19 THE GREAT BRIDGE OF BURTON-ON-TRENT. 
The various angles of the Bridge are given by Molyneux and were 
six in number. He also givessome rather startling comments with re- 
gard to the capacity for water passage, namely, that the old Bridge was 
not inferior to the modern, that the arches thrown across the West 
branch have the advantage in height and span, that the buttresses 
are also of less bulk, but that their standing diagonally to the natural 
flow of the stream constitute an opposing obstacle to its course of con- 
siderably greater area than that of the old Bridge,and consequently 
the freedom of the actual river passage is reduced by this means 
to less than one half the diameter of the arches. I have not had 
time to go into this, but it would be very interesting to work out, 
The third branch, now silted up, ran from the Trundle hole 
across Winshill Meadows into the present East branch above the 
Mills ; it was open in Plot’s time, 1680, and is shown on a Plan of 
Survey made by Wm. Wyatt, 1762, as partly open. 
As to the question of the number of Arches, Erdeswicke, writing 
about 1590, gives the number as 36, The epitaph to Sir Thomas 
Tyldesley states “who for the desperate storming of Burton-upon- 
Trent, over a bridge of 36 Arches, received the honour of Knighthood,” 
this was May 1643. Plot writing in 1680 gives the number as 34. 
And Shaw writing in 1790 writes ‘‘ My venerable predecessor, Mr. 
Erdeswick, has taken some pains in his survey of Staffordshire to 
prove that Burton Bridge, a most noble fabric of thirty-six arches 
over the river Trent, instead of thirty-four, as both the Author and 
most others have stated them to be.” 
Molyneux clears this up, stating the length given by Plot, 515 
yards, is the actual length of the Bridge itself, but that the liability 
of the Lord of the Manor extended to the site of the old Horse 
Block, now occupied by the weighing machine about 120 feet further, 
upon which no arches are shown in Plots map. In the year 1860-1, 
while constructing a sewer from the Hay into Anderstaff Lane, 
across Bridge Street, the pointed exterior of a pier, in excellent 
preservation, was found three feet below the surface near. the ‘‘ Fox 
oe 
