A thank-you for your tollhouse and milestone volunteers: a photo of an old tollhouse, a freshly painted milepost or a fingerpost at a crossroads as a jigsaw, with your note at the end

Published on October 21, 2026

Written by the team behind Puzzlify. Puzzlify is our product, so weigh what follows with that in mind. We've tried to make this useful even if you never use it. We're not affiliated with any milestone society, tollhouse trust, turnpike trust, highway authority, roads department, local history society, record office, archive, council, heritage body, heritage funder, sponsor, school or community organisation. Nothing here is legal, historical, archive, data protection, planning, listed building, conservation, highways, traffic management, road safety, paint, chemical, lifting, manual handling, first aid, health and safety, safeguarding, bereavement, copyright, property, photography permission or employment advice; check your own group's guidance on gifts, photos, roadside work, permissions, private property, children and people's details.

It's a quarter to eleven on a bright, cold Tuesday at the end of October, and a retired geography teacher called Ann is kneeling on a folded feed sack on a narrow grass verge beside a country road, wearing a high-visibility vest, a woolly hat and a pair of rubber gloves. In front of her is a small cast-iron milepost, about knee high, shaped like a little triangular roof with two sloping faces. One face says the name of a market town and a number of miles; the other says the name of another town and another number. Until this morning it was a dull, flaking grey, half hidden by brambles, with a sapling growing behind it. Now the brambles are gone, the rust has been brushed off, and Ann is painting the raised letters black with a tiny brush, one by one, over a fresh white background. Twenty yards up the road, her friend Graham stands beside a folding sign that says "Volunteers working", watching the traffic. A woman walking a spaniel stops and says, "I've walked past that every day for thirty years and never noticed it said anything." Ann sits back on her heels. "Most people don't," she says. "It's been telling people how far they've got to go since about 1830."

Two hundred years ago, the road she's kneeling beside was a turnpike, run by a trust that borrowed money to mend it and charged travellers a toll to use it. Every few miles there was a gate across the road, and beside the gate a small house where the toll keeper lived, often with a window that looked both ways along the road and a board on the wall listing the charges: so much for a coach and horses, so much for a cart, so much for a score of cattle or sheep. Every mile there was a stone or a post telling coach drivers, carters and walkers how far they'd come and how far they had to go. The trusts were wound up long ago, the gates were taken down, and many of the stones and posts were buried, broken, removed in wartime or flattened by road works. But a surprising number survived, and a growing band of volunteers is finding them, recording them, repairing them and telling their story.

On the same morning, other volunteers are busy too. One is in a county record office, reading the minute book of a turnpike trust from 1790 to find out when the tollhouse on the edge of her village was built. One is at home, entering the details and photographs of three newly found milestones into a database. One is on a ladder beside an old fingerpost at a crossroads, cleaning a cast-iron finger with a soft brush before it's sent away to be repaired. One is showing a group round a little preserved tollhouse that opens on heritage open days, pointing out the window where the keeper watched for coaches. And one, a man in his eighties who grew up in a former tollhouse, is sitting at a library table with a cup of tea, waiting to tell the local history group what it was like to sleep in a house with traffic going past six feet from the bedroom window.

If you've walked a milestone trail, been shown round an old tollhouse, found your village's milepost freshly painted, traced a turnpike road on an old map with a volunteer's help, or simply live with one of these people, this guide is for you. It's about how to say thank you in a way that feels personal and appropriate, with words first and an optional gift second. One idea is a private digital jigsaw made from a photo of an old tollhouse, a freshly painted milepost or a fingerpost at a crossroads, with your note revealed when the last piece goes in. But there are plenty of other good ideas, and we've listed those too.

