Built of: granite rubble, three round arches, the centre one taller, triangular cutwaters
Designation: Grade II, Historic England list entry 1170849 (listed 28 October 1987)
The road bridge at Postbridge carries the B3212 over the East Dart a few metres downstream of the clapper bridge. It dates from the late 18th century and has three round arches, the middle one higher than the others, with triangular cutwaters. It was built when two Acts of 1772 turnpiked the road from Tavistock to Moretonhampstead and the old clapper could no longer serve a coaching road. Some sources give the 1780s; the listing says only late 18th century.
The clapper bridge beside it is one of the best-known monuments on the moor; our listing for it is Postbridge clapper bridge. The hamlet, the visitor centre and the car park lie either side of the road here.
Sources: Historic England list entry 1170849; Wikipedia, Postbridge.
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.
Dartefacts is a database of Dartmoor sites with far more close-up detail than we can show here, and it is the best place to go deeper. Dartefacts is free to use, and nobody has to pay to look things up. If you want more, a yearly subscription adds 10-figure grid references, map zoom down to 1:25,000 and lists to tick off the places you have visited, and it helps keep the site going. We would encourage you to subscribe.
Childes tomb. Photograph by Glavind Strachan Photography
“He told me incredible tales of the large, glaring-eyed monsters that had stared at him as he lay in the bog.”
Also on Our DartmoorWoodland Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland — Lisa Schneidau's collection of traditional folk tales of oak, ash and thorn, wild ghosts and woodwoses, retold and related to the trees and forests of Britain and Ireland today.
Dartmoor quizPhotograph by Glavind Strachan Photography
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Childes tomb. Photograph by Glavind Strachan Photography