Have you noticed a series of white posts, placed by the side of the road and scattered through Bromley’s green belt?

Eight of them can be seen in hedgerows, on commons and grass verges between Green Street Green and Chelsfield.

There is one in a front garden, one by the side of a golf course and one on the railway embankment to the east of Orpington Hospital.

All the locations co-incide with old parish boundaries.

They are coal posts, or 19th century tax posts, and were sited along the boundary of the Metropolitan Police District in 1861 under the direction of the Mayor Alderman of the City of London.

Each post displays the City of London coat of arms and, of the 200 around the capital, 16 are in the borough of Bromley.

The coal posts were the 19th century equivalent of congestion charges.

The City of London exercised the right to levy charges on commodities entering the capital from medieval times until the late 1800s.

One of these commodities was coal.

Soon after the construction of the canal system and the growth of railway transport a boundary stone sytem was introduced so inspectors could check the movement of coal and calculate the required levy.

I find it interesting one exists on the cul-de-sac from Downe to the west Kent golf course which presumably was a major road before the airfield was constructed.

One also stands beside the railway line near Warren Road, Chelsfield, and can only be seen from trains when the natural growth along the embankment has been cut back.