Hawes Bridge

Saturday, 22 February 2014

Hawes Bridge

Down the lane from the village is Hawes Bridge which spans the River Kent.I've always found this bridge interesting and helped on some of the repairs of the parapet walls when I worked for the County Council Highways Department. 

The road crossing it looking West.

It has 2 arches the nearest one only used when the river is in flood.

Upstream view - notice this arch has been widen (you can see the join line in the arch).

Upstream view - but this arch hasn't , which leads me to believe that before it was widened it was only a narrow packhorse bridge and the it was modified by widening and adding this extra arch - perhaps to help with flooding problems .

A pointed buttress was added to protect the arch foundation .

Downstream view - with some intrepid canoeists to add scale.Notice the difference in colour of the parapet wall (darker) , these have been repaired /rebuilt several times - a couple of times in my working career due to motor vehicle damage.

Downstream view - the oldest arch - a lot longer and narrower arch stones .

Downstream view - the moderner arch - much larger and more regular stones. How old is the bridge ? , records show it was in disrepair in 1692 and repaired in 1704 - maybe this was when the modifications were done ? . About 300 yards upstream there was a ford which predates it and must have been used for carts that could not fit across the original narrow bridge and all traffic before there was any bridge at all .