Dartmoor Bridges

Dartmoor has three kinds of bridge, and often all three at one crossing. The clapper bridge is the oldest: long granite slabs laid across piers of stacked stones, with no mortar and no arch. The packhorse bridge is a narrow humped arch of the kind that carried trains of ponies. The road bridges are the arched granite bridges of the turnpike and county-bridge years, mostly the late 18th century onwards.

Many carry small stones cut with a letter C, which mark the stretch of road a county maintained. Rivers rise quickly on the moor, and the histories of these bridges are as much a record of floods and rebuilding as of first building. Where sources disagree about a date or a name, each listing says so. Every bridge below links to its own page.

East Dart, West Dart and the Dart valley

• Postbridge Road Bridge
• Postbridge Clapper Bridge
• Bellever Clapper Bridge
• Walla Brook Clapper Bridge (Pizwell)
• Dartmeet Bridge
• Dartmeet Clapper Bridge
• Hexworthy Bridge (Huccaby Bridge)
• Holne Bridge

The Teign and the northern moor

• Teignhead Clapper Bridge
• Wallabrook Clapper Bridge
• Teign-e-ver Clapper Bridge
• Leigh Bridge
• Clifford Bridge
• Steps Bridge
• Fingle Bridge

The Plym, Meavy, Avon and Erme

• Shaugh Bridge
• Plym Bridge
• Cadover Bridge
• Leather Tor Bridge
• Shipley Bridge
• Lydia Bridge
• Harford Bridge (River Erme)

The Walkham, the Tavy and Tavistock

• Merrivale Bridge
• Ward Bridge
• Harford Bridge (River Tavy)
• Abbey Bridge, Tavistock

Crossings of the same name need care: there are two Harford Bridges (the Erme at Harford, the Tavy at Peter Tavy) and two separate Walla Brook bridges. Old books also spell Merrivale as Merivale, and call Abbey Bridge in Tavistock Guile Bridge. Further bridges are still to be added.