Black Bridge

A road bridge over Copperhouse Creek built in the early C19 by the Cornish Copper Company.

MATERIALS: built of copper slag blocks (scoria) with some brick repairs. The carriageway is gravelled.

DESPCRIPTION: the two-span bridge stands on a north-west/south-east orientation. The ends of the bridge are splayed out where they meet embankments with battered walls. The north span is taller and is segmental and asymmetrical, being higher at the abutment end. The south arch is round.

The bridge is faced almost entirely by coursed rectangular scoria blocks, mortared except at lower levels, with scoria blocks also providing the arch-rings and paving across the channels beneath the arches. Limited use of brickwork infills the irregular shapes where blockwork courses approach the curves of the arch-rings. The parapet coping is also of scoria blocks but these are edge-set and moulded to a pointed arch in profile.

On the north side of the bridge is a dam that comprises of three large shuttered-concrete blocks, 0.6m thick and 1.6m high, separated by two sluice gate gaps, 1.6m wide and 1m deep, narrowing to slender gaps between the blocks' bases. The sluice structure is probably of Second World War date.