The old bridge was closed during several weeks of 2003 for strengthening. There was a temporary wooden footbridge to the left (breaking through two walls), from which we could watch. But I was allowed to get this view from an upper window of the near house on the left.

PICTURE: from upper window of house on S corner]

Workers jackhammered off the upper layers of rubble, revealing the stone blocks of the arch. The material packed above, pressing down on the arch, could weaken its mortar and distort it, and so could modern motor traffic—one heavy lorry could do more damage than a thousand old carts. The arch, said to date from 1340, was originally only eight feet wide; it had been widened by the addition of two flanking arches, said to date from 1750. The man from Wessex Archaeology, called in to examine the material as it was removed, told us he had found in the fill pottery no older than the seventeenth century. The building material was basically the local Blue Lias, but limestone had been brought in from farther away.

There were shrill complaints in the local paper about the inconvenience caused by the work (though there was nowhere on either side that became cut off from access by car; and as for summer tourists, they were edified by the view of bridge from bridge). After removing all the upper material, the workers replaced it with a single concrete "saddle" fitting over the old arch.