Warwick Old Castle Bridge (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Warwick.
In the historic county of Warwickshire.
Modern Authority of Warwickshire.
1974 county of Warwickshire.
Medieval County of Warwickshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SP28536463
Latitude 52.79135° Longitude -1.58327°

Warwick Old Castle Bridge has been described as a probable Fortified Bridge.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.
This is a Grade 2* listed building protected by law*.

Description

There is no mention of a town gate on the south. Leland said that 'the strength of the bridge . . . stands for the south gate', and the survey of the bridge in 1774 noted that one of the piers was larger than the rest, suggesting the existence of some kind of barrier. There is no trace of this in Hollar's plan of the town in 1654, but by that time there was certainly a gate at the end of Crosse Street.
It is not known when 'the great bridge' was built but it is probably referred to as early as 1208. In 1373 half of the bridge was 'in ruins and almost broken to the ground', and it was stated that it had customarily been repaired only by charitable means. Grants of pontage were made to a group of burgesses in 1374, 1377, and 1380, and the upkeep of the bridge may have become the responsibility of the Guild of the Holy Trinity and St. Mary in 1383. The Guild of Warwick was still responsible for it in 1545. The bridge was rebuilt upstream in the 18th century and the old bridge was swept away by flood waters in 1795; remains of the medieval structure include three arches in the centre of the river, and fragments on both banks, more extensive on the south where the bridge seems to have ended in a causeway. (VCH)

Ruin of late mediaeval stone, ashlar, bridge over the River Avon by weir. Sections of:- three complete arches in centre of river, one etch by north bank and arch on south bank remain. Simple chamfered moulding to 4-centred arches. Splayed piers hare cutwaters, up stream and down. (Listed Building Report)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1005772, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number wa46
National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1035499
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 333658.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) MWA1963.

Books
- Stephens, W.B. (ed), 1969, VCH Warwickshire Vol. 8 p. 420- online transcription
  Pevsner, Nikolaus and Wedgwood, Alexandra, 1966, Buildings of England: Warwickshire p. 465
Periodical Articles
- Sapcote, E.S., 1951, Transactions of the Birmingham and Warwickshire Archaeological Society Vol. 69
  Cossins, J.A., 1916, Transactions of the Birmingham and Warwickshire Archaeological Society Vol. 42 p. 9
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1914, Calendar of Patent Rolls Edward III (1370-74) Vol. 15 p. 429 online copy
  Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1916, Calendar of Patent Rolls Edward III (1374-77) Vol. 16 p. 423 online copy
  Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1895, Calendar of Patent Rolls Richard II (1377-81) Vol. 1 p. 563 online copy
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Dugdale, Wm, 1789 (orig pub 1656), The antiquities of Warwick, and Warwick Castle: extracted from Sir William Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire p. 49, 121 online copy
  Dugdale, Wm., 1656, The Antiquities of Warwickshire (Thomas Warren) p. 340-1 online copy
  Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 461
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1908, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 2 p. 40 online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Historic England, 2016, Heritage at Risk West Midlands Register 2016 (London: Historic England) p. 50 online copy
  Historic England, 2015, Heritage at Risk West Midlands Register 2015 (London: Historic England) p. 51 online copy
  English Heritage, 2014, Heritage at Risk Register 2014 West Midlands (London: English Heritage) p. 50 online copy
  English Heritage, 2013, Heritage at Risk Register 2013 West Midlands (London: English Heritage) p. 51 online copy
  English Heritage, 2012, Heritage at Risk Register 2012 West Midlands (London: English Heritage) p. 63 online copy
  English Heritage, 2011, Heritage at Risk Register 2011 West Midlands (London: English Heritage) p. 60 online copy
  English Heritage, 2010, Heritage at Risk Register 2010 West Midlands (London: English Heritage) p. 60 online copy
  English Heritage, 2009, Heritage at Risk Register 2009 West Midlands (London: English Heritage) p. 68, 69 online copy

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

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