240 OLD BRIDGES. TAUT IV. 



the neighbourhood of Sittaford Tor, spanning the North 

 Teign : it is twenty-seven feet long, with a roadway seven 

 feet wide, and, like the others, is entirely formed of 

 granite blocks. There is another over the Cowsic, near 

 Two Bridges, presenting five openings : this bridge is 

 thirty-seven feet long and four feet broad, but it is only 

 about three feet and a half above the surface ; nevertheless 

 it has firmly withstood the moorland torrents of centuries. 

 There is a fourth on the Blackabrook, consisting of a 

 single stone or clam. We believe that no structures re- 

 sembling these bridges have been found in any other 

 part of Britain, or even in Brittany, so celebrated for its 

 aboriginal remains. The only bridges at all approach- 

 ing them in character are found in ancient Egypt, to 

 which indeed they bear a striking resemblance. 



Although the Komans were great bridge-builders, 

 it is not certain that they erected any arched stone 

 bridges l during their occupation of England, though it 

 is probable that they built numerous timber bridges 

 upon stone piers. The most important were those of 

 Rochester, Newcastle, and London. Not many years 

 since, when a railway-bridge was being built across the 

 Medway at Rochester, the workmen came upon the 

 foundations of the ancient structure in a place where 

 no such foundations were looked for, and their solidity 

 caused considerable interruption to the work. So at 

 Newcastle, when the old bridge over the Tyne was 

 taken down in 1771, the foundations of the piers, which 

 were laid on piles of fine black oak, in a perfect state 

 of preservation, were found to be of Roman masonry. 



Mr. Wright is, however, of opinion j considered to be Roman. The masonry 



that some of the Roman bridges in 

 England had arches ; and lie says 

 Mr. Roach Smith has pointed out a 

 very fine semi-circular arched bridge 

 over the little river Cock, near its en- 



of this bridge is massive, and remark- 

 ably well preserved ; the stones are 

 carefully squared and sharply cut, 

 and in some of them the mason's 

 mark, an R, is distinctly visible. 

 The roadway was very narrow. 



trance into the Wharfe, about halt'-a- 



mile Mow Tadcaster, on the Roman ; ' r rhc Celt, the Roman, and the 



road leading southward from that ; Saxon,' 2nd Ed., p. 187. 



town (the ancient Calcaria), which he 



