46 PROC. COTTESWOLD CLUB vol. xhi. 



could have neglected to guard it, with its passage over the 

 Wye. In Coxe's " Monmouthshire" a drawing is given of 

 the bridge over the Wye, at Chepstow, as it stood at the 

 end of the last century ; as well as a plan of the piers. I 

 took a tracing from this plan of the angle of a pier, and 

 on laying it down upon a similar plan of a pier of the 

 Roman bridge at Newcastle-on-Tyne, as given by Dr. 

 Bruce, the angle of the cutwater in both (83 degrees) 

 was found to be identical. That is, the engineer who 

 built the pier at Chepstow (which there is good reason to 

 believe is Roman) made it of precisely the same degree in 

 the angle as that of the bridge at Newcastle, which is 

 known to be Roman. It must be remembered that all 

 the engineering of such work in the south-west of Britain 

 was done by the Second Legion, which had its head- 

 quarters first at Gloucester, and afterwards at Caerleon ; 

 and that the same Second Legion was employed on 

 Hadrian's Wall. Evidently the angle was a standard one 

 adopted in building their bridges. 



Further, these piers, which are hexagonal in plan, like 

 a bee's cell, but somewhat more acute at the points, were 

 only built to about the water's edge, the superstructure 

 consisting of tall trestles of timber, twelve feet asunder. 

 On these timber frames, or piers, the floor of the bridge 

 was laid in loose planks.* The intention of this was, of 

 course, that the planks might be taken away at a moment's 

 notice in case of the approach of an enemy ; and, accord- 

 ing to Coxe, the bridges both at Caerleon and at Chepstow 

 were of this construction. It is therefore evident that 

 Chepstow was Roman. 



* A carpenter in Caerleon told Coxe that the planks used to be nailed down, but 

 that this was discontinued because the nails split the o.nk planks ! He evidently invented 

 this to account for what he had no real knowledge of; for Pliny, in his " Natural History." 

 says it was an article of religious faith with the Romans never to nail down the planks 

 of a bridsje. 