Who we mean

By tollhouse and milestone volunteers we mean anyone who gives their time to find, record, care for or explain the old roadside heritage of turnpike roads and country lanes, including:

milestone and milepost surveyors and recorders, who walk and drive the old roads, find surviving stones and posts, photograph and measure them, note their condition and enter them into a record or a database;
restoration and painting volunteers, who, with the right permissions, clear vegetation, clean, repaint and sometimes reset milestones, mileposts and boundary stones;
fingerpost volunteers, who care for the old cast-iron and wooden fingerpost signposts at crossroads, recording them, cleaning them and helping to get them repaired or remade;
tollhouse stewards and guides, who open preserved tollhouses on heritage open days, welcome visitors and tell the story of the turnpike, the gate and the toll keeper;
archive and research volunteers, who read turnpike trust minute books, Acts of Parliament, toll board lists, accounts, maps and newspapers, and work out the history of a road or a building;
walk leaders and trail volunteers, who lead walks along old turnpike routes and write milestone trails and leaflets;
oral history volunteers, who record the memories of people who lived in tollhouses or remember the old roads;
education volunteers, who run school sessions on old roads, maps and travel, and help children read a milestone;
mapping, database and website volunteers, who keep the records in order and make them easy to find;
newsletter editors, membership secretaries, treasurers, trustees and the founders who started it all.

Some of these volunteers belong to a national or regional milestone society. Some belong to a local history society or a village heritage group that adopted a milestone, a fingerpost or a tollhouse. Some look after a single preserved tollhouse with a small trust. Some work alongside a council or a highway authority on an adopt-a-milestone scheme. And some are a single person who noticed a stone on the way to work, started looking for the next one, and never stopped. Almost all of them are volunteers.

We've written this with turnpike roads, tollhouses, milestones, mileposts and fingerposts in mind. Canals and narrowboats, heritage railways, signal boxes, war memorials and local history societies in general have their own volunteers and their own stories, and we've written about them separately.

What to say first

The most important part of any thank-you is what you say. Milestone and tollhouse volunteers often work out of sight, on verges, in record offices and at kitchen tables. Passers-by see a freshly painted post, but they rarely see the volunteer who spent a winter tracing it in the records, the one who spent three months getting permission from the highway authority, or the treasurer who found the money to recast a missing plate. So be specific:

name the job: "every survey season since 2012", "the hours you spent reading the trust's minute books", "the walk you led along the old coach road", "the fingerpost you got repaired";
name a moment: the day my children found the milestone you told us about and read it out loud, the afternoon you showed me my house was once a tollhouse, the morning the repainted milepost appeared on the way to school;
name what it meant: the first time I understood why our road bends where it does, the way you made the old coach road feel alive, the feeling that our village is on the map of history;
name the years: "twenty years of finding stones nobody else could see" means more than "thank you for all you do".

If you're thanking a whole group, try to name the people who never get named. The membership secretary, the person who keeps the database, the volunteer who answers emails from people who've found a stone in their garden, the one who fills in the risk assessments and the permission forms, and the one who washes the paint brushes. They're the ones who keep it going.

A sentence like "you put us back on the map" can sound like a big claim, but for many villages it's simply true. A milestone is a small object, but it records where the old roads went, how people travelled, which towns mattered, and how far a day's journey used to be. A tollhouse is a small building, but it records how roads were paid for, and how much people resented paying. Many of these things have no protection except a few volunteers who keep an eye on them. If the person you're thanking is one of those volunteers, say it.

Who it suits

A photo jigsaw with a note works best for someone who:

enjoys a small puzzle on a phone or tablet, which, for someone who has spent years piecing together the line of an old road from fragments of maps and minute books, may feel very natural;
has a strong feeling for a particular stone, post, fingerpost, tollhouse or stretch of road;
is stepping down as a surveyor, a guide or a society officer, or celebrating a long-service milestone, a phrase they may appreciate more than most;
has finished a long project, such as a county survey, a restored fingerpost, a repainted run of mileposts, a trail leaflet, a book or an oral history recording, and would love to see it in a new way;
has moved away and misses the old road, the verges and the people;
has a partner or family who'd like to say thank you for all the time they gave.

It's less suitable for someone who doesn't use a phone or a computer at all, in which case a handwritten card may be better, or someone who would feel uncomfortable being singled out. For them, a quiet word at the end of the society's meeting may be best.

