Witchampton Bridge

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Overview

Road bridge over the River Allen, built in 1795 by Samuel Kent, incorporating some earlier fabric. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1426621
Date first listed:: 03-Jul-2015
List Entry Name:: Witchampton Bridge

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1426621
Date first listed:: 03-Jul-2015
List Entry Name:: Witchampton Bridge
Location Description:: Witchampton Lane, Witchampton, Dorset. Centred on ST 99089 06175.

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:: Hinton
District:: Dorset (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Witchampton
National Grid Reference:: ST9908906175

Summary

Road bridge over the River Allen, built in 1795 by Samuel Kent, incorporating some earlier fabric.

Reasons for Designation

Witchampton Bridge, built in 1795, is listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:

* Architectural interest: as a good and intact example of a mid-C18 multi-span bridge built in a considered classical manner; * Historical interest: the surviving traction engine and transportation plates add to its interest.

History

Situated at Witchampton, to the south-east of the village, the bridge spans the River Allen. It was designed and built in 1795 by Samuel Kent of Witchampton on the foundations of an earlier bridge. In 1974 it was recorded (Wallis, see Sources) that the bridge carried four cast-iron plaques. Two remain, fixed to the parapet, warning against misuse of the bridge: one is a traction engine plate which 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.

Details

Road bridge over the River Allen, built in 1795 by Samuel Kent, incorporating some earlier fabric.

MATERIALS: brick with stone dressings.

DESCRIPTION: triple-arched, hump-backed bridge designed in a classical style. It has three unequal spans, each having a segmental-headed arch, with stone keystones and an oversailing archivolt ring. They are set on stone piers which step back above the foundations of an earlier bridge, and there are cutwaters on the upstream (north) side. There is a brick stringcourse below the parapet and roundels at each end, obscured (2015) by vegetation. The parapet is surmounted by stone copings and the walls curve outwards at each end, terminating in square piers. The parapet carries two C19 cast-iron plaques: a traction engine plate and a transportation plate.

Sources

None.

Legal

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