Upper Arley Bridge (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Upper Arley.
In the historic county of Worcestershire.
Modern Authority of Worcestershire.
1974 county of Hereford and Worcester.
Medieval County of Worcestershire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SO765801
Latitude 52.41889° Longitude -2.34680°

Upper Arley Bridge has been described as a Fortified Bridge although is doubtful that it was such.

There are no visible remains.

Comments

PastScape cites correspondence from L.F. Chitty as the source for this reference. Gatehouse can not see this feature of the copies of Speed's map available online and while that map does portray some crossing points (? bridges) it is not of a resolution or form to suggest the portrayal of a bargate. PastScape locates this at grid reference SO754809. The obvious crossing point is at SO765801, in Upper Arley village but, while there is a modern footbridge, the crossing point here was a ferry, not a bridge. No mention is made of a bridge in the VCH parish history of Upper Arley but the ferry is recorded as mentioned in the C14 and in 1602.
At the scale of most of these early maps it is entirely possible the bridge at Bewdley, 5km south, is what is portrayed. Otherwise presumably what Lily Chitty was describing, based on a different early map (? that of Christopher Saxton) was a simple bar gate controlling access to the ferry of Upper Ardley. However, until it is certain as to what Chitty was referring too, the record can not be entirely dismissed.

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 879492.
Further information may be available from the holder of the county Historic Environment Record.

Books
- Page, Wm and Willis-Bund, J.W. (eds), 1913, VCH Worcestershire Vol. 3 p. 5-10 online transcription
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- John Speed, 1610, Map of Worcestershire online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Bruce Watson, 2013 Sept, Gazetteer of fortified bridges (working list kindly shared with Gatehouse)

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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.

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