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Widecombe-in-the-Moor
Widecombe Things New and Old
This is the seventh item from Robert Dymond's book: "Things New and Old Concerning the Parish of Widecombe-in-the-Moor and its Neighbourhood" (1876)
THE OLD CLAPPER BRIDGE AT DARTMEET
“These Moors are changeable in their wills.”—Othello.
ON the 4th of August, 1826, Widecombe was visited by a violent thunderstorm, which lasted from 3 to 7 o’clock p.m. The clouds gathered suddenly over the valleys, and the explosions of thunder followed the lightning flashes instantaneously. Many cattle were struck dead, and the streams were greatly swollen. The east-Dart rose to an extraordinary height, and the “clapper” stones, or large unhewn flat blocks of granite that formed the roadway, were carried away by the force of the flood. The remains of this bridge, including one pier and the north abutment, are still distinctly visible about 70 feet above the present County Bridge. Traces of the site of the road by which the old bridge was approached on both sides are also to be distinguished, and elderly parishioners can remember when it was passable. The present structure has a stone, built into its north side, with the inscription “ County Bridge, 1792,” but, as is still the case at Post Bridge, the old bridge remained standing after the new one was erected.
In treating of the history of bridges in his Lives of the Engineers, Mr. Smiles refers to the ancient “clapper” bridges of Dartmoor— Post Bridge the largest, Bellivor (Bellaford), Cowsic, near Two Bridges, which has five openings, and one on the North Teign, near Sittaford Tor, 27ft. long with a 7ft. roadway. He observes “ that no structures resembling these bridges have been found in any other part of Britain, or even of Brittany, so celebrated for its aboriginal remains. The only bridges at all approaching them in character are found in ancient Egypt, to which, indeed, they bear a striking resemblance.”
The information on this page was last modified on January 11 2017 14:24:02.