By the Rev. Canon W. E. Jones, F.S.A. 315 



waggons and other conveyance being taken over the ford, which was 

 at this point broad and shallow. The bridge was lengthened to- 

 wards the southern side, but the force of the current is still against 

 what were originally the central arches, between which is a strong 

 and not inelegant " cut-water." The construction of the old Chapel 

 is also worth examining, at all events as regards its lower portion — 

 for the upper portion would seem to have been a construction of 

 later date — with its graduated corbelling and the elegantly-designed 

 shaft on which it is erected. What its object was originally is 

 more or less matter of conjecture. Standing as it did at the foot 

 of the bridge on the south side, some have thought that it was 

 simply a toll house, one of the places at which were collected dues 

 which were demanded from all who came into the town to sell their 

 various wares. Others have assigned to it a higher object, and 

 Aubrey says of it — "Here" [at Bradford] "is a strong and handsome 

 bridge, in the midst of which a little chapel as at Bath for masse." 

 So that possibly, as the Hospital of St. Margaret was close by, in 

 fact at the bridge-foot, it may have once contained the image of 

 the patron saint, and so have been a place for receiving at once the 

 devotions and alms of passers-by. Before the building of the present 

 Town Hall it was used as a temporary lock-up for offenders against 

 the laws. The vane at the top of this interesting chapel is " a fish," 

 and it used to be a common saying among Bradford folk, as they saw 

 some culprit being " run in " to this strange lock-up, that " he wer' 

 a gwoing auver the water, but under the vish." 



1^. All traces of the Hospital of St. Margaret, which was 

 standing in Leland's time, for he speaks of it as " of the Kinges of 

 England's foundation," have disappeared. Its memorial is preserved 

 in the street which is still called St. Margaret Street, and in Mor- 

 gan's Hill, close by — pronounced by the old folk of Bradford Mar- 

 gan's Hill — and as lately as 1724 called St. Margaret's Hill. It 

 must have been close to the bridge, and probably included amongst 

 other property that on which stands the house now owned and oc- 

 cupied by Mr. George Spencer, a house that derives some little 

 interest from the fact that there once lived in it Dr. Bethel, and his 

 distinguished son who became Lord Chancellor of England, and 



