Bridges over the feeder streams of the Fowey

At least eight major tributaries flow into the River Fowey on its 27 mile journey from Bodmin Moor to the sea. They include the Trenant, the Loveny (now the St Neot), the Bedalder (now the Warleggan), Cardinham Water, the Pelyn Stream, River Lerryn and Trebant Water. These streams may play second fiddle to the main river but they have given rise to some truly interesting bridges. Here we look at a few of the best, large and small, starting in the north. (Photo: Temple Old Bridge and causeway - see 5 below).

This Grade II listed bridge carries a small lane over the Trenant stream and dates probably from the mid 19th century. Its three spans are bridged by flat granite lintels and parapet walls rise about one metre above them, topped by roughly hewn granite coping stones. The two supporting piers have triangular cutwaters on the upstream side only to deflect the water. The bridge is about 7 metres span, and about 3 metres wide. Beside the bridge is a former chapel of the Bible Christian Church, now a private residence.

This little bridge carries a small lane across over the River Loveny, now called the St Neot River. Charles Henderson in his 1928 book ‘Old Cornish Bridges and Streams’ wrote: ‘Under Tremaddock is a pretty little County Bridge on a little-used lane. It has two square openings six feet wide built of moor stone. The road is only 7 feet across. Below it the river makes a bold sweep and reveals St Neot and its stately church. Old people still call this place by the correct name St Niet.’ The bridge is bounded by a private garden.

The River Loveny/St Neot River runs through the middle of the very pretty village of St Neot with its magnificent church, holy well and old coaching inn. In its midst lies a relatively small single arch bridge, next to the old mill. Henderson described it poetically: ‘In St Neot, Churchtown is an 18th-century bridge with a graceful arch erected when the coaches still passed on the old high road from Liskeard to Bodmin, up hill and down dale. The arch is 16 feet in span. Its hood mould came from some older bridge.’ A steep slipway on one side gives access to the water, useful in days gone by for watering horses and replenishing steam engines’ tanks perhaps.

This is the last but one of the bridges that cross the St Neot River. It is set in the most tranquil valley and carries a tiny lane off the St Neot road towards Ley. It’s a small, single-arch stone bridge and is similar in style to the the one in St Neot a couple of miles upstream. The bridge is unnamed on maps so we’ve called it Kitesnest after the name of the adjacent wood, which probably goes back to the time when red kites were breeding here before they became extinct in England by the 1870s due to persecution. The bridge is notable for its lengthy, jagged stone parapets which extend as a causeway either side, way beyond the river itself.

The road that crosses the fledgling Bedalder here was the main medieval route across Cornwall, following the spine of the peninsula. Its importance is reflected by the fact that in the 12th century the Knights Templar bought a large plot of land on Bodmin Moor and chose this spot – hence the name Temple – to found a hostel for pilgrims en route to the Holy Land. St Catherine’s Church was built here in about 1120, became derelict after 1752 and then rebuilt after a service was held in its ruins in the 1850s. In the mid 18th century, when the new coaching road to Falmouth was brought through Temple, the current stone bridge was built. Further changes were made 100-or-so years later to extend the sides and raise the parapets. A stone-sided causeway continues on from the bridge, carrying the road to higher ground. The base of the ford can still be seen on the downstream side of the bridge, the stream-bed being lined with rough granite slabs and cobbles which almost certainly pre-date the bridge. A cuckoo was calling and willow warblers singing all around when this photo was taken. A truly magical place, in total contrast to the modern dual carriageway of the A30 that runs a little distance to the north.

It’s hard to find any information on this bridge, let alone a name for it, which is surprising because it’s quite impressive and its location is stunning as it crosses the Bedalder, renamed the Warleggan River. It gets a brief reference from Henderson who also struggled to name it, referring to it only as ‘Leaving the moor, the Bedalder enters a deep glen below Warleggan Church, where is a massive bridge of moor stone’. It seems a little too distant from Warleggan to give it that name so we’ve opted for Milland Bridge after the adjacent hamlet. It’s a twin-span, round-arched stone bridge with steel railings. The water beneath it runs fast and wide over boulders, like many a moorland stream.