Traffic, permissions and people come first

A few practical rules before you send anything:

Roadside work is dangerous. Milestones and mileposts often stand on narrow verges beside fast roads, with no pavement and poor sight lines. Volunteers who work on them wear high-visibility clothing, work in pairs, use signs and follow a risk assessment, and some roads are simply too dangerous to work on. Never stop your car on a verge or a bend to say hello, never walk into the road to talk to a volunteer, and never encourage children to stand by a roadside stone for a photo.
A volunteer shift is working time. When volunteers are surveying, painting, guiding or helping someone in the archive, they're concentrating on safety and on the job. Wait until they've finished, or send a card.
Permission matters. Most milestones, mileposts and fingerposts belong to or are looked after by a highway authority or council, and many are listed or otherwise protected. Repairs and repainting need permission and the right materials and colours. Don't paint, clean, move or "rescue" a milestone yourself, and don't ask a volunteer to do it for you without the proper permissions. If you've found one, tell the society or the council.
Tollhouses are often people's homes. Many surviving tollhouses are now private houses, and some stand right on the edge of the road with windows facing it. Don't knock on the door, don't walk into the garden, don't photograph into the windows and don't share the address. Only visit a tollhouse that's open to the public, at the times it's open.
Private land. Some stones are in fields, hedges, gardens and walls on private land. Only go where there's a public right of way or you have the owner's permission, close gates and keep dogs under control.
Don't take anything. Milestones, plates, fingers and toll boards are stolen every year, and some turn up for sale. Never remove anything, never buy a milestone or plate whose origin you don't know, and report anything suspicious to the society or the council.
Records name real people. Turnpike minute books, toll keepers' accounts, leases, census returns and newspapers name real people, and so do the society's own membership records. Access is decided by the archive or the society. Don't photograph pages without permission, and never share a page that names someone living.
Locations can be sensitive. Societies sometimes keep the exact locations of vulnerable stones private to protect them from theft. Respect that, and don't share precise locations or map pins that a volunteer has asked you to keep to yourself.
Councils, paid staff and partners. Where volunteers work alongside council officers, highway engineers or paid heritage staff, many organisations have rules about the gifts staff can accept. Keep the gift modest, and keep it to the volunteers unless you know the rules.
Group money. Don't send cash, vouchers or anything that looks like payment to an individual volunteer. If you'd like to give money, give it to the society, the trust or the charity, through their own channels, or sponsor a repair.
Children. Many groups run family trails and school sessions. Let the volunteers decide what children can do, keep children well away from traffic, and never photograph a child at an event unless their parent and the organisers have clearly agreed.
The rota, the records and people's details. The volunteer rota, the survey allocations, the membership list, research requests and anything with names, addresses or phone numbers are private. Don't photograph them, don't share them and don't put them in a puzzle.

An honest word about tolls

Old tollhouses look charming now, with their little bay windows and their neat toll boards. But tolls were often hated. For carters, drovers, farmers and poor travellers, a toll gate every few miles could make a journey to market much more expensive, and toll keepers were sometimes threatened or attacked. In west Wales between 1839 and 1843, the Rebecca Riots saw groups of men, some dressed in women's clothes, destroy toll gates at night in protest against tolls, poverty and rural hardship. Many groups now tell that side of the story honestly, alongside the history of better roads and faster coaches. If the volunteer you're thanking has helped tell those harder stories well, that's worth thanking them for too.

When to send it

Roadside heritage has its own calendar, tied to the weather, the growing season and the heritage year. Some good moments:

at the end of the survey and painting season, when the dry weather is over, the verges are wet and the volunteers finally put away the brushes and the high-visibility vests;
after heritage open days, usually in September, when preserved tollhouses open their doors and guides talk to visitors all weekend;
at the end of October, when the clocks go back on Sunday 25 October in the UK and much of Europe, the light goes early and roadside work stops for the winter. The first dark evening is a good moment for a thank-you that arrives on a phone;
during the winter research season, when volunteers move indoors to the record office, the database and the newsletter;
after a society meeting, a conference or an annual general meeting, when officers step up or step down;
after a restoration milestone, such as a recast plate, a repaired fingerpost, a reset stone, a completed county survey or a new trail leaflet;
when someone steps down or reaches a long-service milestone, which is the most important moment of all.

