Bow Bridge

HARTLAND ABBEY PARK SS 22 SW

3/157 Bow Bridge 2.6.77

• II

Road bridge over Abbey River. Medieval with C18 or C19 widening and C20 parapets. Slatestone rubble. Two narrow straight-sided openings with 2-centred arches of rubble voussoirs. The west face has a cutwater on the central pier and its abutments are canted. The east face has the same arrangement but no canting to its abutments. Development: the downstream (west) half of the bridge is earliest and suggests a hump-backed form with the carriageway narrower than the approach road and a refuge on each side. From underneath it can be seen that the bridge was later widened by building against the upstream (east) side in like manner. The soffits of the widened arch differ from the original in that put log holes still show how the centering for the arches was carried. In recent times the roadway on each side has been raised up to eliminate the hump, the parapets have been rebuilt with half-round tops and the refuges eliminated. This picturesque little bridge is probably a remnant of pre-Reformation Hartland Abbey. The earliest reference to Bow Bridge is in 1682 but probably it is also referred to in 1605 - 6 when "the governors of the church goods" paid Francis Bremelcombe a ls l1d in allowance of mony by hym defraid in repairing Abbey Bridge". Source: Hartland and West Country Chronicle April 1911 - Bow Bridge R. Pearse Chope.

Listing NGR: SS2460724762