Holt Bridge

Holt / Bridges

‘The toun of Holt 5. miles by land from Chester, and there is a great stone bridge on Dee Ryver.’

John Leland, Itinerary in Wales, ed. L. T. Smith, p. 90

The Lordship of Bromfield and Yale, carved from the lands of the conquered Welsh, was awarded to John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey by a grateful Edward I in October 1282. With these territories came the lands on the banks of the River Dee which, under Warenne became the settlement of Holt - an Edwardian planned town(1), contemporary to the building of the Castle at the end of the 13th century.

The Holt Farndon Bridge viewed from Holt side of the Dee - 'a doore into Wales'.

Initially passage across the River Dee was by ferry, which was situated a little to the east of the bridge, at the end of the old road leading down to the banks of the river and which still remains. One would suppose that the Romans would have built a bridge here, given the importance of their tilery situated close to the present crossing. It remains a possibility that a bridge existed near the present Medieval structure in Roman times, but given the discovery of what would seem to be a Roman road running east west along the line of the present B5102, south of the site of the ancient kilns and which ends at the Dee a little north of the castle, it is possible that any bridge that did in fact exist in the 1st and 2nd century was actually further south. This cannot be confirmed and in any case it is possible, if not likely that the Romans also used the Dee to transport the manufactured pottery to Chester.(2)

The road leading down to what was once the site of the ferry across the Dee.

The building of Holt Bridge, linking the town with Farndon is thought to have begun during the Lordship of Warenne’s grandson, his namesake the 7th Earl of Surrey, in around 1338, the twelfth year of the reign of Edward III(3), since its building is described as such in a complaint raised at Chester County Court in September 1368 (4) The Bridge was described at the time of the complaint as having a fortified gateway,(5) and it's likely then that the bridge was built in stone from its earliest raising, and not, as some have supposed, in wood and later replaced in stone. There has been some question as to the reliability of this date, but it is likely accurate. It had been thought that the foundation of the Bridge dated to the mid 14th century, largely due to Thomas Pennant’s assertion that Farndon and Holt were separated,

‘by an antient stone bridge of ten arches, with the vestiges of a guard-house in the middle, the date 1345 was preserved till very lately on a stone over the arch called the Lady’s arch.’

Pennant, Tours in Wales Vol. 1, (1778), p. 259

As well as the enforcement of tolls to enter the Lordship of Bromfield, the Chester complaint of 1368 also adds to further grievances. One was the existence of what were described as criminal gangs on the Holt side preying on those of Cheshire crossing the bridge - said to have been with the permission of the then Lord of Bromfield, presumably Richard FitzAlan the Earl of Arundel. The other concern was the removal of ‘great stones’ from beneath the bridge which was said to have shifted the course of the Dee away from the Cheshire side. These great stones are something of a mystery, since no one is really clear as to their original purpose. Several suggestions have been put forward, including the possibility they relate to a coffer dam - a temporary construction to enable those building the bridge to work in a dry environment. Another possibility is that they were part of the landing stage for the original ferry. It is even possible they were the remains of ancient Roman wharves connected to the tilery works.

That the Holt-Farndon Bridge was fortified is tremendously exciting. If Pennant was correct in his assertion of the date 1345 on the gatehouse, it should not trouble us muchly since it is possible that it relates to the completion of the bridge and gatehouse, rather than its foundation some years earlier. There are now only two fortified bridges left in these Islands - those being at Warkworth in Northumberland and the rather more astonishing Monnow Bridge at Monmouth, with the latter being the only example with its gatehouse in the centre of the bridge, as was the case at Holt. It should be remembered that the British Isles would have had its fair share of bridges heavy with chapels and shops, houses and toll booths, fisheries, mills and as entry points into towns, defensive structures. That we have lost so many of these buildings on our bridges has much to do with the relative peace in Britain after the excitement of the 17th century civil wars and the pressures of urban development, especially during the Industrial Revolution. As for Holt’s fortified gatehouse, it would seem to have been demolished to below the parapet level some time at the end of the 18th century. A painting of 1760 by the celebrated Welsh landscape artist, Richard Wilson shows the gatehouse extant but in a ruinous condition, while work by John Warwick Smith of around 1790 show the gatehouse gone, other than some evident stone work above the level of the bridge where once the building had stood.

