A packhorse bridge is a

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

intended to carry

packhorse A packhorse, pack horse, or sumpter refers to a horse, mule, donkey, or pony used to carry goods on its back, usually in sidebags or panniers. Typically packhorses are used to cross difficult terrain, where the absence of roads prevents the use of ...

s (

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...

s loaded with sidebags or

pannier A pannier is a basket, bag, box, or similar container, carried in pairs either slung over the back of a beast of burden, or attached to the sides of a bicycle or motorcycle. The term derives from a Middle English borrowing of the Old French '' ...

s) across a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...

. Typically a packhorse bridge consists of one or more narrow (one horse wide)

masonry Masonry is the building of structures from individual units, which are often laid in and bound together by mortar; the term ''masonry'' can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are bricks, building ...

arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vaul ...

es, and has low

parapets A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Wher ...

so as not to interfere with the panniers borne by the horses. Multi-arched examples sometimes have triangular cutwaters that are extended upward to form pedestrian refuges. Packhorse bridges were often built on the trade routes (often called packhorse routes) that formed major transport arteries across Europe and

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

until the coming of the turnpike roads and

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow un ...

s in the 18th century. Before the road-building efforts of Napoleon, all crossings of the Alps were on packhorse trails. Travellers' carriages were dismantled and transported over the mountain passes by ponies and mule trains.

Definition

In the British Isles at least, the definition of a packhorse bridge is somewhat nebulous. Ernest Hinchliffe discusses the difficulty of defining a true packhorse bridge in ''A Guide to the Packhorse Bridges of England''. He claims that "before the eighteenth century bridges were described as 'horse bridges' or 'cart bridges'" and his strict definition excludes the latter. He suggests that a classic packhorse bridge should generally be: *less than in width; *built before 1800; *on a recognised packhorse route. He categorises the 190 English bridges listed in his book into three groups: *Group 1: wide or less, built before 1800 and with known packhorse associations; *Group 2: bridges that fail one or other of the above criteria, but which are generally referred to as packhorse bridges; *Group 3: bridges sometimes claimed as packhorse bridges, but dismissed as such by the author. The difficulty of classification is illustrated by Moulton Bridge in Suffolk, which Hinchliffe places in Group 1 but which

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

describes as "perhaps not strictly a packhorse bridge since it was wide enough to take carts".

List of packhorse bridges in the British Isles

The following list includes all

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

s described as packhorse bridges by

Cadw (, a Welsh verbal noun meaning "keeping/preserving") is the historic environment service of the Welsh Government and part of the Tourism and Culture group. works to protect the historic buildings and structures, the landscapes and heritage s ...

, or

Historic Scotland Historic Scotland ( gd, Alba Aosmhor) was an executive agency of the Scottish Office and later the Scottish Government from 1991 to 2015, responsible for safeguarding Scotland's built heritage, and promoting its understanding and enjoyment. ...

; all 106 of Hinchliffe's Group 1 bridges in England; and certain other candidates. (For England, Hinchliffe's Group numbers are given as superscripts after the bridge name.)

Definition

List of packhorse bridges in the British Isles

England

Isle of Man

Scotland

Wales

References