. Vanishing England . twater flow under it. The ascent isvery steep, so that carriages go under it. The triangularbridge of Croyland is mentioned in a charter of KingEdred about the year 941, but the present bridge isprobably not earlier than the fourteenth century. How-ever, there is a rude statue said to be that of KingEthelbald, and may have been taken from the earlierstructure and built into the present bridge. It is in asitting posture at the end of the south-west wall of thebridge. The figure has a crown on the head, behindwhich are two wings, the arms bound together, round theshoulders
. Vanishing England . twater flow under it. The ascent isvery steep, so that carriages go under it. The triangularbridge of Croyland is mentioned in a charter of KingEdred about the year 941, but the present bridge isprobably not earlier than the fourteenth century. How-ever, there is a rude statue said to be that of KingEthelbald, and may have been taken from the earlierstructure and built into the present bridge. It is in asitting posture at the end of the south-west wall of thebridge. The figure has a crown on the head, behindwhich are two wings, the arms bound together, round theshoulders a kind of mantle, in the left hand a sceptre andin the right a globe. The bridge consists of three piers,whence spring three pointed arches which unite theirgroins in the centre. Croyland is an instance of adecayed town, the tide of its prosperity having flowedelsewhere. Though nominally a market-town, it is onlya village, with little more than the ruins of its formersplendour remaining, when the great abbey attracted. 326 VANISHING ENGLAND to it crowds of the nobles and gentry of England, andemployed vast numbers of labourers, masons, and crafts-men on the works of the abbey and in the supply of itsneeds. All over the country we find beautiful old bridges,though the opening years of the present century, withthe increase of heavy traction-engines, have seen manydisappear. At Coleshill, Warwickshire, there is a grace-ful old bridge leading to the town with its six arches andmassive cutwaters. Kent is a county of bridges,picturesque medieval structures which have survived thelapse of time and the storms and floods of centuries. Youcan find several of these that span the Medway far fromthe busy railway lines and the great roads. There is afine medieval fifteenth-century bridge at Yalding acrossthe Beult, long, fairly level, with deeply embayed cut-waters of rough ragstone. Twyford Bridge belongs tothe same period, and Lodingford Bridge, with its twoarches and single-buttressed cut
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