Medieval bridges

A medieval multi-span bridge is a structure of stone or wood which carries a road or trackway across a river by means of two or more arches supported on piers set into the bed of the watercourse, the construction of which dates to the medieval period. Many of these structures are still standing and in use today, although post-medieval and modern alterations may have changed their original appearance, such as the fourteenth century bridge at Thornborough which has seventeenth century repair and inscription.

Bridges were used throughout much of the medieval period; references in charters date from the 8th century onwards. Due to the use of timber, little archaeological evidence survives of early medieval bridges; timbers of a bridge dating to the 9th or 10th century have recently been discovered at Skerne near Driffield, Yorks (Dent 1984). During the later medieval period the use of stone was much more common and bridges were constructed and used throughout the whole of the post-Conquest period. Excavations of Foreign Bridge, Gloucester, revealed evidence of a stone bridge dating to the 11th or mid 12th century; the bridge at Pickering, Yorks, is probably of 15th century date.

Medieval multi-span bridges are widespread throughout England with no particular regional concentrations. This distribution, however, includes only those that are standing today and the few known from archaeological investigations; many more bridges, known from documentary sources to have been in existence during the medieval period, have been demolished and replaced, or obscured in the post-medieval period. Ickford Bridge has a plaque dating it to 1685 but there are records of a bridge from the 13th century.