The Holt Farndon Bridge by Richard Wilson c. 1760. A view from the Farndon side, the 'vestiges' of the guard-house still extant.

In its pomp, however, this gatehouse of the Holt Farndon Bridge was an impressive affair. Built, without doubt, as a statement of military power, this was the work of a confident and assured Lord of Bromfield and Yale. An estate survey of 1627, made for Thomas Morton,(6) then Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, gives us an excellent description of the bridge and gatehouse at its best. The tower facing Holt had what is described as a statue of a crucified Christ upon it, while beneath it were two further figures - that of the Virgin Mary and, rather strangely, ‘her sonne’. This last was probably, in fact, an image of St John, as is customary in such religious imagery. It is perhaps a curious thing that those responsible for the estate survey would not have been aware of the traditional iconography that was common less than a century earlier, and would suggest that such religious work was long gone - including, of course, the churchyard cross that would have borne almost identical imagery, such as the once proud cross within the grounds of St Chad’s a little further into Holt. A further curiosity was the fact that such obviously religious statuary remained at all. As stated by Pennant, the arch which supported the tower, indicated today by the second high arch-ring, was for a long time known as the Lady’s Arch, reflecting its past importance. The estate survey of 1627 further notes that there had once been two further statues on the gate house, one of which survived and depicted a woman, ‘which it seemeth hath bin richly guilt.’ Unfortunately, the survey declines to tell us where upon the tower these statues were placed, though it is possible that they faced both up and down stream. And even more excitingly, was the existence of a stone lion, said to have faced Farndon and described as, ‘to the full passant and like the Lyon is upon the gates of Hoult Castell.’

Holt Bridge was the scene of a short sharp engagement during the English Civil War, just a few years after the Morton estate survey. In the early days of November 1643, Parliamentary forces under the overall command of Sir William Brereton, along with Colonel John Booth, Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Egerton and Sir Thomas Myddleton(7) made their way to Farndon with the intention of reducing the Royalist forces holding Holt for the King. Their advance into Wales was halted, however, by,

‘a towre and drawbridge and stronge gates upon the bridge soe as they and wee conceived it verie difficult if not altogether impossible to make way for our passage over the bridge.’

Letter from Sir William Brereton to William Lenthall, 11th November 1643(8)

So, not only was the bridge defended by the gate house but, according to Brereton, a drawbridge also. There can be no mistake in this. Brereton’s detailed description of the successful capture of the bridge and town makes it very clear. An initial attempt to cross the Dee by boat was repulsed by fusillade of fire from the Royalists. In response, Brereton had the large part of his forces march down the Farndon side of the river in an apparent effort to find another crossing point. The Royalist forces duly followed until the bridge was out of sight. This was a ruse, since once the majority of the Royalists forces were out of sight, a force of Parliamentary infantry, held back and out of sight, rushed the bridge, taking advantage of,

‘the opprtunitye to make a desperate attempt upon the bridge by placeinge ladders to the toppe of the drawbridge and cuttinge the ropes. Which binge done and the bridg falling downe wee had accesse to the gates and casting over some hand granadoes amongst the Welsh men - who there had remayned - which strucke such a terror into them as that they all run away and could not be obtained to return.’

Letter from Sir William Brereton to William Lenthall, 11th November 1643

Hence the bridge was taken, ‘to open a doore into Wales’. The drawbridge, as far as is known, is not explicitly mentioned anywhere else in the historical record, probably since it was taken as being part of the fortification as a whole. But it begs to ask the question as to the work that was presumably done to the bridge subsequent to 1643, removing the drawbridge and replacing it with a solid carriageway. Later masonry in the carriageway discovered during restoration work in 1991 confirmed that the drawbridge had been removed, while also discovering the polygonal corner turrets of the gatehouse exactly where they ought to have been. It does seem unlikely that Pennant, crossing into Holt from Farndon in the later 18th century, would not have mentioned the fact that he did so across a drawbridge, permanently opened or otherwise.

Subsequent to the turmoil of the Civil Wars and the Restoration through the 17th century, the Holt Farndon Bridge retained its essential importance as a crossing, as one would expect. However, the gatehouse was almost certainly demilitarised from this point. Pennant’s assertion in the 1770s that only a shadow of the gatehouse remained would suggest that it was allowed to fester away to a ruin, wherein it became the object of the artist - ever attracted to the dream of broken stone and open spaces. And as already stated, it seems to have been removed almost entirely by the end of the 18th century.

