Bedford Bridge (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Bedford.
In the historic county of Bedfordshire.
Modern Authority of Bedfordshire.
1974 county of Bedfordshire.
Medieval County of Bedfordshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: TL050495
Latitude 52.13442° Longitude -0.46599°

Bedford Bridge has been described as a certain Fortified Bridge.

There are no visible remains.

Description

The medieval bridge over the River Ouse in Bedford is thought to be of 13th century origin. It was demolished in 1811 and replaced with the current bridge. The medieval bridge had 7 arches and 2 buildings were located on either side of the central arch, one of which was the jail. (Bedfordshire HER)

THIS bridge stands upon the river Ouse, which runs through, and almost equally divides the town. History is silent both as to the founder and the time of its construction. Tradition says it was erected with part of the materials of the castle demolished by King Henry III. in the year 1224. It is highly probable this was built in the place of a much older bridge; as by an extract from Roger Hoveden's Chronicle, in Leland's Collectanea, it appears, that the part of the town, on the southern bank of the river, was built by Edward the elder, in the year 912. It seems, therefore, almost impossible the inhabitants could so long have wanted this necessary means of communication between the north and south parts of the town. (Grose)

Sources of information, references and further reading

County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 15147.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Hidden Bedford Blog
Books
- Simco, A. and McKeague, P., 1997, Bridges of Bedfordshire (Bedford Archaeological Council) p. 32-3
  Farrar, Victor J.F., 2007, Bedford 50 Years Ago: the Architecture of a County town (Old Bedford Modernians' Club)
  Grose, F., 1783, Antiquities of England Vol. 1 p. 1 online copy online copy
Periodical Articles
- Harrison, D., McKeague, P. and Watson, B., 2010, 'England's fortified medieval bridges and bridge chapels: a new survey' Medieval Settlement Research Vol. 25 p. 45-51 online copy
  1949-51, Bedfordshire Magazine p. 205
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Speed, John, 1611-12, The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Bruce Watson, 2013 Sept, Gazetteer of fortified bridges (working list kindly shared with Gatehouse)

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The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

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