Whitney-on-Wye Toll Bridge
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(small)
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This is a small cache in an small box that celebrates the Grade 2 listed bridge that is Whitney-on-Wye Toll Bridge.
There is lots of available parking to the rear of the tollkeepers cottage.
Note that the bridge owners are not muggles :-)
Whitney-on-Wye Toll bridge was originally constructed 1774, and was established by act of parliament as a private toll bridge.
This cache is located within the bridge itself, and is kindly hosted at the suggestion of the bridge owners.
History of the bridge-
The calmly flowing river Wye, as seen by visitors to the Marches in summer, bears little resemblance to the wayward and tempestuous river known to our forefathers. River catchment control and regular monitoring of water levels has brought this ‘wandering spirit’ to heel, although even now it occasionally rises to threaten the farmlands and the roads of the locality. Previously though, it was a force to be reckoned with and treated with great caution, especially in periods of sudden thaw and heavy rainfall. At such times the river rose out of its banks to sweep across the low lying meadows, carrying trees, live stock, haystacks and even people along with it. Then it would subside leaving its fine silt over the fields and ensuring a rich sward in the following spring. On occasions its force was so great that it carried tracts of land away, such as at Glasbury in 1660 when the old Church was swept away. Again it was another great flood in 1720 that cut off Whitney old Church leaving it on the opposite bank of the river to that on which it had originally stood.
With such an unpredictable river it is not surprising that bridges across it were few and far between. For most of its course between Hereford and Hay the only ways of crossing were either by fording at shallow places or by small boat or raft at ‘safe’ crossing points. In the stretch of river between Hay and Bredwardine there were five, possibly six, fording places; at Clifford Castle, at Rhydspence, the Whitney ford (about 200 yds. downstream from the present bridge) at Clock Mill Farm, possibly Turners Boat, and at Bredwardine just below the Glebe Field next to the Vicarage. Later there were ferries at these points, two of which Rhydspence and Clock Mill were operative until this century. It is possible to locate most of these crossing points today and the one at Whitney is easily seen by letting the eye follow the line of a track and hedges from the sharp bend in the Hay road on the South bank, just where it turns Northwards to the Tollbridge, on to the river bank.
For those with an imaginative mind try standing on the Tollbridge, looking downstream to the fording place, and picture the scene on that day in August 1684 when His Grace the Duke of Beaufort, Lord Warden of the Marches, arrived in his ‘chariot’ with a great company of followers en route to Hay castle. The passage of this large company, not to mention the heavy ‘chariot’ across the ford must have been a lengthy one, even with the river at a low level. Maybe His Grace availed himself of the small ferryboat, just in case his carriage overturned. All the accounts we have of the use of the ford at Whitney from the 14th Century onwards deal with summer crossings. Whether there were intrepid travellers who risked the river in winter is not clear, but it must have been a considerable frustration to reach the water’s edge and find that neither the ford nor the ferry was passable.