Those that visit the Bridge today will also note along with the gatehouse, the bridge has lost two of its arches since Pennant’s visit.(9) It is now a bridge of eight arches, a state of affairs that was certainly the case by the time of a drawing produced by Thomas Gilks in 1854. It is still possible to see where the gatehouse tower was built - the secondary, strengthening, strainer arch is obvious.

If one can believe such a thing, the bridge staved off a serious attempt to have it demolished in the 19th century, seemingly only saved from the stupidity of the champions of blandness by the general incompetence of bureaucrats because ‘county authorities on one side of the stream could not agree with the county authorities on the other.’(10)

It is entirely in keeping with a bridge of such age that myth and legend have gathered about it. Perhaps the most famous is that of the murder of two of the children of the Welsh prince, Madog ap Crypl (1275-1304/6), heir to Castell Dinas Bran. The tale, as is told is that on Madog’s death, these children were placed in the guardianship of John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey and founder of Holt Castle, and Roger Mortimer, 1st Baron Mortimer of Chirk. The two lords proceeded to murder the children by drowning them in the waters of the River Dee beneath Holt Bridge - the bridge they continue to haunt with the sounds of their dying screams.(11)

A version of this tale seems to have been popular at the time of Thomas Pennant’s visit to Holt at the end of the 18th century. However, he was at pains to correct the story, since it would seem that the legend as was current at the time believed the murdered children were those of Owain Gruffydd Fychan I, Prince of Powys Fadog (1277-1284). Pennant was aware that Owain’s children had all reached maturity, and seems to have had information communicated to him by the Reverend John Price, keeper of the Bodleian Library in Oxford which suggested in fact, that the murdered children were Madog’s. According to Pennant, the legend may well have had foundation in an earlier tale of two young fairies that met similar fates to the sons of Madog Crypl. Egerton Leigh wrote his own version of the legend in his book, Ballads & Legends of Cheshire.

‘Belated travellers quake with fear,

And spur their starting horse;

For childish shrieks, they say, they hear

As Farndon’s Bridge they cross.

Two fairy forms, all clothed in white.

Still hovering o’er the Dee,

At midnight oft by pale moonlight

The ghost-struck rustics see.’

Egerton Leigh, Ballads, p.244-245

Even now and every now and then, those crossing the bridge claim to hear ghostly cries and screams from the waters beneath the bridge.

Footnotes

1. Holt, or at least the area now known as Holt of course has a far more distant past than that evidenced by the 13th century castle. Evidence of Bronze Age activity is there to be seen, as well as the startling Roman tilery that was discovered at the beginning of the 20th century.

2. The main Roman road ran between Whitchurch, through Malpas and on to Chester, though there is continued speculation that Holt was connected to this main routeway by a road running from the town and the possible Roman road, across the Dee and on to The Wetreins north west of Tilston.

3. To be precise, the twelfth year of Edward’s reign ran from 25th January 1338 - 24th January 1339.

4. The complaint was raised by the people of Farndon aggrieved at the imposition of tolls on those crossing to work in Holt.

5. quedam forciletta cum quadam porta

6. Thomas Morton had been Bishop of Chester until 1618, while Chester had been part of the Diocese of Coventry and Lichfield until 1541.

7. Sir Thomas Myddleton (1586–1666), of Chirk Castle, seems to have been a moderate supporter of Parliament, radicalised to a military role in the Parliamentarian cause in 1642 with the seizure of his home, Chirk Castle on the orders of Charles I.

8. William Lenthall (1591-1662) was Speaker of the House of Commons before, during and after the Civil Wars, and was the source of the much quoted defiant dismissal of the King’s demands to be told the whereabouts of the five MPs which were the target of his ire - ‘I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as this House is pleased to direct me’.

9. Curiously, an estate map of 1734, several decades earlier than Pennant’s visit, shows only 9 arches to the bridge.

10. Howson, The River Dee, p. 111. Oh, to live in a country where we are not dependent on the idiocy and general incompetence of eye twitching bureaucrats to save our heritage. Are we in any better position today, where council numpties would seemingly flatten any bit of history in order to shoe horn in a bedsit or some other carbuncular bit of useless flotsam?

11. Should we mention that the Bridge was not actually founded until well after the death of the 6th Earl of Surrey? No, let’s not.