Dartmeet Clapper Bridge

• River: East Dart
• Grid reference: SX 67193 73207
• Date: 17th century or earlier
• Spans: five, on large boulder piers; two still carry a broad slab about a metre wide
• Flood: three slabs lost on 4 August 1826 (the listing)
• Designation: Grade II, Historic England list entry 1260486 (listed 23 August 1955, amended 1986)

The clapper bridge stands about 20 metres north of Dartmeet Bridge. The listing says it is 17th century or earlier, with five spans on big boulder abutments and piers. Two spans still have a single broad lintel; the other three slabs were lost in the flood of 4 August 1826.

Later accounts differ on the damage: one says it was washed away in the 1820s, rebuilt, and washed away again in 1888. William Crossing wrote in 1905 of the example of modern clapper building at Dartmeet before our eyes, so a repair was visible by then. Only the 1826 date comes from an official source.

Our Library's Dartmoor: A New Study (1977) places the clapper on the old route from Tavistock to Bovey Tracey by way of Swincombe, Dartmeet, Ponsworthy and Widecombe.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1260486; W. Crossing, Gems in a Granite Setting (1905); Dartmoor: A New Study (1977).

This bridge is one of the crossings gathered in Dartmoor Bridges, a guide to the clapper bridges, packhorse bridges and road bridges of the moor and its edge.