Kerne Bridge was built over the River Wye in the County of Herefordshire, England in 1825–28, on the site of an ancient ford crossing known as Flanesford. It is designated as a Scheduled Monument. Carrying the B4229 road, it connects the parishes of Walford on the river's left bank and Goodrich on the right. It is situated in the heart of the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and marks the northern end of the Upper Wye Gorge.
History
Kerne Bridge was built on the site of a Pre-Roman ford across the River Wye. This ancient crossing came to be known as Flanesford before 1346 when the first stone of Flanesford Priory was laid nearby "in loco Flanesford vulgariter nuncupato" (in the place commonly called Flanesford).The Place Names of Herefordshire: Their Origin and Development, Arthur Thomas Bannister, Cambridge, England, printed for the author [by J Clay], 1916
The origins of the name Flanesford are obscure. It has been suggested that it was derived from an English-Welsh conjunction, the Welsh llan (church or enclosure) joined to the English ford, or possibly the Welsh ffordd (way)Rosalind Lowe, Field Meeting to Goodrich, Herefordshire Archeological News, HAN 74, Woolhope Club Archeological Research Section, Hereford, 2003 but it is more likely the prefix is the Old English flanes from flan (arrow).
On the Forest of Dean side of the ford, on the left bank, a primitive manually operated mill for grinding corn came to be established. This type of mill was known in Old English as a cweorn."Quern", Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980 The presence of the mill gave the name - The Cweorn - to the small settlement which became established there. Over time the spelling of the name of the settlement was simplified to The Quern.Votes of the House of Commons in the Second Session of the Tenth Parliament of Great Britain, 07 February 1748, House of Commons, London, 1748 Records show that it was still known that way until at least 1815,1815 Road Act, Journals of the House of Commons Volume 70, Session 1814-1815, House of Commons, London, 1816 but by the mid-1820s spelling simplification had further altered its name to The Kerne.An Act for building a Bridge over the River Wye, at a Place called The Kerne ..., Anno Sexto, Georgii IV. Regis, Houses of Parliament, London, 20 May 1825
Flanesford became an increasingly crucial river crossing for trade and the delivery of commodities from the Forest of Dean to the city of Hereford and south Herefordshire generally. Of most importance was the transport of iron from the Bishopswood ironworks on the left bank of the Wye just downstream from Flanesford, and of coal from the collieries of the Forest of Dean (particularly as the fast-growing population and industry of Hereford required increasing amounts of coal). As well as iron and coal the 18th and 19th centuries saw a steady growth in south Herefordshire "in the numbers of wagons and carts drawn by horses or oxen. Daily commodities of stone, brick, timber, poles, lathes, lime, ... corn, hay and manure were conveyed.".Heather Hurley, The Old Roads of South Herefordshire, The Pound House, Newent, Gloucestershire, 1992
The ford, however, could only be used when the river was not in flood. While travellers on foot deemed it acceptable to wade across up to armpit depth and horses could be taken across up to chest heightHerefordshire's River Trade: Craft & Cargo on the Wye & Lugg, Heather Hurley, Logaston Press, Almeley, Herefordshire, 2013 the river had a tendency to flood extremely quickly following poor weather upstream, which writers of the early nineteenth century wrote gave the river "a force which defies all the ordinary means of resistance and control".The Beauties of England and Wales, John Evans & John Britton, Vernon, Hood & Sharpe, London, 1805 When Flanesford and other fords nearby were unusable, and the local ferries capable of carrying animals were unable to sail, the only alternatives for road transport were the bridges upstream at Wilton, near Ross-on-Wye, and downstream at Monmouth (Trefynwy). They were 21 river-miles apart and because of the poor roads and the mileage involved, diversions via the bridges were long, time-consuming and expensive.
An alternative means of transport - using barges on the river - was equally unfeasible at times of flood, or in dry summer when the river bed was "barely covered with the stream". The 35-miles distance to Hereford by the river was also two-thirds further than by road.
A further obstruction to trade was that the roads in Herefordshire were historically in a neglected and wretched condition. One Herefordshire historian has described the roads in the county as "impenetrable and impassable, churned into mud by horses hooves and deeply rutted by wheeled vehicles". Though the county's roads were being steadily improved after the mid-eighteenth century by the introduction of turnpike trusts, in 1825 the first few miles of parish roads from Flanesford towards Hereford remained in an appalling state.
