Shipley Bridge

• River: Avon
• Grid reference: SX 680 628
• Date: probably 18th century, widened on the upstream side in the 19th
• Designation: Grade II, Historic England list entry 1107360 (listed 27 May 1986)

Shipley Bridge is a narrow packhorse bridge, probably 18th century and widened on its upstream side in the 19th. Samuel Rowe called it a single-arched moorstone bridge. The road from South Brent ends at the car park here, so you cannot drive on to Avon Dam; the reservoir road is a walk of about 3.5 miles there and back.

The ruins nearby are the naphtha and peat charcoal works set up in 1847 by Davy and Wilkin of Totnes, whose partnership ended in 1850, and the china-clay workings that followed, which dates differ on (the 1870s is safe). The Zeal Tor tramway carried the peat down from Redlake. William Crossing places Shipley Bridge a quarter of a mile beyond Didworthy Bridge.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1107360; Dartmoor Explorations (clay works trail); Dartmoor: A New Study (1977); 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.