If you're not sure, send it after the walk, the visit or the repair you're thanking them for, while the memory is still fresh.

Why a jigsaw can fit

There's something about milestones and tollhouses that suits a jigsaw. A freshly painted milepost has crisp black letters on a white face, with the green of the verge and the brown of the autumn hedge behind it. A tollhouse is a small, interesting building, with odd angles, a bay window, a slate roof, old brick or stone and sometimes a toll board on the wall. A fingerpost at a crossroads points four ways at once, with the names of villages in tidy capitals. Each of them makes a satisfying image, because every piece has a little texture, a little lettering and a little colour.

A jigsaw also shares something with the work itself. Tracing an old turnpike is a puzzle: a stone here, a tollhouse there, a line on a map, a sentence in a minute book, until suddenly the whole road appears. A Puzzlify jigsaw has the same moment, when the last piece goes in and your note appears. It's a small surprise, but a personal one.

For the surveyors and recorders

Surveyors and recorders are the foundation of everything else. They walk and drive the old roads with maps and notebooks, looking for a stone in a hedge or a post behind a bus shelter, and they photograph, measure and describe what they find. Some of them have recorded hundreds of stones; some have found ones that nobody had seen for a century. If one of them showed you where to look, or found the stone outside your house, tell them. A photo of a milestone in its setting, taken safely from the verge or a footpath, suits them well. "You taught me to see what I'd walked past for years" is a good start.

For the restoration and painting volunteers

Restoration volunteers do the visible work, but they do it slowly and carefully. They get the permissions, clear the brambles, brush off the rust, prime, paint and letter, often on cold verges with traffic going past, and they use the right colours and materials so that the stone or post looks right. If they repainted the milepost in your village, tell them what it looks like now on the walk to school. A before-and-after pair of photos, or a single photo of the freshly painted post, suits them.

For the fingerpost volunteers

Fingerpost volunteers care for some of the most loved objects in the countryside: the old signposts at crossroads, with their cast-iron or wooden fingers, their finials and their village names. They record them, report damage, clean them, raise money and work with councils and foundries to repair or remake missing fingers. If they saved your crossroads signpost, tell them. A photo of the fingerpost against the sky, or a close-up of a finger with its lettering, suits them.

For the tollhouse stewards and guides

Tollhouse stewards and guides open small, often cramped buildings to visitors on heritage open days and summer weekends. They explain the gate, the toll board, the keeper's life and the turnpike trust, and they answer the same question about why the windows face up and down the road with the same patience every time. If one of them made your visit, tell them which story stayed with you. A photo of the tollhouse from the road, the bay window or the toll board, taken when it's open and with permission, suits them.

For the archive and research volunteers

Research volunteers turn old paper into history. They read turnpike Acts, trust minute books, toll accounts, leases, maps and newspapers, and they work out when a road was turnpiked, where the gates stood, who the keepers were and when the trust was wound up. Sometimes they find a lovely detail, such as a side gate put up on a back lane because travellers kept slipping round the main gate to avoid paying. If one of them helped you understand your road or your house, tell them what it meant. A photo of an old map of the road, or the record office building, suits them; keep any page with names out of the frame.

For the walk leaders and trail volunteers

Walk leaders and trail volunteers turn the research into something people can enjoy. They plan routes along old turnpike roads, check stiles and rights of way, write trail leaflets, and lead groups from stone to stone. If one of their walks gave you a good morning, tell them. A photo of a stretch of the old road, a milestone on a footpath or a view from the route suits them.

For the oral history volunteers

Oral history volunteers sit with people who grew up in tollhouses, worked on the roads or remember the old routes before the bypasses, and record their memories. They know how to listen and how to ask the next question. If they recorded someone in your family, tell them what it meant to hear the recording. A photo of the tollhouse or the road the person remembered suits them, taken from a public place.

For the education volunteers

Education volunteers help children read an old milestone, follow a road on a map, work out how long a journey took by coach and imagine paying a toll. They make roadside history fun, and they keep children safe while they do it. If a session got your child excited, tell them what your child said on the way home. A photo of a milestone or an old map suits them; never children's faces without permission.

