1 Palmers Bridge

Here, on the edge of Bodmin Moor, where the highway from Launceston to Bodmin crosses the Fowey River, there has been a succession of three bridges. The first was an ancient clapper bridge – the name describing stone piers supporting granite slabs with (in this case) five clapper openings. It was severely damaged by a flood in October 1880 and replaced with a single-arched stone bridge. The river’s course was diverted quite sharply to flow under the new bridge and the ancient clapper bridge was torn down. 

      This ‘new’ bridge served for over 100 years until, between 1990-1991, the Bolventor and Jamaica Inn by-pass was built and the road widened to form the A30 dual carriageway we know today. The new, new bridge incorporated the existing bridge on its southern side (as photo) and extended upstream, five times the width of the original. Four lanes of traffic now roar overhead. 

      The river journeys from here through a beautiful valley, with a few little bridges we’re not covering that give access to private properties – East Dozmary Bridge, Harrow Bridge, Goodaver Bridge and Furswain Bridge.

A few yards upstream of the original and very lovely old clapper bridge that leads to Ninestones Farm is its replacement. Although it’s a modern agricultural bridge built of concrete and steel, it’s still interesting in an arty way, with its four large round corrugated culverts, nicely aged now with moss. It’s pleasing that the builder paid respect to the old bridge by mirroring the number of openings, albeit in a completely different way.

Much photographed and for good reason, not least because you can stand on the new bridge to get a full, mid-stream shot of the old! This is a very pretty four-span clapper bridge which is no longer in use. It is constructed of granite blocks spanning granite piers, the tops of which are extended to form shaped corbels (stone supports at right angles to the piers). The parapets are made of large moor stone topped with granite coping. The piers have shaped cutwaters on the upstream side only. There is a weathered engraved stone with the words ‘The building of this bridge was at the sole expense of S B Marke Esq 1852’. The last bit (the name) is a bit indistinct but Charles Henderson’s book ‘Old Cornish Bridges and Streams’ published in 1928 helped out here, “There is another clapper bridge at Carkeet built by Mr Marke in 1852”. Below it in the water was growing this country’s most poisonous plant, Hemlock Water Dropwort.

Just downstream is another clapper bridge with four square openings, also leading to a farm. It’s built in a much cruder style, still with blocks of granite laid over stone piers but with no corbels on the piers and no parapets to save you from pitching into the stream.

Despite Henderson’s slightly damning comment about Trekeive ‘…a third bridge of the same rude type…’, this is a pretty bridge in a lovely valley setting. It is built to much the same style as the old Ninestones Bridge but with the parapets made from smaller moor stone. On the approach to the bridge there is a thrilling sign ‘CAUTION Otters Crossing’! 

      A tributary which was worthy of its own road bridge flows into the Fowey just downstream of the Trekeive Bridge.

The current Draynes Bridge was built in 1876 and is a Grade II listed four-span bridge with granite lintels. The piers on both sides of the bridge have shaped cutwaters protecting them. The hand-drawn tithe map of 1842 (34 years before the current bridge was built and two years before the start of the adjacent Wheal Victoria mine) shows a track either side of a ford crossing just below the current bridge as well as some form of bridge (footbridge or older clapper bridge?) on the site of the current bridge.

      Henderson was less than flattering about this bridge too. '… a clumsy structure of moorstone blocks with 4 square openings. This bridge is named in 1362 and by Leland* in 1535, who found it made of ‘flat moor stones’. It carries a very ancient track from Caradon towards Bodmin and was probably the first bridge over the Fowey. A short walk downriver brings us to the Cascades known as Golitha Falls where is some fine woodland scenery.'

      Interestingly, Christopher Saxton’s map of c1637 shows the Fowey river continuing to run south from here and on to the estuary at Looe rather than turning west towards Bodmin and then south again to the sea at Polruan. You can see how the mistake was made since the Fowey and the East Looe rivers are in a direct line and pass within half a mile of each other.

* John Leland was chaplain and librarian to Henry VIII, becoming the king’s antiquary in 1533. For 12 years on the king’s order he travelled alone throughout England and Wales, including Cornwall, passionately recording everything he saw, natural and man-made. His notes and writings became an invaluable source of historical record.

