IMG_2961
The bridge was designed in 1748 by William Etheridge (1709–76), and was built in 1749 by James Essex the Younger (1722–84). It has subsequently been repaired in 1866 and rebuilt to the same design in 1905.
The myth that the bridge was originally built without fastenings at the joints, but could not be rebuilt successfully without introducing fastenings at the joints, might owe its origin to a change in the nature of the fastenings during the 1905 rebuilding.
Although it appears to be an arch, it is composed entirely of straight timbers built to an unusually sophisticated engineering design, hence the name. A replica of the bridge was built in 1923 near the Iffley Lock in Oxford.
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