Steps Bridge

• River: Teign, at the Dunsford end of the gorge
• Grid reference: SX 804 883
• Date: 1816; an earlier bridge of 1710 replaced the stepping stones
• Builders: Edward Taylor of Exeter and George Weatherdon of Newton Bushel (British Listed Buildings)
• Designation: Grade II, Historic England list entry 1097824 (listed 9 March 1988)

Steps Bridge takes its name from the stepping stones it replaced. Local history gives a first bridge in 1710 after drownings, repairs in 1801 and 1803, and in 1814 a grant of 2,000 pounds from the magistrates for a three-arch bridge. The contractors built it two feet too low on shallow foundations, and payment was held back until it was corrected. It is a county bridge.

The three shallow segmental arches are granite ashlar with cutwaters on the middle piers. Historic England's 1952 text calls it a 19th-century restoration of a 16th-century structure. The neighbouring crossings are Clifford Bridge and Fingle Bridge.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1097824; Moretonhampstead History Trust, Steps Bridge.

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.