The Bradford on Avon town bridge
The bridge, a Scheduled Ancient Monument, was damaged by the impact of a stolen vehicle in October 2016.
The town bridge was little more than a packhorse bridge when it was built
and two pointed arches from the thirteenth century remain.
It comprises nine spans in its 175 ft; eight of these measure between 14ft 2in and 18ft
3in. The small one at the north-east end spans just 7ft 9in. On the upstream side the arches, excluding the
two pointed thirteenth century examples, are semi-circular with double arch-rings. The bridge was widened in the seventeenth century (or possibly 17** ) to 25ft 6in including footways. Plain
semi-circular arches were used for this work which we now see on the downstream side.
The
piers have cutwaters on their upstream ends only. The second pier from
the south-west end is wider than the others and its cutwater is
corbelled out to support a small square stone building with a domed
roof. Standing on it is a finial and a copper-gilt weather vane in the
shape of a fish, known as the Bradford Gudgeon. The building was
probably erected as a chapel but served as a lock-up, or 'blind house',
for many years.
The bridge now carries the A363. It remains busy as it is the town's only road bridge over the Avon, a task it has been performing for perhaps more than 700 years. We managed the emergency works after the stones had been retrieved from the river bed. We were required to act quickly to reverse the image of the impact and keep the road open.
New copings here required and the wall was rebuilt with a NHL3.5 Hydraulic lime andThames gravel mix.
