I'VE just received an email from a representative of the Milestone Society who was disappointed to visit the Bridge Inn at Stapleton recently and discover the famous toll board missing.

Where is it, he asks?

The toll board showed the charges for crossing Blackwell Bridge on "The Stapleton (or Angel Inn) and Barton Lane End Turnpike". This toll road connected Darlington directly with Scotch Corner, via Barton, and it was opened around 1833 (I say around because on December 16, 1833, an unfortunate workman called Jeffrey Butterfield was washed off the scaffolding and wasn't fished out until he'd reached the eastern end of Hurworth, so the bridge can't have been completely complete until 1834).

The board was on display in the tollhouse which is that wonderful rounded building on the Yorkshire end of the bridge. The house seems to go down forever: how I would love to have a nosey inside, but I've never quite been brave enough to knock on the door and demand admittance. Some people would consider that rude.

The tolls were abolished on October 31, 1879, and the tollkeeper, Elias Clarkson, was rendered redundant. So was the tollboard.

I don't know what happened to poor old Elias, but I do know the fate of the board.

My colleague Lawrence Donegan wrote about it in 1989. (Lawrence was a great chap, if an irritatingly all-round talent. He'd co-written Top 10 hits with Lloyd Cole and the Commotions before he came to the Echo, was a superb footballer, and now writes brilliantly about golf in books and national newspapers.) Lawrence said: "Apparently the board was found in a cow byre on the property of a well-established local family. The family, the story goes, had been using it as a partition with realising what it was. Around 30 years ago it was offered to the pub's owner, Vaux Brewery, which fully restored the writing which had been obliterated by the passage of time."

The tollboard used to have pride of place in The Bridge, but a refurbishment or two ago saw it relegated.

Another colleague, Mike Amos, can complete the story. His eagle eye spotted the board in St Peter's Church, Cleasby, in 2008, and so we presume it is still there. Any confirmation, because it is a fine thing, would be most welcome.