Gaunless Bridge

Road bridge, 1762, widened in 1822.

MATERIALS: coursed stone with ashlar dressings.

PLAN: a single arched bridge with abutments and wing walls, carrying Gib Chare across the River Gaunless

DESCRIPTION: a single, segmental masonry arch springing from plain abutments topped by wing walls. There is a very clear construction joint in the barrel of the arch showing that the structure has been widened.

The upstream elevation has an arch ring of narrow ashlar voussoirs, longer than they are wide, and topped by an archivolt of smaller, squarer, ashlars sitting slightly proud of the arch ring. The spandrels and parapets are brought flush with the archivolt and comprise rubble stone laid for the most part in courses. The western abutment has a small buttress while in the east the parapet is corbelled out slightly, immediately above the springing of the arch in order to ease access on to the bridge from Durham Road.

The downstream elevation is similar in form and construction to its upstream predecessor, but has voussoirs that are less well dressed and slightly wider, surmounted by a much finer and more decorative archivolt in the form of a narrow roll-moulding.

The approach on to the bridge from Gib Chare is similarly eased slightly by corbelling out of the western parapet immediately above the arch springing, while the short wing wall that continues the parapet westwards ends after some 14m in a drum pillar with a flat-topped cap with rounded sides to match the chamfered coping to both sets of parapets and wing walls.

The shaft of a cylindrical cast-iron street lamp is set into the coping of the northern parapet; its fluted pedestal supports an ornamental twisted shaft with simple base and capital mouldings. The light was gas-fired, and the cast-iron supply pipe which rises out of the western river bank, is attached to the outside of the parapet.

A carved grey granite stone against the southern parapet stands about 0.7m high, and is of triangular cross-section with a sloping top. It bears the inscription ‘BP.A.H.B.’ (for Bishop Auckland Health or Highways Board) on its eastern face, ‘BP.A.L.B.’ (Bishop Auckland Local Board) on its western face, and ‘H&LA | 1878’ (the Highways & Locomotives Amendment) Act of 1878) on its sloping top.