Fish pour off the bridge

 

This stone sculpture on a bridge in Newcastle-under-Lyme above the Lyme Brook, is called 'The Return'. It vaguely amuses me, though I do worry some of the fish on the far edges of the parapet are actually dead. Who knows?

++++

To comment on this post, just use the Comments field down this page

To get an email alert into your inbox every time we make a new post (about once a week), just put your email address into the Follow By Email Box (in the column to the right on this page) and hit Submit.  Your email address is kept private and never reused

SSR bridge - in brown & yellow

The South Staffordshire Railway Walk is a footpath that makes use of the now disused SSR line, but you can walk beneath its bridges of course, as I was doing here.
Somebody carefully restores the paintwork every so often - even though the railway company itself folded in 1923, giving way to the LNWR. 
These colours - a mud-brown shade, with borders of yellow must have been the colours of the SSR itself, one supposes.

Essex Bridge, for a Queen

Built for Queen Elizabeth I nearly five centuries ago, this little stone bridge, the 'Essex Bridge', crosses the River Trent a few miles from Cannock Chase.
The Earl of Essex built it, they say, so that the Queen could ride across it, from his stately home on the one side, to the forests beyond. Thus she could do some hunting whenever she stayed in this neck of the woods.
The little v-shaped niches are for passers-by to stand aside in safety when something broader comes on.

Of course, the locals just use it to cross the water, as a short-cut, not bothering too much about its history. And, why not?

Dilapidation proves order

As someone who walks a lot I often silently thank all those farmers and organisations who keep up the county's pathways - particularly in maintaining footbridges and stiles.
The county council's Environment Department is ultimately responsible for securing footpaths, but, under-resourced as they are, they now get official help from local Ramblers' groups.

Footpaths are pretty well looked after locally (in my humble opinion) - so I was quite surprised to see this dilapidated footbridge (over a ditch) near the River Anker.  Paradoxically, this exception to the rule is a reminder about how much in order most of the network of paths is.

Once a railway was here

Walking on the meadows alongside the River Anker near Tamworth, I saw a hillock of vegetation, and wondered what could have caused it to have appeared.  In fact, as you can see, it was actually a growth of weeds & more around a broken railway bridge. 
What happened to the railway line that once passed over it, I've no idea - dismantled and sold off I suppose... leaving just this forlorn bridge, to be slowly suffocated by time and Nature.

Locked into love

Is Burton upon Trent a romantic place?  Well, there are four pairs of lovers in the town at least...

On the Andressey foot-bridge, you will find four padlocks. 
Each is a 'love-lock', following the recent tradition (can a tradition be recent? hmm) started in Paris, where couples etch their initials on to a padlock, fasten it to a bridge, and then throw the key in the river - as a symbol of their enduring love for one another.

I have a feeling there will be more added during Valentine's Day.

This post was featured on the My Town Shoot-out Photo Blog

Home across the water

When it comes to being quaint - and being in the middle of lovely countryside as well - the village of Oakamoor in the Moorlands is hard to beat.

On the outskirts of the village is a small group of homes, whose address is 'The Island'.  You have to walk the bridge to get to them; like a permanently open drawbridge...   Quaint!

Where Stoke-on-Trent all began

This is - arguably - the place that the Potteries was launched as a modern industrial centre. 
Here at the very undistinguished Bridge 129 (Brownhills) Josiah Wedgwood made the first cut, in July 1766, on what was to become the Trent & Mersey Canal, one of the great highways of central England.

Without the canal, would the Potteries have been able to develop?

Wonder viaduct

I don’t care what anyone says: bridges are amazing things.    The Penkridge Railway Viaduct over the River Penk looks dull (I admit) from a distance - but it is a work of art in fact.
Thomas Brassey was the contractor; and it opened for business in 1837.  (This work was the making of Brassey – from then on he became the great railway builder of the century.  His biography says that by 1847 he had built one out of every three rail miles in Britain...)

One of the wonders of Staffordshire!

Lord Of The Rings on the bridge

In The Lord Of The Rings, by JRR Tolkien, the village of Tavrobel has in it a bridge at which two rivers meet.  Tolkien's son Christopher has confirmed that the site is based on the real village of Great Haywood, here in Staffordshire.
Tolkien lived near here for a while as he recuperated after a stint in the trenches in World War One.

This view from the famous Essex Bridge looks toward the River Trent (on the right) and the River Sow (on the left). 

There is also a canal tucked away a little behind all that greenery - the start of the Staffs & Worcester - but I don't suppose an Old English scholar would have wanted to include that aspect...

Hug bridge

The course of the River Dane marks the boundary with Cheshire on Staffordshire's North-Western side. 
Running over the river, you will find 'Hug Bridge' which is the main crossing hereabouts - on the A523 at Rushton Spencer.

It's not a very distinguished bridge, but it is listed.

Bridge for a saint

An old stone bridge, a beautiful spot, sunshine: the perfect recipe for an August bank holiday weekend.

We are on the Ilam Estate, where there are plenty of picturesque walks, including one across the bridge in this photo, St Bertram's Bridge. 
Named after the local saint, it has been the local crossing over the Manifold River for hundreds of years.

Spears of icicles in rows

The chilly weather refuses to go away - so much so that, even after any evidence of snow has pretty much disappeared, winter is still dug in in more shaded places.

I was walking under this old railway bridge, when I looked up - to see these rows of gleaming, dagger-sharp icicles above me. I suddenly knew Damocles must have felt like.

Rambling footbridge

We've had hard, frosty weather for a week now - but accompanied by bright sunshine. The clear skies have contributed to both conditions obviously.

I've always admired the efforts of volunteers who work with The Ramblers organisation. I'd guess it was they who maintain this footbridge near Winkhill.

Dove bridge

The Dove Bridge near Doveridge runs, unsurprisingly enough, over the River Dove.

It’s a beautiful-looking structure, but isn’t used now really, which – with luck – will preserve it. Two of the arches date back 700 years apparently.

Beech bridge

I’m a fan of bridges.. of any sort really, even motorway underpasses.  It’s something about the tunnel effect (passing from one world to another), and also the different perspectives caused by the two levels, one looking down from above and one looking up from below. I wonder if this is something Freudian about me. Er-hem.

Anyway, whenever I hear Robert Frost’s poem which starts Something there is that doesn't love a wall, I sometimes think – yes, but no-one can dislike bridges, surely?

Especially bridges like this one – with age and character. It's on the country lane leading down to Beech Caves, at Beech.