Radcot Bridge

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the 1387 battle, see Radcot Bridge (Battle).

Radcot Bridge

Radcot Bridge is a bridge carrying the A4095 over the River Thames, on the border of the traditional counties of Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It stands immediately south of the hamlet of Radcot (Oxfordshire) and not far north of Faringdon in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire). Adjoining the bridge is the Swan Inn and slight earthworks of Matilda's Castle.

[edit] The Bridges

There are in fact three stone bridges at this point on the Thames, from south to north: Radcot Bridge, the Canal Bridge and Pidnell Bridge. Bizarrely, the first is nearest to Pidnell (a hamlet in Faringdon parish) and the last is nearest to Radcot. Whilst built on the Thames, Radcot Bridge is strictly speaking, now on a backwater, since the construction, in 1787, of a new cut for the Thames and Severn Canal. The Canal Bridge was built at the same time.

Radcot Bridge is often claimed as the "oldest bridge on the Thames", having been built, with pointed arches of Taynton stone, around 1200. The Cistercian monks of St Mary at Citeaux in Normandy were granted land for the purpose by King John. Much of the structure was broken down during the famous battle which took place here in 1387, although it was apparently reconstructed six years later. The bridge was again severely damaged during the Wars of the Roses, and was largely rebuilt as we see it today with a flattened centre arch.

Radcot Bridge became a toll bridge and its wharf was commercially important as the highest shipping point on the Thames, with the junction of the Severn-Thames canal not far away at Lechlade (Gloucestershire).