For the database, mapping and website volunteers

Database and website volunteers keep the records in order: thousands of entries, photographs, grid references, condition notes and updates, all kept accurate and searchable. Without them, the surveyors' work would sit in notebooks. If you've used the records to find a stone or plan a walk, thank them. A photo of a milestone with a clear inscription, the kind they'd love to add to the record, suits them.

Newsletter editors, membership secretaries, treasurers, trustees and founders carry the work nobody sees: the meetings, the insurance, the permissions, the grant forms, the accounts, the conference and the newsletter that somehow appears on time every quarter. Some of them started the whole thing with a single stone and a stubborn idea. If they made the society or the trust possible, tell them. A photo of a favourite stone or tollhouse suits them.

If you live with a tollhouse or milestone volunteer

Partners and families give up a lot: the Saturdays, the sudden stops on country drives to look at a stone in a hedge, the paint tins in the boot, the high-visibility vests on the coat hooks, the evenings spent hearing about turnpike trusts and the holidays planned around milestones. A jigsaw from you can say something they might not hear from anyone else: "Thank you for all the time you give. I know what those old roads mean to you, and I'm proud of you." A photo of their favourite stone, their favourite tollhouse or the road where they found their first milepost suits this.

When a long-serving volunteer steps down

When someone leaves after many years, the group often gives them a card, a framed photograph, a book, a small model milestone or a mention in the newsletter. A jigsaw from the group can sit alongside that. Pick a photo that sums up their years: the stone they found, the post they painted, the tollhouse they guided in, the road they researched. Ask everyone to add a line to the note, or keep it short and let the card carry the longer messages.

In memory of a volunteer

Some groups name a trail, a walk or an award, or put a short note in the newsletter, in memory of a volunteer who has died. If a volunteer has died, a jigsaw can be a gentle way for their family or the group to remember them, but only with the family's agreement. Choose a photo they loved, avoid anything that might upset, leave the leaderboard off and keep the note simple: "In memory of Ann, who painted our milepost and taught a whole village how far it was to town."

For tollhouse and milestone volunteers elsewhere

What we've written applies in many places where old roadside heritage is cared for by volunteers:

in England, where milestone societies, local history groups and adopt-a-milestone schemes record and care for thousands of milestones, mileposts, fingerposts and boundary markers, and where many tollhouses survive, some open on heritage open days;
in Scotland, where milestones, toll houses and old military and turnpike roads are recorded and cared for by volunteers and local groups;
in Wales, where tollhouses and milestones survive along the old roads, and where the story of the Rebecca Riots is part of the history volunteers tell;
in Ireland and Northern Ireland, where milestones and old road markers survive along the old coach roads and are recorded by local history groups and heritage volunteers;
in the United States, where historical societies care for the old milestones of the post roads, the mile markers and toll houses of early turnpikes and the National Road, and where some toll houses are open as small museums;
in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where old milestones and road markers along early colonial roads are recorded and cared for by local historians and heritage groups, and where many groups also tell the story of the Indigenous peoples whose land and paths those roads crossed;
across Europe, from the Roman milestones of Italy, Spain and France to the old distance stones and post milestones of Germany, the bornes of France and the road markers of the Netherlands and Scandinavia, where volunteers help find, record and protect them.

The rules about gifts, photos, children, roadside safety and permissions vary from place to place. Check your own group's guidance, and keep the thank-you personal and modest.

The best photos for a tollhouse and milestone thank-you are often the simple ones, taken safely and with permission. Some ideas:

a freshly painted milepost on a green verge, with the inscription clear;
an old stone milestone in a hedge, with moss and autumn leaves around it;
a fingerpost at a crossroads against a big sky;
a close-up of a fingerpost finger with its village name and mileage;
a preserved tollhouse that's open to the public, with its bay window and roof;
a toll board listing the old charges, photographed on an open day with permission;
a stretch of an old turnpike road, with a stone in the distance;
an old map of the road, spread on a table;
a row of paint tins and small brushes laid out on a feed sack, before the work starts;
a milestone in frost or snow, if you're lucky enough to see one safely.

