Bridge of St John, Lechlade

Description

St John's Bridge was built a few years after the foundation of the Hospital of St John the Baptist (2), (AD 1228 SU 29 NW 9). Its maintenance was a charge upon the Hospital, and grants of pontage was given to the prior in 1337, 1341 and 1388 (3). The bridge was re-built circa 1831, when the medieval arches were taken down, and was altered again in 1884 (Verey and Brooks) (TBGAS 1899; Jervoise 1930; Ireland).
The present St John's Bridge has no visible medieval features (F1 DJC 05-JAN-73).
The crossing of the Thames near its confluence with the River Leach probably gave Lechlade its name, and a piece of land at the crossing was known as 'the Lade' in 1246. Saint John's bridge, built by 1228, carried the main road from mid-Gloucestershire to London. Later it comprised two large and two small arches and there was a long causeway of more than twenty arches crossing the meadows on the Buscot side of the river. A gateway to the bridge built in 1228 possibly survived as the building on it that was known as 'Noah's Ark' in 1716. The lords of the manor of Lechlade claimed the right of taking toll from barges passing beneath the bridge, but in 1791 the Upper Thames navigation commissioners by-passed it with a new cut and a lock (VCH). (PastScape)

The first record discovered was, a licence on the Charter Rolls in the 12th year of Henry the Third, permitting Peter Fitzherbert to build a gate at the foot of the Bridge. (Madden et al)

Comments

There is a grant of Free Warren to Peter son of Herbert in the Calendar of Charter Rolls (Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1903, Calendar of Charter Rolls Henry III 1226-1257 Vol. 1 (HMSO) p. 77 online copy) but no record of a charter giving licence to build a gate on the bridge, although some of the rolls of that year are damaged. There is no reason to think Madden et al were mistaken but some confirmatory evidence is required for a fortified bridge to be certainly asserted here.