This is a lovely Grade II* listed 15th-century bridge, characterised particularly by pointed refuges built into the parapets above the pillars so pedestrians can get out of the way of horses and carriages. It carries the old road from Liskeard to St Neot and Bodmin. The river here is divided by a slim, tree-clad island, so the bridge spans both arms of the river.

      Now, this bridge Henderson really did like! He wrote: ‘This is one of the prettiest and most interesting bridges in Cornwall and is at present in a very decayed condition. Here are remains of two bridges over two arms of the river. The larger has two pointed arches of rubble 14 feet in span resembling those of Panters Bridge*. The central pier retains its cutwaters and the bridge has not been widened. The low parapets have granite coping and the roadway is from 7.5-8 feet in width. The smaller bridge at the west end has a curious little arch which, before recent widening, was 2.5 feet narrower than the other arches. On 21st January 1412-13 Bishop Stafford granted an Indulgence (ed. monetary payment) in favour of the Bridge of Treverbyn, “threatening total ruin”. As a result of this indulgence the larger arches were evidently built for they bear a close resemblance to the arches of Staverton Bridge near Totnes for which an indulgence was granted in the very same year. The little arch is probably a survival of the older bridge “threatening total ruin”. When the main road was laid down the Glynn Valley about a century ago (ed. 1820s), Treverbyn Bridge with its steep and dangerous approaches was abandoned by all but local traffic. It is now in such a decayed state that part has fallen into the river and sadly needs another indulgence in its favour.’

 *See Stream Bridges 7

The ‘indulgence’ referred to above came in 1929 when this new single-arch road bridge was built alongside the old one and the fine old bridge 'in a very decayed condition' was renovated to regain its former splendour. Its days of carrying traffic though had come to an end. This was shortly after Henderson’s visit and only four years before his untimely death in Italy at the age of only 33. 

      This is a stylish bridge for something built between the wars. It has one wide arch to span the main river and a second smaller arch to channel the right-hand stream split by the island. There’s an engraved stone on the bridge which tells us it was erected in 1929 and cites the County Surveyor E. H. Collcutt, A.M.Inst.C.E. 

Henderson thought this was ‘…perhaps “the Clobham Bridge drowned with sand” mentioned by Leland, 1535. The present bridge resembles Draynes with four square openings and granite slabs laid across them. The piers seem older than the 10’ wide runway.’

      According to British Listed Buildings the current bridge is circa 1870 but incorporates earlier piers. Built of slatestone rubble and granite, it has four spans with granite lintels, three piers with cutwaters and parapets with roughly hewn granite copings. There are corbels supporting the lintels of the arches. The arches and the cutwaters are the same on the upstream and downstream sides.

      The bridge carries the lane from Dobwalls to St Neot.

Two photos by Francis Frith exist of the old Doublebois bridge, taken in 1900 and 1901. They show a single round-arch stone bridge spanning the river with a sloping concrete weir close downstream, and a curved low barrier below that, which may have been a dam with a spillway to allow water through a channel. The weir fed a leat which, in the mid 19th century, ran beside the river all the way down to the Herodsfoot Powder Company’s gunpowder works.

      Today, the damaged remains of the weir still exist (but not the curved dam), as does a small wooden lock-gate at the start of the leat. The old bridge, of course has been replaced by a utilitarian single square span of concrete with stone-faced parapets as part of the A38 road improvements. What a quiet and tranquil place it once would have been! 

      500 metres downstream is the descriptively named Two Waters Foot where the River Loveny, now called the St Neot River, joins the Fowey.

This is a pretty two-arched bridge, partly 16th-century with later 19th-century alterations. When Henderson visited the bridge in the 1920s he described it as, 'Below Two Waters Foot the united streams are yoked by Bodithiel Bridge, called Lergin by Leland in 1538. The old bridge had three arches but only one remains. The other two were made with one big arch in the last century. A very ancient and precipitous track comes down to Bodithiel Bridge from Ley, clambers up the other side and proceeds to Polruan at the mouth of the Fowey.'

