ANCIENT BRIDGES that only a few were unaffected. Often a new bridge was built both on and around the remains of an old one. Some part of the old bridge was usually retained. A A very curious example of this custom is quoted by M. J. J. Jusserand in his brilliant work on "English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages." In 1815, when a bridge was rebuilt over the Teign, between Newton Abbot and Teignmouth, it was found that no fewer than four successive bridges had been put up at various times with or over the remnants of previous structures. Mr. P. T. Taylor, after examining the matter on the spot, said he believed that the last or upper work was done in the sixteenth century, and that the work under it, a red bridge, was built on the salt-marsh in the thirteenth century, since which time the soil had accumulated to the depth of ten feet. After this red bridge came a wooden one, which Taylor believed to be as old as the Norman Conquest; and then there was a white stone bridge, which Taylor regarded as of Roman workmanship. Here we have a probable Roman bridge coffined, as it were, in three other structures; and with this example in mind we cannot be too careful when we attempt to estimate the age of any old bridge in England. Another point to be remembered is this: the bridges of Roman descent in England are very simple in their structural design, yet they mark a great stride of progress in this form of engineering architecture. The earliest Roman bridges were of wood, like the Pons Sublicius, at the foot of Mount |