TO some, they are also "all bright and beautiful", as the hymn goes, even if made of concrete. Once there were many of these well-made creatures all over Bermuda. They are small in size but great in heritage and speak to traditions that date back to the Roman Empire.

A lady named Cecil Alexander in 1848 wrote All Things Bright and Beautiful for children, about the time some of the little monuments of this story were being created in the Bermuda Dockyard.

The final verse goes like this: "He gave us eyes to see them and lips that we might tell, how great is God Almighty, Who has made all things well."

In this case, our ancestors made them well, but we often are not attuned to comprehend the heritage they have left that is before our very eyes.

These little monuments are boundary markers and milestones that once delineated Government property in Bermuda. One of these monuments was mentioned here a year ago and stood near the junction of Middle and South Roads in Southampton.

I write "stood", as it has been pushed over once again after my brother set it upright last year. That marker (with the initials PWD for Public Works Department) is one of many that defined the property bought by the Bermuda Government from the Bermuda Railway Company in the early 1950s. That property transaction was probably the last in Bermuda to use such boundary stones. The modern equivalent is a pin with a red top driven into the ground.

Boundary stones (BS) are a part of the "metes and bounds" system of describing land by its physical characteristics for the purposes of defining "real", as opposed to personal property, hence real estate. The bounds were general definitions, such as "the property then follows the coastline until it meets the large cedar tree".

The metes were a measured distance between two points in a straight line, the terminations sometimes marked by a boundary stone. The metes and bounds for Scaur Hill Fort would thus read something like: "From BS1, 500 yards west to BS2, then northwards along the Somerset Road to BS7, then East 600 yards to BS8, then southerly along the coast to starting point at BS1."

Another parcel of Scaur Hill Fort land west of the Somerset Road was defined by BS3 through BS6. Remarkably, all of these stones have survived and are still in use for the definition of the Scaur Hill Fort and adjacent properties.

Some later boundary stones were cast in concrete, but the earlier ones were carved from the hard Bermuda limestone of the Walsingham or Town Hill formations. It is this type of rock that comprises the stonework of the magnificent Dockyard buildings and fortifications.

That monumental heritage is due to the lucky happenstance that the rock of Ireland Island North was this hard stone. The Royal Engineers, slaves, convicts and freemen took 40 years to quarry and carve that rock into blocks for the dockyard buildings.

In addition to the monumental stonework, the Dockyard workmen also created boundary stones, milestones, gravestones and other shapes, such as lamp standard bases, for individual usages. One mark that appeared on all the boundary stones was the "crow's foot", or King's Broad Arrow.

THIS symbol, said to represent a "pheon", or metal head of a spear, has been in use for hundreds of years to mark the property of the British Crown as a security method against thievery. It may have prevented theft, but the mark is no protection against modern vandalism and neglect. Some of the stones are inscribed "WD" and others "A", for the War Department and Admiralty respectively.

Once there were many boundary stones that marked the military road from Tucker's Town to Warwick Camp, but over the years these have been buried, pulled up or otherwise obliterated. Yet one ventures to think that the stones are Government property and should not have been removed by owners of adjacent private lands. It is hoped that we can begin to restore the surviving stones and perhaps paint in their symbols to bring attention to these little monuments.

All of the fort properties would have been marked with such stones and within the Dockyard, the fortifications, being in the domain of the War Department, are so marked. This was to define the property of that department from the lands of the Admiralty within the Dockyard. Good boundary stones make good neighbours, to paraphrase the poet.

Two milestones survive here and are now at the Maritime Museum. The stones take as their starting points Bastion "E", which is at the northern tip of dockyard and "the clock", which may be that in the present Great Eastern Storehouse and not its forerunner. The North and South Roads are the main road to Dockyard and the one past Lefroy House, the Lagoon, and Parson's Bay respectively.

When it was said that "all roads lead to Rome", this was in relation to the "Golden Milestone", a bronze obelisk at the centre of the Empire, from which all roads were measured outwards. This historical milestone inspired the "Zero Milestone" at Washington, DC, from where the distances of all roads were to be measured.

As the foregoing pun suggests, milestone is a word that now has a wide meaning throughout our society. It would be good to declare one day that we have passed a new milestone in the upgraded care of all the built heritage of Bermuda, great and small, bright and beautiful.

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. The views expressed here are his opinion and not necessarily those of the trustees or staff of the Museum. Comments can be sent to drharrislogic.bm, to PO Box MA 133, Sandys MABX, or by telephone at 734-1298.