Things never to photograph, or to keep out of the frame:

anything that means standing in the road, on a bend, on a narrow verge or anywhere unsafe; if you can't take the photo safely from a footpath, a lay-by or a gateway, don't take it;
private tollhouses that are now homes, their windows, gardens, cars and house names, and anything that reveals the address;
children, at any time, unless their parents and the organisers have clearly agreed, and never near traffic;
volunteers working, unless they've clearly agreed, and never in a way that distracts them near traffic;
the exact location of a vulnerable stone, if the society keeps it private, including grid references and map pins;
legible pages of minute books, accounts, census returns or any document that names real people;
the volunteer rota, survey allocations, membership lists and any page with names, addresses or signatures;
car number plates and the faces of passers-by.

If the photo has people in it, ask them first. A photo with no people at all, just the stone, the post, the building and the road, is often the easiest and best choice.

Getting the JPG right

Puzzlify works from a JPG. Most phone photos are already JPGs, or can be saved as one. A few practical tips:

a milepost or milestone looks best photographed square on, at the height of its face, so the inscription is easy to read;
the low sun of an autumn morning or late afternoon brings out carved letters on a stone; midday sun flattens them;
a freshly painted post can be very bright, so tap on the white face to set the exposure and stop it blowing out;
a fingerpost looks best from slightly below, against a plain sky, with the fingers spread across the frame;
a tollhouse looks best from across the road, from a safe public place, with the whole building in view;
landscape images usually make the most comfortable puzzles on a phone turned sideways;
stone, lettering, moss, brick, hedges and autumn leaves make wonderful puzzles, because every piece has a little texture and colour;
plain skies, tarmac and big areas of one colour are tricky, so crop them or pick fewer pieces;
if your phone saves photos in another format, such as HEIC, change the camera setting to "most compatible" or export a copy as JPG;
remove location data from the photo before you upload it, especially for a vulnerable stone or a private tollhouse. On most phones, you can switch it off in the share options or the camera settings.

Privacy and an optional PIN

The puzzle is private: it's shared as a link, not posted on a public board. You can add an optional PIN so that only someone who knows it can open the puzzle, which is useful if you're sending it to the society's volunteer email list. Even so, treat the photo as if it might be forwarded, and keep children, private homes, number plates, exact locations of vulnerable stones, records and anyone's details out of it. Puzzlify doesn't use your photos to train AI or share them with third parties.

Say it's from you

Societies and their volunteers get a lot of unexpected messages, from fake invoices to "your parcel is waiting" scams, and they're rightly wary of unexpected links. Say who it's from and what it is in the message itself: "This is a little jigsaw of the milepost you repainted outside the village hall, with a note at the end. It's from me, and it's safe to open." For someone who doesn't use email much, print the link as a QR code inside a card and hand it over at the next meeting.

Piece counts

Pieces	Photo idea	Best for
24	a close-up of a fingerpost finger with its lettering	a quick solve, or a first puzzle
48	a freshly painted milepost on a green verge	one clear subject, a relaxed solve
80	an old stone milestone in a hedge with autumn leaves	a busier image with lots of texture
130	a preserved tollhouse with its roof, window and toll board	a detailed photo for a keen puzzler
252	an old map of the turnpike road, or a long view along the road	a long, slow solve for a long-serving volunteer
48 or 80	a fingerpost at a crossroads against the sky	a cheerful thank-you for the walk leaders and the founders

If you're not sure, 48 or 80 pieces suits most people on a phone. Plain skies and tarmac get tricky at high piece counts, so start lower if the image has large areas of one colour. A hedge full of autumn leaves or an old map is the opposite: busy, detailed and very satisfying at 130 or 252.

How to send it

Upload the photo, pick a piece count, write your note and preview it. When you're happy, publish the link and send it by email or message, print the link or a QR code inside a card, or ask the society's secretary or the newsletter editor to pass it on. Start at Puzzlify's photo puzzle maker.

