Summary

Road bridge over the River Allen, built in 1795 by Samuel Kent, incorporating some earlier fabric.

Description

Road bridge over the River Allen, built in 1795 by Samuel Kent, incorporating some earlier fabric.

MATERIALS: brick with stone dressings.

DESCRIPTION: triple-arched, hump-backed bridge designed in a classical style. It has three unequal spans, each having a segmental-headed arch, with stone keystones and an oversailing archivolt ring. They are set on stone piers which step back above the foundations of an earlier bridge, and there are cutwaters on the upstream (north) side. There is a brick stringcourse below the parapet and roundels at each end, obscured (2015) by vegetation. The parapet is surmounted by stone copings and the walls curve outwards at each end, terminating in square piers. The parapet carries two C19 cast-iron plaques: a traction engine plate and a transportation plate.

History

Situated at Witchampton, to the south-east of the village, the bridge spans the River Allen. It was designed and built in 1795 by Samuel Kent of Witchampton on the foundations of an earlier bridge. In 1974 it was recorded (Wallis, see Sources) that the bridge carried four cast-iron plaques. Two remain, fixed to the parapet, warning against misuse of the bridge: one is a traction engine plate which notes that the bridge is unsuitable for ‘weights beyond the ordinary traffic of the district’, whilst the other is an example of a ‘Transportation’ plate commonly fixed to bridges in Dorset during the reign of George IV, which threatened transportation for life for anyone found guilty of wilfully damaging the bridge.

Reasons for Listing

Witchampton Bridge, built in 1795, is listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:

* Architectural interest: as a good and intact example of a mid-C18 multi-span bridge built in a considered classical manner;
* Historical interest: the surviving traction engine and transportation plates add to its interest.

External Links

• Historic England Listing

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings