Trekelland Bridge

Summary

A late medieval bridge over the River Inney.

Reasons for Designation

Trekelland Bridge, of late medieval date with later alterations, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

* Historic interest: it is a significant example of a medieval multi-span bridge of which less than 200 examples are now known to survive in England;

* Architectural interest: it is a well-preserved example of a medieval bridge, retaining its original form. It has very well-constructed arches to the spans and cutwaters. It is the only example in Cornwall to retain true four-centred arches;

* Degree of survival: despite later alterations and repair, it retains a significant proportion of its early fabric and medieval characteristics.

History

Trekelland Bridge is of late medieval date and may have been the unnamed bridge for which an Indulgence was granted by the Bishop of Exeter on 23 August 1504. It was described by the historian Charles Henderson as “one of the best preserved and most beautiful of Cornish bridges” (1928) and the only bridge in Cornwall to have true four-centred arches.

The bridge carries the road linking Launceston with Liskeard, formerly the principal route along the spine of Cornwall, and the main route to the south coast. In July 1847, Trekelland Bridge was the only bridge over the River Inny to escape a flash-flood without severe damage or destruction. It is shown on its current layout, with cutwaters, on the Ordnance Survey Map of 1906. By the C20 the road it carries had become part of the national road network and remains classified as the B3254. The bridge has been subject to localised repairs at various times and has a modern road surface.

Details

A road bridge of late C15 or early C16 date with later alterations.

MATERIALS: granite ashlar with later stone rubble parapets and abutments.

DESCRIPTION: the bridge is of two main arches and a smaller span flood arch at the south-west end. The arches are four-centred and in the Perpendicular style. The two main arches have a span of 5.8m each while the floodwater arch is 2.6m wide. Each arch has a single arch-ring with granite voussoirs. In the main arches these are slightly recessed below a hollow-chamfered granite string-course but in the floodwater arch they are flush with the bridge sides with no string course. A further and similar string-course highlights the line, called the impost, where each arch springs from the piers and abutments. Both piers have pointed cutwaters at each end. The arch vaults, piers, sides and abutments of the bridge are faced almost entirely by neatly dressed ashlar granite slabs. By contrast, the causeway sides are faced by local metamorphic stone, indicating a likely later date for the facing. Another granite string-course extends 20.75m from abutment to abutment, above the arches and across the piers but not carried onto the causeways. This string-course emphasises the divide between the mostly granite-faced bridge below and the parapets above which are of local stone, like the causeways, but with chamfered granite coping, parts of which retain their iron cramps.

The piers' cutwaters are triangular and carried up into the parapets as refuges on each side, and also of local stone but with granite quoins along part or all of each apex. The bridge's parapets above the string-course and carriageway level have undergone various episodes of post-medieval to modern rebuild using slate rubble and reused chamfered granite coping.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

68430

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Henderson, C, Coates, H, Old Cornish Bridges and Streams, (1928), 57-8
Beacham, P, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Cornwall, (2014), 305

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