If you're sending one puzzle to the whole survey team or the painting group, the optional leaderboard lets everyone see who finished first, which a group of people who can spot a milestone in a hedge at forty miles an hour may take very seriously. Some groups enjoy the rivalry; others would rather solve it quietly. For a puzzle sent to one person, for anything connected with someone's family history, or after a bereavement, leave it off.

Note examples

"To Ann: eleven years of brushes, brambles and black paint, and our milepost has never looked better. Thank you."
"To the survey team: thank you for finding the stone in our hedge. We had no idea it was there."
"To Graham: thank you for standing by the sign in the cold every time. Nobody notices, but we do."
"To the tollhouse guides: thank you for the best open day of the year. My son now wants to charge tolls on our stairs."
"To the fingerpost group: thank you for saving the signpost at the crossroads. It's the first thing I see when I come home."
"To the trustees: thank you for keeping the tollhouse open when it would have been easier to sell it."
"To my wife: thank you for the Saturdays, the paint in the boot and the sudden stops on every country drive. I'm proud of you."

(Change the names, and keep anything personal or identifying out of a puzzle that may be shared.)

Honest pricing

Making and previewing a puzzle is free in your browser. You only pay when you publish the link to send it: one credit is EUR 3.99, three credits are EUR 8.99, and Plus is EUR 14.99 a year for ten credits, which can make sense if you want to thank the surveyors, the painters and the tollhouse guides separately. The person you send it to doesn't need an account or an app; they just open the link in a browser.

This is a digital jigsaw you play on a screen. It isn't a cardboard puzzle in the post, a printed product, a model milestone, a framed picture, a teaching resource, a raffle prize or a public puzzle board, and it isn't connected to any milestone society, tollhouse trust, council or heritage body. It's also not puzzlify.io (a chess site), Puzzlit, Puzzly or Puzzify, which are different things.

Ideas that are not a puzzle

A jigsaw is only one way to say thank you, and often not the most important one. Other ideas that tollhouse and milestone volunteers tend to love:

a handwritten card, posted to the society or handed over at a meeting, naming the person and the moment;
a letter to the society's newsletter, the parish magazine or the local paper, so the volunteer is thanked in public;
a donation to the society or the trust, a membership, or sponsoring the repair of a milestone, a plate or a fingerpost;
reporting a stone you've found, with a clear photo and a safe description of where it is, which to many of these volunteers is the best present of all;
telling the council, politely, that you've noticed and valued the work on your local milestones and fingerposts;
buying the society's trail leaflet or book, and telling them where you walked;
sharing old photographs, postcards or memories of a tollhouse or an old road, if you have them and they'd be welcome;
sitting down with the oral history volunteer to record your own memories, if you grew up in a tollhouse or remember the old roads;
offering your time: a morning on a survey, a day helping on a heritage open day, or an evening at the database, once you've joined properly and done any training and checks the group needs;
a flask of hot soup or a tin of biscuits for the painting team at the end of a cold morning on the verge. Check for allergies first.

If a photo puzzle feels right as well, choose the stone, the post, the fingerpost, the tollhouse or the old road, take it safely and with permission, keep children, private homes, number plates, exact locations of vulnerable stones, records and anyone's details out of the frame, pick a piece count that suits them, and write the note in your own words. You can make a free preview here and decide later whether to send it.

Whatever you send, the most important part is the sentence that sounds like you, written to the person who kneels on a feed sack on a cold verge and paints the letters on a milepost one by one, who keeps the old roads readable so that the coach drivers and the carters, the drovers and the toll keepers, and the walkers who once counted the miles to market, are remembered, so that next spring, when a child stops on the way to school and reads a freshly painted milepost out loud, someone has made sure it still tells them how far they've come and how far they have to go, one mile, one letter, one piece at a time.

Written by the small team behind Puzzlify (info@puzzlify.app). Not legal, historical, archive, data protection, planning, listed building, conservation, highways, traffic management, road safety, paint, first aid, health and safety, safeguarding, bereavement, copyright, property, photography permission or employment advice. Check your own group's guidance on gifts, photos, roadside work, permissions, private property, children and people's details.