      In the mid 19th century the adjacent land was the location for a gunpowder works – Trago Powder Mills. Over a century later, in 1962, the derelict site was bought by the founder of the shopping outlet that became a household name throughout Devon and Cornwall.

Draw Bridge is the least attractive road bridge over the Fowey. It was built in 1914 as part of the widening of the A38 by Cornwall County Council and the old bridge was demolished to make way for it. There’s a stone plinth with bronze lettering in the car park of the Halfway House pub commemorating the building of it. Perhaps the Council thought there was no point in spending extra money to make a beautiful bridge since hardly anyone would see it, though hundreds pass over it every day. One wouldn’t mind so much if, as in the case of Treverbyn Bridge, they’d left the old one intact. And by Henderson’s account below it was worth saving:

‘Draw Bridge is made of concrete and iron. Its predecessor was a pretty old bridge with 3 arches and cutwaters. What lack of taste is shown in the present structure! Draw is the name of the adjacent lands and the name has nothing to do with the bridge. Draw Wood is shown on Martyn’s map of 1740.’ The new bridge would have only been about 10 years old when Henderson saw it.

Soon after the waters of the Warleggan or Bedalder River flow into the Fowey we come to Wainsford Bridge in its pretty wooded setting. It is a striking single-arch stone bridge dating from the beginning of the 20th century when it replaced a much older two-span bridge with a central pier and presumably cutwaters. In October 1903 Storm Ulysses hit Britain and the foundations of this pier were washed away by the resulting serious flood. The pier itself fell into the river, taking parts of the arches on either side with it. It was decided that, rather than rebuild it as it was before, the new bridge would have just the single arch to offer less resistance to large volumes of water in the future. 

      For some reason Henderson doesn’t mention Wainsford Bridge at all, perhaps because, for him, it was a bit of a modern impostor, replacing an old historic bridge. Wilson MacArthur in his 1948 book called simply ‘The River Fowey’, which recounts his walk from the Fowey's source to the estuary, didn't know the name of this bridge but notes that there was an old ford beside it.

      It carries the lane from the A38 to the little village of Mount.

New Bridge is a bit of a misnomer since it is far from new. For me it's a really attractive old bridge in a beautiful setting, but to Henderson’s trained eye it had been spoilt by the need to widen the road:

‘New Bridge at the head of Glynn Park was built at the close of the 15th century and is mentioned by Leland as “of stone archid” in 1535. Since then the three arches have been so widened and patched that their ancient appearance has departed.’

On reflection, you can see that it's a bit of a mish-mash of different styles but then so are many of the old bridges that have been repaired or widened.

      It carries the old lane which links Lostwithiel to Cardinham Castle.

A few feet downstream from where Cardinham Water joins the Fowey is this large bridge with a weir at its foot. It carries all the traffic on the busy A38 Liskeard to Bodmin road. Henderson wrote ‘Glynn Bridge on the turnpike road is modern. Here another tributary comes down from Cardinham but its name is not recorded’. It seems that the name Cardinham Water on the Ordnance Survey map might be a recent invention.

      Wilson MacArthur in the late 1940s described it as ‘…a three-span handsome bridge beside Bodmin Road Station.’ Today we know the station as Bodmin Parkway after the name was changed in 1983.

      It seems to have been a favourite meeting place for the Glynn otter hounds as they hunted the river at the end of the 19th century and before the First World War. Nowadays of course we value otters in a completely different way. They have been protected from wilful killing, capture and even disturbance since 1981 and otter hunts were banned in the same year.

This magnificent viaduct was built in 1885 to carry the branch line connecting Bodmin to the Great Western Railway network and opened in 1887. It consists of six 50-foot pillars set onto foundations 16 feet deep. Under one of the impressive arches there is a commemorative stone with the inscription: ‘This stone was laid by Mrs Preston J Wallis, March 25th, 1885’. Coming upon this stone MacArthur mused in a rather 1940s way, 'We wondered if her family , sons or daughters, even knew today that her name was thus perpetuated, or ever visited the spot, and it was odd to reflect that of all the hundreds of thousands of people carried each year over the River Fowey at this point probably hardly one was aware that this was the Fowey, and almost certainly none ever gave a thought to the men who had built the viaduct or to the lady who performed, no doubt very prettily, the ceremony of laying that stone. Humanity so readily takes all things for granted.'

