NO one has ever attempted a formal count of Britain’s bridges, but some estimate the total number to be in excess of one million. The majority are of no special interest, yet the best inspire awe and admiration, perhaps because of their scale, their curious silhouette or the romantic beauty of their setting.
Bridges are part of our collective culture. London Bridge, uninspiring as its modern form may be, is seared into our consciousness via a nursery rhyme of undated antiquity. The interminable task of painting Edin-burgh’s Forth Bridge spawned one of our favourite expressions. J. M. W. Turner chose the setting of Brunel’s Maidenhead railway bridge for his depiction of a steam train as it shot through the Home Counties.
When Turner exhibited in the mid 1840s, the greatest era of bridge-building was fast approaching. Yet ‘bridges’ have existed ever since early man used a felled tree or a series of stones to span a break in the terrain or a water feature. Simple forms of
