HISTORIC BRIDGES

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 31 August 1929, Page 11

HISTORIC BRIDGES

HEX s ix bridges were freed of toll at Both. England, recently, six pages of vivid history were opened to ihe public (c.vritos .lack Homing in the “Daily Telegraph”). Everywhere these old edifices have stories to tell for those -who- would listen; roan now nobly bearing indifferent moderns stand witness to the times when men fought and perished on them. To-day bridges often merely join finely-surfaced roads; the traveller conies upon them, crosses them, and is gone before he can absorb the beauty of curving arches or the romance of centuries-old pillars and battlements. None more rich in legend or fact exists than Bideford Bridge, made famous by Kingsley in “Westward Ho!” This curving bridge of many unequal arches, the only one in the world to own property, to receive rates, and to entertain on its own score, was built on its existing site, legend says, because of tlic. intervention of a local patron saint.

The first stones were laid further up the river, but the next, day they mere found where they now are. They were moved back to the original site and more added, but on the morrow th ( ey hnd been moved again. Then the Mayor, worthy man, droanied that he saw the patron saint taking the stones from the place where there were moving sands, and putting them

OVER ENGLISH RIVERS

on a firmer bed lower down river. In those days none would have dared to disregard such an omen, anJ so was built Bideford Bridge. The Auld Brig o' Ayr, the subject of fulfilled .prophecy by Burns, is suppose,) to have boon built in the t hit-7 treat h century through the philanthropy of l|\o maiden ladies. A century later the New Brig was badly damaged in a flood and had to be rebuilt.

Few rivers are ns frequently adorned with historic, bridges as the Avon, and tew of the Avon's bridges can claim the frame of that at 'Stratford —the Clo.pt on Bridge. 'Shakespeare must often have crossed this bridge, the severe design of mhich is now softened with age. : r"

Another Avon bridge of note is that of Bradford, with its doomed chantry in the middle. This, originally a little, flat-roofed chapel, was with other parts of the main structure built in the four-’ teenth century, a period during which, many other bridges mere similarly sanctified. Money collected to the chapels was devoted to the upkeep of the bridges.

One cannot travel far to-day without crossing a bridge of some antiquity, and with the growing popularity of mechanical transport these old structures are bravely supporting burdens undreamed of by their creators.