Maidens Bridge

790/0/10099 FORTY HILL 23-AUG-05 Maiden's Bridge

II

Road bridge across Maiden's Brook,Circa 1800, Architect unknown

Materials: London stock brick with stone dressings

Description: Single span bridge flanked by circular flood arches. Projections to form four narrow pedestrian refuges. Stone string course and copings to parapets. Terminals to iron ties either side of principal arch. Iron plaque on east elevation of west parapet. Inscription reads: County of Middlesex. Take notice that this bridge (which is a county bridge) is insufficient to carry weights beyond the ordinary traffic of the District and that the owners and persons in charge of locomotive traction engines and heavily laden carriages are warned against using the bridge for the passage of any such engines or carriages. Richard Nicholson, Clerk of the Peace. Brick paved stream bed beneath principal arch with iron retaining plate to east. Bank retaining walls of brick immediately adjoining bridge.

History: The bridge is the final such in a sequence believed to have occupied the site since before the Norman Conquest and was built to replace the earlier timber and brick bridge which had proved too narrow. Robinson, in his history of Enfield (1823), reports that `this bridge was built of brick, the whole width of the road, about twenty years ago.' The present plaque dates to the early 20th century replacing one of circa 1824 which threatened anyone damaging the bridge with deportation for life. Some parapet rebuilding of 1968 after the bridge was struck by a lorry, which prompted the current single flow traffic system. Maiden's Bridge is a simple yet attractively composed structure of circa 1800 which still performs the function for which it was constructed.

Sources Carter, V (ed.), 2000 Treasures of Enfield. Pages 58-9

Cherry, B & Pevsner, N, 1999 The Buildings of England. London 4: North. Page 450

Koch, E, 1935 Forty Hill Church and Parish

Robinson, W, 1823 History and antiquities of Enfield

Whitaker, C, 1911 An illustrated history, statistical and topopographical account of Enfield