to Great Dalby station when it was still open & he had a milking herd.

[KeithW]

On this video you can see smaller churns being loaded onto a DMU at Robin Hoods Bay, morning trains often picked them up and dropped them off in Scarborough, Whitby or Saltburn. Approx 3.50 in. There would also be crates of eggs and cheeses.