Later, when Wilson MacArthur stumbled through the rhododendrons and bamboo and arrived at ‘this handsome old bridge’, Lanhydrock was a few years away from being given to The National Trust (1953) and was still privately owned. So, he and his wife Joan could be forgiven for thinking they were trespassing on someone’s private stately drive – they were! It was built for Lord Robartes, Sixth Viscount Clifden, as a picturesque carriageway to the newly opened Bodmin Road Station, and lined with specimen shrubs and trees.

Today, it’s not horse-drawn carriages that cross the river here but scores of walkers enjoying the riverside views and the enormous conifers that still line the driveway.

This ancient bridge, dating from the late 15th century, is one of the loveliest and best known bridges on the Fowey. ‘Res’ in Cornish means ford and, as in many places, a ford would have predated any bridge here. The narrow road it carries curves slightly and pedestrians can step out of the way of traffic in the four refuges above the parapets on either side.

Henderson wrote, ‘...the Fowey, now a fair river, skirts the noble domain of Lanhydrock and reaches the once important ford and bridge of Resprynn (sic) on the old track from Bodmin to Looe. Charters of the 12th century refer to Richbrene and the Chapel of St Martin standing here. As early, however, as 1300 there was a bridge, for in that year a jury found that the fishing and other rights in the river belonged to the Lords of Restormel Castle. Resprynn Bridge has 5 arches of different sizes and dates. The midmost, smallest and oldest is 13 feet in span and dates from the 15th century. It is slightly pointed. The other arches are round and the two at the west end are modern. Strategically the pass at Resprynn Bridge was one of the most important in Cornwall.’

      The bridge was held by the Royalists at the outset of the Civil War. Two roads from the east converge here before crossing the river towards Bodmin.

Perhaps if it been built a few years later – after, rather than just before, the Second World War, Lostwithiel’s Restormel Bridge would have been a far less attractive affair, as are so many of our modern bridges. For a 20th-century bridge it is really quite handsome. Made of stone, it has one low central arch flanked by smaller arches on either side. The pillars are rounded and topped with pedestrian refuges and protected at their base by large, low cutwaters. The pavements either side of the bridge are surprisingly wide, rendering the refuges unnecessary, unless of course it was future-planned for road expansion. A commemorative slate plaque on the upstream side of the bridge tells us that the wooden pedestrian walkway beneath the western arch was opened in March 1999 by the then Mayor, Cllr. Jeanne Jones.

In the 1920s Henderson wrote, ‘The people of Lostwithiel are justly proud of their bridge, which is probably the best known old bridge in Cornwall. It straddles the River Fowey where the fresh water first mingles with the salt.’

      Grade I listed, it is indeed one of the finest medieval road bridges in Cornwall and the lowest crossing point of the river Fowey. The first bridge here is thought to have been built by the Normans and, 200-odd years later, a wooden bridge was built on the request of Edmund Earl of Cornwall (1249-1300). It was in need of major repair in 1358 and was replaced in 1437; the five western arches of the existing stone bridge are believed to date from then. Early illustrations show an extra arch on the western end but this has been lost in the development of the town. Two extra arches – rounded rather than pointed like the original arches – were added at some time to the eastern end to replace the wooden bridge referred to by Leland.

He noted in 1538 that the river just above the bridge broke into two arms where the major flow went to the east under a wooden bridge (into what was later called ‘the new cut’) in order to save the stone bridge from silting up further due to the activity of tin workings way upriver. This was not a new thing: silting of the river had been noted as early as 1352 and tin streaming was banned from 1400. Leland said that within living memory the arches had gone from being very deep in height to just 4-5 feet above the sand. 

     Today, it is hard to imagine that, until Churchill gave his blessing for the new road and bridge to be built in 1938, all traffic on the main A390 Liskeard to St Austell road passed over Lostwithiel’s old, single-file medieval bridge and up through the town.