From the time of the great flood in 1730 onwards it was an even greater problem to the Whitney villagers, for the river had cut them off from their common grazing land. Livestock were often left on the ‘wrong’ side of the river for days on end when the water levels were too high to drive them across. The commercial carriers of Hay and Hereford found their business impeded by the deficiencies of the Whitney ferry and added their voices to those already agitating to have a bridge built at this point. So in November 1773 the owner of the ferry, Tomkyns Dew, Lord of the Manor of Whitney, was instrumental in presenting a Bill to Parliament for the construction of a bridge at Whitney. The ‘Undertakers’ as they were called came from Hay, Clifford and Whitney. They had to build the bridge in stone within three years, and compensate Tomkyns Dew for the loss of his ferry. They were given permission to take stone, gravel and sand for the building and repair of the bridge from the Manorial land of Tomkyns Dew free of charge. They were also given the land near the bridge on which a tollhouse could be built. The bridge was to be free of rates and taxes, present or future, and the charges were set out as follows:
Foot passengers..............................................A Halfpenny (Old Coinage)
Horse, donkey etc., drawing............................Three pence
Horse, donkey not drawing..............................One penny
Each score of oxen, cows..................................Ten pence
Each score of calves, hogs, sheep...................Five pence
Officers and soldiers on duty...........................Free
At this time barges full of Forest of Dean coal were regularly coming up the river as far as Glasbury and often these barges would be lashed together for the return journey so that they could carry whole tree trunks down to the river mouth. It is not surprising therefore, that the barge owners were made fully responsible for any damage that there craft might cause to the bridge. As it turned out it was not the barges or rafts that caused the downfall of the bridge but the force of the river itself. Perhaps the need to construct the bridge rapidly and get some return on their capital led the ‘Undertakers’ to site the first, second and third bridges poorly and to allow them to be built of inadequate materials. The first two fell fairly rapidly under the Wye’s onslaught. The third lasted somewhat longer, succumbing only to what was probably the Wye’s greatest recorded flood on February 22nd. 1795. A local person writing of this time said, ‘During the whole of the month of January and to the 9th. of February, we had very severe frost with snow. The cold was so intense that often while writing early in the morning the ink froze in my pen. A thaw commenced on the 9th. February and such heavy rain fell on the 10th. that, added to the melting snow, it produced a tremendous flood. The Wye went entirely over the parapet walls of Bredwardine Bridge which saved it from the fate of the Glasbury, Hay and Whitney bridges which were all thrown down.’
After the loss of three bridges in barely twenty years the original Undertakers were ruined and so they withdrew. The need for the bridge was just as great so a new group put their minds to finding a structure which would stand up to the river. Their proposals were that a bridge, partly of stone and partly of timber, would be most likely to withstand catastrophic floods. This however contravened the letter of the law in the original Bill, which had specified a stone bridge. So the new Undertakers having bought up the bridge property and rights from the widow of one of the original promoters, set about presenting a new Bill to Parliament in July 1796. This allowed for a bridge of timber and stone to be built within two years. The Longfellow’s, the principal carriers of Brecon, together with a John Phillips of Hay, were the new Undertakers and they decided to have three wooden spans supported on oak wood pillars standing on ‘islands’ of large stones in midstream. Some accounts mention that the timber used was ‘Greenheart’ but whatever it was it has been proved adequate over the intervening years. The structure has been repaired often, and expensively, but its unusual construction has lasted almost 200 years and today forms a picturesque and appropriate part of the local landscape.
With the new bridge the opportunity was taken to increase the tolls and to add some new catego¬ries such as ‘Asses or Dogs drawing’ at two pence each. The Whitney villagers were allowed to cross the bridge free of charge if they were going to or from their separated Common. Tomkyns Dew, ‘his heirs and assigns, proprietors or occupier of the Mansion House of Whitney Court; his family, servants, horses, cattle, carriages and all matter and things liable to toll’ were exempt from all tolls on the bridge. This apparently clear exemption seems to have been capable of much variation in its interpretation so that it became the cause of a bad-tempered dispute lasting over 50 years. Finally, in 1854 an agreement was reached out of Court between Tomkyns Dew and the Bridge owner, a Mrs. Caroline Taylor (nee Longfellow) that seemed to settle the matter.
By this time other threats to the economic viability of the Bridge had appeared. In 1810 the Hay Tramway (a horse drawn tramway) was proposed to take the tram tracks over the river by a new suspension bridge a little way upstream of the Tollbridge. This bridge was never built because the Tollbridge owners successfully maintained that the wording of the Bill gave them the exclusive privilege of a crossing of the river at this point. After an acrimonious dispute the Tramway owners agreed to lay their tracks over the Tollbridge itself and to pay the bridge owners £100 a year for the usage.
Forty years later the steam railway posed the next threat and the 1859 Railway Act to build a railway from Brecon to Hereford was bitterly contested. The railway, however, needed a much stronger bridge to support its trains and it was obvious that the Tollbridge was in no way suitable for this kind of traffic. So the Railway Company was allowed to build its bridge a short distance upstream. In recompense it agreed to guarantee the tolls on the bridge up to the sum of £345 a year.
