L'fx > 



OLD BlIIlXiKS. 



PABTIV, 



part of the original structure. The bridge itself has 

 undergone many changes, in order to adapt it to the 

 improved modes of travelling. When chaises, stage- 

 coaches, and waggons came into general use, the old 

 erections were found altogether inadequate for the traffic. 

 They were very narrow, 1 and often very steep ; and 

 though they had been well enough adapted for the foot- 

 passenger, the horseman, and the pack-horse convoy, 

 many of them did not admit of sufficient width for the 

 convenient passage of wheeled vehicles. The picturesque 

 gateways at the ends of old bridges such as existed over 

 the Monnou at Monmouth and over the Ouse at York, 

 and a specimen of which still exists at Eaglan Castle, 

 as shown in the annexed cut were also found to be a 



great obstacle to stage- 

 coach travelling, as the 

 arched gateways did not 

 admit of the passage of a 

 coach without danger to 

 the outside passengers ; a 1 1< I 

 where it was not found 

 practicable to turn the 

 thoroughfare another way, 

 they were at once demo- 

 lished. The bridges them- 

 selves were widened and 

 enlarged ; and though in 

 many cases, as at Wake- 

 field, the old piers were 

 included in the new work, the original picturesque cha- 

 racter of the bridge was in a great measure lost. 



Notwithstanding the increased necessity for such 



RAGLAN CASTLE BRIDGE. 



1 De Quincey, in his ' Autobio- | teen miles on coming to a bridge in 

 graphic Sketches,' says he has known | Cumberland built in some remote age 



when as yet post-chaises were neither 

 known nor anticipated, and, unfor- 



of a case, even in the nineteenth 

 century, where a post-chaise of the 

 common narrow dimensions was 

 obliged to retrace its mute for four- 



timatelv, too narrow by three or four 

 il:ches to enable the X'eliicle to 1'iiss. 



