Bridges

It will come as no startling revelation that a place such as Dartmoor with all its rivers, streams, brooks, leats and to some extent railways and other man-made obstacles will have numerous ways of crossing them. Ever since man set foot upon the moor there has been a need to cross the many waters without getting a soaking and over the millennia he has certainly met that need in one form or another. In the main it is fair to say that due to the propensity of stone to be found on Dartmoor the majority of bridges have been built from it in one form or another.

The oldest type of bridge to be found on Dartmoor is the Clapper which can consist of a single slab of stone laid over a stream or leat right up to a multi slab construction with piers that lie across rivers. It is uncertain how far back in time these structures date but certainly there are examples in other parts of Britain that are thought to be of prehistoric construction. I think it is possible that on well trodden tracts that prehistoric folk built clappers across waterways, after all if they had the ability to quarry the huge standing stones then in theory a simple clapper bridge would have been no problem. The actual name ‘clapper’ is derived from an Anglo Saxon word ‘cleac‘ which may well suggest they were around during that period. Today it is estimated that there are around 200 clapper bridges still spanning Dartmoor’s waters and for a fact many more have disappeared. In much later times as the trans-moor traffic became busier the clappers needed to be bigger in order to carry pack horses and carts, this is when we see such constructions as the Postbridge Clapper appearing.

We then come another type of Dartmoor bridge in the form of ‘Clams’ which are best described as being wooden footbridges. These normally occur around watercourses which are near to settlements and being constructed of wood are clearly less durable than clappers. For this very reason the early clams were seldom located on the actual open moor as they would not have withstood the flood waters and harsh weather conditions. Once again, it’s uncertain how early this type of bridge dated back to but they are still being constructed today, although the modern ones are of a much more modern and sturdier construction. It is also fair to say that the appearance of the modern clams, in some eyes, are not within keeping of the traditional landscape, one such case is the newly constructed Lustleigh Clam.

As the road networks improved many of the old clapper bridges were replaced by arched bridges with single or multiple piers which were a much more solid construction. Many appeared as turnpike bridges during the establishment of the turnpike roads and were often built alongside existing clapper bridges such as that at Bellever Bridge, as can be seen below (along with the various bridge component names). By no means was the arch design new to the times and can be credited to the Romans who first realised that an arch was a much more solid structure which could support greater weights. These new bridges allowed wider and heavier loads to cross as trade and traffic increased over the centuries.

A statue laid down by Henry VIII in 1531 ensured that at least somebody was made responsible for the maintenance of bridges. This statue basically directed that if no landowner, City, Borough, Town. Parish etc. could be proven to be those charged with bridge maintenance then the duty fell upon the County or Shire. These particular bridges became known as ‘County Bridges’ and the funds for repairs came from taxes levied on the inhabitants of the area. To ensure these taxes were collected County Surveys were appointed, it was also their duty to oversee any repair work that needed doing. The act required that for every bridge, the road over it and for 300ft on either approach should be similarly maintained. In 1841 the Devon magistrates decided that the limits of their responsibility were to be marked by boundstones. These usually were about 3 feet high with an incised ‘C’ on one of the faces and placed one on either side of the bridge, and are known as ‘C Stones‘. This statue remained in place until 1880 when the County Councils were formed and adopted responsibility. The County Bridges listed on the gazetteer below are those that still have one or more C Stones in-situ.

The actual bridge names are also an interesting mixture of ones with a locational element, these tend to either consist of the actual place-name of where they are sited, i.e.. Chagford Bridge or name the watercourse they span, i.e. Dart Bridge. There are then those that have adopted a personal element such as Barrett’s Bridge and can be identified by the ‘s, although this type tends to be in the minority of bridge names.

In this modern day and age the biggest problem bridges face is the size of vehicles trying to use them, quite simply when they were constructed the size of vehicle using them was much, much smaller. In this modern age the size of cars and especially lorries has vastly increased and since around the early 1900s has caused major problems. Many of the older bridges have weight and size restrictions but even so damage and congestion is a common occurrence. The picture below shows that for many years it has been a hazardous task for drivers of wide vehicles to safely pass over the bridges, in this case Newbridge sometime in the early 60s.

As mentioned previously, it’s not only water that Dartmoor bridges cross, their are several viaducts and embankments on the moor, mainly which carried railways or tramways across stretches of moorland and other man-made obstacles. In addition the odd aqueduct can be found carrying water to mines and other industrial sites. There are even a couple of crossing points that have entered Dartmoor’s place-name history as being a bridge when in fact they were simply a plank placed across a watercourse, i.e.. Tinker’s Bridge.

The latest bridge to have been constructed on the very edge of Dartmoor is the brand, spanking, new bridge which carries a cycle link across the river Walkham. At a cost of £2 million pounds, Gem Bridge was opened in May 2012 and replaces an original viaduct which was built by I. K. Brunel – more details – HERE.

Below are two gazetteers, the first one lists some of the major Dartmoor road bridges and the second a few of the more notable clappers and clams. By no means are these lists complete but consist of the ones I have found in various books, magazines, records and on maps. Many have been taken from Mike Brown’s Dartmoor Gazetteer. The entries in blue are linked to other web pages within this site as there is some noteworthy story or history attached to them.

Clams and Clappers

Brown, M. 1995. The Gazetteer of Dartmoor Names. Liverton: Forest Publishing.