Hexworthy Bridge (Huccaby Bridge)

• River: West Dart
• Grid reference: SX 65890 72884
• Date: about the late 18th century
• Built of: granite rubble, three segmental arches, the centre one much wider, triangular cutwaters
• Also called: Huccaby Bridge (Baring-Gould and Burnard); Hexworthy Bridge (Crossing, 1914)
• Designation: Grade II, Historic England list entry 1105453 (listed 28 October 1987)

The bridge carries the lane between Hexworthy and Huccaby over the West Dart, joining the Two Bridges to Ashburton road. Historic England calls it Hexworthy or Huccaby Bridge and dates it to about the late 18th century: three segmental arches in granite rubble, the middle one much wider than the others, with triangular cutwaters.

Two stones marked C (for County) stand about 100 m either side and mark the limit of county maintenance. William Crossing thought a clapper bridge once stood here and was lost in a flood; that is his inference and no document we have confirms it.

Close by, Jolly Lane Cot is said to have been built in one day in 1835 by Thomas Satterley while the farmers were at Ashburton Fair; his daughter Sally Satterley sang songs to Sabine Baring-Gould. The bend of the West Dart above the bridge is a wild swimming spot; see the Hexworthy Bridge swim.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1105453; Dartmoor Explorations, Hexworthy or Huccaby Bridge and environs; Baring-Gould, A Book of Dartmoor; W. Crossing, Gems in a Granite Setting (1905).

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.