Kate's Bridge

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Kate's Bridge is a hamlet and landmark on the A15 road, in the parish of Thurlby, about 3.5 miles to the south of Bourne, Lincolnshire. Its size is indicated by the fact that the road signs announcing it at its two ends are on the same pole.

It now consists of little more than two bridges, a petrol filling station and two houses but a hundred years ago, people from villages around found employment in the brickyard and earlier still, it was at the head of navigation on the River Glen. It lies close to the A15's junction with the modern King Street but the Roman road crossed the Glen here and it is possible that it was for this that the first Kate's Bridge was built. In any case, the name comes from a time when bridges rather than fords were unusual. Otherwise the bridge name is not likely to have been given. However, the other side of the river was known by the Anglo-Saxon name, Thetford (public ford), a name retained in Thetford House. So a Roman age for the bridge is doubtful. All that can be said for certain is that the bridge is shown on Saxton's map of Lincolnshire, published in 1579.

In the 1820s, John Loudon McAdam was working on the turnpike here. Whether he supervised the construction of the early nineteenth century bridge which still crosses the River Glen on a single stone arch can not be said with certainty. This Kate's Bridge no longer carries the road, which now crosses the river on a nearby structure of the 1970s.