The North Devon Coast

by Charles G. Harper

THE “KINGSLEY ROOM,” ROYAL HOTEL, BIDEFORD.

It was too late to change the name of the town when at last the bridge was set a-building, about 1350; or else, be sure of it—so proud has Bideford ever been of its bridge—the change would have been made.

I hope no Devonian will think the worse of me for comparing Bideford Bridge with an old stocking. I merely wish to put in a picturesque way the fact that, although it has never been actually rebuilt, it has been so patched, re-cased, widened, re-widened, repaired, and otherwise amended, during some five centuries and a half, that, like a much-darned stocking, little is left of the original. Having thus deprecated hostile criticism, we will pass on to details. It has twenty-four pointed arches of various size, and spans the river in a total length of six hundred and seventy-seven feet. As to the original building of it, there are many legends, to take the place of facts lost in the mists of ages. According to these, there were angelic and demoniac contendants for and against; and, indeed, in one way and another, the devil seems to have taken a great interest in old By-the-Ford. In the usually received version, it was “Sir” Richard Gourney, a priest (all priests were then “Sir” by courtesy), who first began the work, and an angel who in a vision laid the burden of it upon him. The bridge was to be built on that spot where he should find a great stone fixed in the ground.

Waking from this dream, he walked by the side of the river, where he had often walked before, and to his astonishment, saw a rock in mid-stream, where never, to his knowledge, had such a thing lain. Straightway, convinced of the Divine origin of the vision, he narrated it to the Bishop of Exeter, and obtained from him the usual mediæval encouragement for all who might be prevailed upon to contribute to so excellent an enterprise. That is to say, he granted indulgences: liberty to do this and that, and a liberal discount off the usual term of Purgatory, which, in the Roman Catholic scheme of things in the hereafter, awaits the departed soul before it can enter Paradise. The pious, and even the wicked, who believed and trembled, and knew a bargain when they saw it, responded liberally, and so at last the thing was done. Not without let and hindrance from the devil, be sure of that! For “devil,” however, read quicksands, and we shall probably be nearer the mark; for the broad estuary was full of such, and they rendered building a work of infinite patience and resource. In the end, the bridge was built on patience and prayer, and—on sacks of wool! Now whether those who made the bridge did really get in the foundations of the piers on woolsacks thrown into the sand until they touched bottom (something after the manner in which Stephenson floated his railway across Chat Moss on faggots); or whether the story is merely a perversion of Bideford’s old and prosperous wool-trade having been taxed for the work—and thus, in a sense, the bridge being “built on woolsacks”—there are no means of saying.

In 1810, the bridge was found—like Barnstaple bridge, a few years earlier—too narrow for increasing traffic. Wheeled conveyances were then replacing pack-horses, and it was necessary to double the road across. Fortunately, as in most bridges built in remote times, the sturdy piers were provided with cutwaters projecting far on either side, and on these the semicircular arches of the widening were turned. The cost of this, £3,200, seems in our own expensive age, singularly light; and sure enough, a further widening in 1865, cost £6,000. Were it to do again, perhaps £14,000 would hardly suffice.

SEAL OF BIDEFORD.

Of course, the bridge being so important a means of communication, it was not merely built by pious hands, but was liberally endowed as well; and a chapel stood at the eastern end, on the furthest side from the town, at which few travellers who could afford an offering failed to give something. The bequests and the funds accumulated for its maintenance are now administered by a “Bridge Trust,” which is a wealthy corporation, performing out of its handsome income of £1,000 a year, much good work for Bideford, in the way, not only of bridge repair, but extension of quays, schools, and the like. Also it gives, or rather gave, excellent dinners. The dinner-giving era is now only a fond memory, since the Charity Commissioners frowned down feasting at the expense of the trust funds.

All these various legends and functions led Charles Kingsley to write it down “an inspired bridge; a soul-saving bridge; an alms-giving bridge; an educational bridge; a sentient bridge; and last, but not least, a dinner-giving bridge.” The bridge, he proceeds to say, “is a veritable esquire, bearing arms of its own (a ship and a bridge proper on a plain field), and owning lands and tenements in many parishes, with which the said miraculous bridge has, from time to time, founded charities, built schools, waged suits at law, and, finally, given yearly dinners, and kept for that purpose (luxurious and liquorish bridge that it is!), the best-stocked cellar of wine in all Devon.”