Lower Bockhampton Bridge

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1425920
Date first listed:: 30-Jun-2015
List Entry Name:: Lower Bockhampton Bridge

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1425920
Date first listed:: 30-Jun-2015
List Entry Name:: Lower Bockhampton Bridge
Location Description:: Stinsford, West Dorset, Dorset. Located at SY72060 90706.

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Dorset (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Stinsford
National Grid Reference:: SY7205990705

Summary

Lower Bockhampton Bridge, a triple-arched road bridge dating from the early C19.

Reasons for Designation

Lower Bockhampton Bridge is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Design interest: as a small triple arched road bridge, with a subsidiary arch crossing a drain from the water meadows, dating from the early C19 and little altered; the construction combines brick and stone in a considered manner, with the parapets curving gracefully outwards towards the ends of the bridge; * Historical interest: the C19 plaques warning against misuse of the bridge add to its interest, as does the association with Thomas Hardy, who was born at Higher Bockhampton, and mentions the bridge in his fiction.

History

Situated at Lower Bockhampton, at the south-western extremity of the village of Stinsford, the bridge, which was probably constructed in the early C19, the bridge crosses the River Frome, with a subsidiary arch traversing a drain carrying water from the water meadows lying to the south.

Two C19 cast-iron plaques fixed to the inner face of the south parapet warn against misuse of this county bridge: one notes that the bridge is unsuitable for ‘weights beyond the ordinary traffic of the district’, whilst the other is an example of a ‘Transportation’ plate commonly fixed to bridges in Dorset during the reign of George IV, which threatened transportation for life for anyone found guilty of wilfully damaging the bridge. Higher Bockhampton, Stinsford, was the birthplace of the novelist Thomas Hardy, who re-named Stinsford as ‘Mellstock’ in his fiction. The bridge makes an appearance in the novel ‘Under the Greenwood Tree’ (1872).

Details

Road bridge, probably constructed in the early C19.

MATERIALS: red brick, with keystones and piers in Portland stone.

DESCRIPTION: triple-arched hump-backed bridge of three unequal spans, each having a round-headed arch. The central arch has a span of 14 feet, whilst the side spans are 10 feet wide. The Portland stone bases to the piers are raised to a point on the outer faces. The parapets, topped by rounded brick coping, curve outwards at either end. The upper eight brick courses of the parapet are slightly set back. The road continues a short distance southwards, raised on rubblestone walling, to the subsidiary bridge, which has a brick arch.

Sources

Books and journals
McFetrich, D, Parsons, J, Discover Dorset Bridges, (1998), 52-3
Wallis, A J , Dorset Bridges A History and Guide, (1974), 64

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.