Medieval Bridges of Southern England: 100 bridges, 1000 years

This article is from Current Archaeology issue 398

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Review by Stuart Brookes

Falling somewhere between a gazetteer, reference manual, and coffee-table book, it’s a little difficult to figure out who the intended market for this volume might be. Although containing many beautiful photographs, it doesn’t quite qualify as the latter. If the aim was to produce a gazetteer of medieval bridges, one wonders whether it might not have been better served by a digital format. As a reference manual, it gives both technical details about the bridges (including directions, how to visit them, and the author’s own star- rating system) and metadata on the conventions and terminologies used. In these details, this book supersedes Edwyn Jervoise’s difficult-to-find three-volume Ancient Bridges series of the 1930s, but Jervoise described much more historical detail about his subject, not least in his treatment of the primary sources. An intriguing oddity in the publishing landscape, then, but one that ought to find an audience.

Medieval Bridges of Southern England: 100 bridges, 1000 years
Marshall G Hall
Wingather Press, £39.95
ISBN 978-1914427138