Proposals for a bridge at Flanesford
By the early 1820s local industrialists and traders had decided that a bridge should be erected over the ford, between the hamlet of The Kerne and Flanesford Priory, with upgraded roads proceeding onwards 3 kilometres or so to Old Forge, where they would join the turnpikes to Ross-on-Wye and Hereford, "by means of which a more convenient communication will be effected between the Collieries in the Forest of Dean and the County of Hereford".Hereford Journal, 29 June 1825
Those who proposed the bridge were not without opposition, however. They faced competition from the owners of the Goodrich-Walford Ferry, situated 700 metres upstream from The Kerne, whose owners wanted to build their own bridge at Goodrich Boat on the 1749 Ross to Goodrich turnpike (previously a Roman road). They notified their intentions to lay a Bill before Parliament only two weeks after the Kerne Bridge advocates had announced their similar application.Hereford Journal, 10 November 1824 The Goodrich-Walford bridge plan was not pursued, however, and the ferry, although facing severe competition from Kerne Bridge, continued to provide a service under a statutory duty until 1945.Rosalind Lowe, The Goodrich Ferry Oak, The Woolhope Club, Hereford, 2018
There was no recorded opposition from another ferry, which had been operating for at least 106 years only about 400 metres downstream from Flanesford, known as the Stocking Boat (named after June Stockings, the occupier at one time of a cottage near the ferry on the right bank of the river).John Tisdall, The Settlement of Coppett Hill, Coppett Hill Common Trust Limited, Goodrich, Second edition, 1998 It continued to operate despite the competition from Kerne Bridge. However, the erection of Kerne railway bridge across the river in 1873 saw the ferry's business much reduced, leading to its closure. Despite regulations to the contrary, the rail bridge was much used by pedestrians as a short cut and as a means of avoiding the tolls on Kerne Bridge.Roz Lowe, Photo Survey on Coppett Hill, Herefordshire Archeological News, HAN 78, Woolhope Club Archeological Research Section, Hereford, 2007
Some of those whose commercial or landowning interests might have been about to be jeopardised by a new bridge made public their objections. One correspondent to the Hereford Journal newspaper in 1823 complained of "the evils" that would arise, such as "the cutting through of valuable Lands and Orcharding for Miles, dividing Homesteads from Farms, running through Parishes where there are already good and sufficient Roads nearly parallel with and close to this projected line; that it must eventually be throwing on such Parishes as well as on the Agricultural Interest of this County, unnecessary burthens and extra Tolls as may readily be seen upon estimating the enormous expense of making the Bridge and Road, probably £20,000!!!"Hereford Journal, 26 March 1823
Authority for building Kerne Bridge
The building of the bridge required an Act of Parliament.
A Petition for leave to bring in a Bill for the bridge's building was presented to the House of Commons in the spring of 1823 but it was withdrawn in consequence of the Standing Orders not being fully complied with.Hereford Journal, 26 March 1823 In October 1824 notice was given that a new application would be made to Parliament in the next Session for leave to bring in the BillHereford Journal, 27 October 1824 and the petition was successfully presented on 10 February 1825Globe, London, 11 February 1825
The Bill was read for the first time in the House of Commons on 25 February 1825 and for a second time on 1 March 1825.Globe, London, 02 March 1825 The House of Lords approved it, without amendment, on 16 May 1825.Sun, London, 17 May 1825
The Act for the building of "a Bridge over the River Wye, at a Place called The Kerne, in the County of Hereford, and for making convenient Roads, Avenues, and Approaches thereto" received Royal Assent in May 1825.
It allowed for the building of a bridge at Flanesford between the parish of Walford on the left bank of the Wye, and the parish of Goodrich on the opposite bank. On the Walford side it would connect with the 1749 turnpike from Ross-on-Wye and its 1815 extension towards Bishopswood (now the B4234). On the Goodrich side it would connect with a new road to the village of Croose in Goodrich. The Act also allowed for the diverting, altering, and widening of the existing parish roads between Croose and Old Forge where they connected with the 1749 turnpike to Ross (now the A40) and the 1819 turnpike towards Hereford (now the A4137).
The Kerne Bridge Company
The Act required a company, to be named The Kerne Bridge Company, to be set up to erect and maintain the bridge and to make and maintain the roads connecting to it. Once the bridge was in operation the company would be allowed to charge tolls for the upkeep of it and the connecting roads and for the profit of the company shareholders.
The initial shareholders
The initial shareholders of The Kerne Bridge Company were: John Allen Thomas Bennett Richard Blakemore, the owner of the Melingriffith Tin Plate Works in Whitchurch, Cardiff, local landowner and Member of Parliament John Harpur Richard Harrison, a Walford landowner William Lewis Richard and William Morgan John Partridge, a Bishopswood landowner James Pearce, a Walford landowner Joseph Robins the younger, George Robins and Thomas Robins, Walford landowners Henry Rosser James Russel, an ironmaster of LydbrookAP Baggs and ARJ Jurica, A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 5, Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, the Forest of Dean, ed. C R J Currie and N M Herbert (London, 1996) William Tombs, a publican at Whitchurch, Herefordshire Thomas Tovey, the owner of a wharf on the river at Bridstow John Trotter Reverend James Endell Tyler, the Monmouth-born Rector of St Giles in the Fields in London and a landowner at Whitchurch, HerefordshireTyler, James Endell, Dictionary of National Biography, 1885—1900, Volume 57, Smith, Elder & Co, London William Vaughan, the owner of the nearby Courtfield Estate, Welsh Bicknor, then in Monmouthshire but now in Herefordshire, and Bishopswood landownerDictionary of Welsh Biography (Y Bywgraffiadur Cymreig), The National Library of Wales (Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru), Cardiff (Caerdydd), 1959 James Ward of the Lydney Trading Society, which ran the horse-drawn Lydney and Lydbrook railway from collieries in the Forest of Dean to Bishopswood.
Specifications for Kerne Bridge