Much has been written over the centuries about Panters Bridge, and justly so. It is Grade II* listed, dates from the early 15th century (but with material from an earlier phase incorporated into the western end) and, until the 1960s, carried traffic over the Bedalder/Warleggan River. It has twin pointed-arches and cutwaters on either side of the stone piers which extend upwards to form pedestrian refuges in the parapets. Henderson is worth quoting here: ‘Two rivers arise on the moors of Temple and unite after encircling the parish of Warleggan at Panters Bridge. These rivers have both lost their proper names. The larger was called Bedalder; the smaller, Dewy. Panters Bridge over the united streams carries the same old road from Liskeard to Bodmin we have met at Treverbyn and St Neot. In 1613 the Bounds of St Neot mention Pontwise Bridge and this seems to be the true form of the name. This is a really beautiful little bridge dating from the 15th century. It has two pointed arches (14 feet each in span) with double rings of thin slate as at Lostwithiel. The roadway is 8.5 feet across, the coping of the parapets is granite and the bridge itself rubble. The whole bears a close resemblance to Treverbyn Bridge (see Fowey Bridges 7). Panters Bridge riding gaily over its rock-strewn torrent makes as pretty a picture as can be found. Long may it remain “unimproved” by the spoiler!’

    There are two earlier references to a bridge here – a charter of 1241 mentioning a place name ‘Pontiesu’ and in 1514 the name ‘Pontwysebrygge work’ relating to a nearby tin working site.

After 500 years of carrying carts, carriages and, in more recent times, motor-vehicles across the Bedalder the old medieval bridge was given a reprieve in 1968 with the building of a new bridge a little way downstream. From that time onwards only pedestrians have been allowed to use the old bridge and all other traffic was diverted across the new bridge. Just one round single arch spans the river but, in keeping with the old bridge, its parapets are stone-faced and topped by shaped granite coping.

This is a tiny two-span lintel footbridge with a wooden handrail on the side of an old lane that crosses over Cardinham Water before petering out into a track and footpath at the head of Cardinham Woods. Many bridges were built on the site of former fords and superseded them; this one is notable because the ford still remains on the upstream side and the bridge was built only for pedestrians to cross in comfort. I’m not the only one to think it worthy of mention: artist Billie Graeme painted it and described it as ‘a treasure’ in her delightful 1980s book ‘The River Fowey in Paint & Pen’.

    Henderson tells us about another small footbridge further downstream: ‘Its deep twisting valley is well worth exploring, passing under the site of Cardinham Castle and Vale Bridge where stood the Chapel and cell of Our Lady of the Vale.’

Further down Cardinham Water we find Fletchersbridge. The name somehow holds promise of something special, and yet the bridge itself is more of an iron railinged causeway which curves over the top of two small single span bridges as the stream divides either side of a small island. Henderson comments only that ‘Flatches or Fletchers Bridge over the stream is insignificant’.

The Pelyn Stream flows down from Redmoor, past Lanlivery and Castle to emerge into the meandering tidal water meadow below Milltown before entering the main river. Here it is crossed by two railways, the London to Penzance mainline carried high above the valley on the viaduct and, a little way downstream and at river level, the old passenger line to Golant and Fowey which is now only used to carry china clay to the ships awaiting loading at Fowey docks. The present Class A stone viaduct has six tall arches supported by seven piers. It was built in 1894 to replace the original Brunel-designed viaduct, the piers of which you can still see beside it, all ivy-covered and lacking the long-gone wooden superstructure that extended upwards to hold the earlier track. 

Tucked away as it is, this Grade II listed bridge over the River Lerryn is too picturesque to have escaped the attention of Henderson. He wrote in the 1920s, ‘There is a pretty bridge of two arches at Couch’s Mill but it is not ancient’. He was helped here because the white plaque over the cutwater tells us exactly how old it is – 1871, built only 50 years before he visited it. Granite copings top the rubble stone parapets over twin pointed arches, complete with shaped stone voussoirs (the wedge-shaped stones that form the arch). Cutwaters with granite capping protect the pier on both upstream and downstream sides. Millcombe Bridge – a small granite lintel bridge – and ford cross the water again a quarter of a mile upstream where old Boconnoc Estate trackways converge. 

This Grade II* listed bridge originally had three arches, with a third (now lost) the same size as the smaller eastern arch. Henderson described it as ‘…a pretty old bridge mentioned by Leland in 1535. In 1573 Queen Elizabeth issued an order to levy a rate for the erecting and re-edifying of a decayed old bridge called Laryon Bridge between St Vepe and St Winnow. The present bridge is quite as old as 1573, if not a little older.’ Henderson was right; the oldest parts of the bridge are late medieval, represented by the large rectangular granite slabs, called ashlar, on and to either side of the central pier, as well as lining the inside of the arches. These are typically medieval, worked by experienced stonemasons and requiring little or no mortar, in contrast to the 16th-century stone renovations above and around. The pier extends upwards to form pedestrian refuges either side and the parapets are topped with granite copings. A moulded granite ‘string-course’ marks the base-line of the arches and extends around the cutwaters at each end of the central pier. The parapets extend in both directions to form a dry causeway over the adjacent riverbanks.