Gaunless Bridge

The Gaunless Bridge is a road bridge built in 1762 and widened in 1822. It is constructed of coursed stone with ashlar dressings.

The bridge carries Gib Chare across the River Gaunless and consists of a single segmental masonry arch with abutments and wing walls. A clear construction joint in the arch’s barrel indicates a later widening. The upstream elevation features an arch ring of narrow, rectangular ashlar voussoirs, topped by a decorative archivolt of smaller, squarer ashlars that project slightly. The spandrels and parapets are flush with the archivolt and built of rubble stone laid in courses. A small buttress is present on the western abutment, and the eastern parapet is slightly corbelled out above the arch springing to provide easier access from Durham Road.

The downstream elevation is similar in form and construction, but with less well-dressed, slightly wider voussoirs, surmounted by a more decorative archivolt in the form of a narrow roll-moulding. The approach from Gib Chare has a slight corbelled projection on the western parapet above the arch springing. The short wing wall extending westwards ends in a drum pillar with a flat-topped cap and rounded sides, mirroring the chamfered coping of the parapets and wing walls.

A cylindrical cast-iron street lamp is set into the northern parapet’s coping. Its fluted pedestal supports an ornamental twisted shaft with simple base and capital mouldings. A gas-fired supply pipe rises from the western river bank and is attached to the outside of the parapet. A carved grey granite stone, triangular in cross-section, is set against the southern parapet. It stands approximately 0.7 metres high and bears the inscriptions ‘BP.A.H.B.’ (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’ (Highways & Locomotives Amendment Act of 1878) on its sloping top.