Five Arch Bridge

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Bridge Name:   Five Arch Bridge
No.:   76
Location:   Near Creech MILL – 51.02204,-3.04316
Build Date:   1863
Engineer:   Francis Fox
     
       
 

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Description:    
Disused railway bridge built of squared and irregularly coursed punched lias with Bath stone dressings. Five arch span bridge. Shallow arches, rusticated archivolts, piers resting on boat-shaped pontoons in river, raking abutments, regular projections above water level on the piers, broken off in some places, flat string course and flat coping, both of Bath stone. The outer arches of the bridge span the bank. The bridge carried the branch line of the Bristol and Exeter Railway Company to Chard. It closed in 1962. (1)

A branch railway from Taunton to Chard, running parallel with the Chard Canal, opened in 1866. Five Arch
Bridge carried the Chard Branch over the Tone 200 yards upstream of the canal aqueduct, until the line closed in
1962. The arches are built on a skew; the stone corbels on which the arch centering was supported can still be seen in each of the piers (2)

 
     
References:   1. www.tauntondeane.gov.uk/tdbcsites/her/her_lb/lbdets.asp?id=000227″>Taunton Deane B C  2. Bridges Along the Tone – SCC Highways