For the next fifty years or so the Tollbridge entered another ‘quiet period’ until the coming of the motorcar made the roads important once more. It seems that in the early 1900’s the state of the bridge was giving the County authorities some concern and plans were drawn up for a new bridge. These were not implemented and possibly remained on the shelf until 1928 when public at¬tention nationally was focusing on these ‘ancient relics’ of the transport system. Early in that year talks took place between the Herefordshire County Council and the Hereford Chamber of Commerce over the remaining Toll bridges in the County. These were listed as: Whitney, Moccas, Holme Lacy, Horwithy and Kerne, and the Whitney Bridge was stated to be the most important of them all. Nearly 70 years later it is still the only one under private ownership!
In the early Thirties the ownership of the bridge, although still within the Taylor family, had been so much divided and subdivided among succeeding generations that there were 32 co-owners! Perhaps the County Council was put off trying to do anything about the Whitney Bridge by the likely legal costs of dealing with so many interested parties.
The Bridge, having been for so long in the possession of one family, even if that possession was fragmented, meant that there were quite a number of disputes over aspects of its rights and operation. Fishing rights at the end of the last century had to be settled legally with the neighbour¬ing riparian owners, and there were of course, many occasions when the tolls were hotly contested.
A good example occurred in 1939 when the then owner, Mr. G. D. Taylor and his wife, were brought before the Courts charged with unlawfully demanding and receiving toll from an Army officer on duty. The Army Act of 1881 gave free passage to Army personnel on duty over any toll bridge in the Kingdom. On this occasion the bridge owners sought to distinguish between the officer and his car in demanding a toll for the vehicle and then became somewhat ‘flustered’ when he rightly refused to pay. At any rate Mrs. Taylor assaulted the Major whilst her husband flung brooms and a ladder on the car and had to be restrained by the Sergeant who was travelling with the Major. Considering that the owners were both well into their eighties when this happened one might assume that the lifestyle of toll keepers in those days led to longevity, if not to equanimity! Their willingness to take immediate action probably did not surprise the locals who knew that the pair lived separately on either side of the Tollgate, for there was another cottage opposite the present one at the time. So, when the house in which Mr. Taylor slept burned down in 1940 with him inside there were those who knowingly shook their heads about the ‘accidental’ nature of the event. The building has never been replaced.
Certainly the terms of the original Bill have required that a certain, almost unique, form of individuality is required by all those who take on the responsibility of keeping open this very necessary and historic Bridge over the River Wye.
It took another thirty years before one member of the family, Mr. George Taylor, managed to buy-in all the other family ‘Shareholders’ and restore a single owner situation. On his death the sole ownership of the Bridge passed to his daughter, Mrs. Margison, who in turn bequeathed it to her husband on her death. Mr. Margison then living in Australia, found the long distance management of the Bridge quite difficult and tedious and so decided to put the whole concern on the market for the first time in its history. It was thus in 1981, after over 180 years, that Mr. and Mrs. C. J. Bryant, became the first owners of the concern to have bought it outright. After approximately 9 years, on 17th August 1990, Mr. Bryant was successful in his application to the department of Transport to allow him to officially increase the “standard” toll for vehicles not exceeding 7.5 tonnes from 30p to 50p, (although it is rumoured that the 50p toll had been unofficially charged for some time prior to that date). It became clear that this official sanction for the increase was in fact the prelude to Mr. Bryant’s next step of putting the Bridge and Toll House up for sale on the open market, for only the second time in its history.
On the 1st.December 1990 the Toll Bridge was purchased by a Mrs. Smith from Warwickshire intending that the ownership would be retained within her immediate family for the foreseeable future. On inspection it became clear that the Bridge was suffering from many years of neglect and lack of maintenance. Therefore in 1992 Gifford & Partners, a specialist firm of Chartered Engineers, were instructed by the owner to commission a programme of complete restoration for this historic Grade II listed structure. Work began in late 1992 and then early in 1993 the four main foundation pier bases were rebuilt and made safe. In the summer of 1993 the local company of Capps & Capps Ltd. were instructed by Gifford & Partners to commence the complete restoration of the Bridge timbers using the original “Greenheart” specification. The Bridge was closed during the months of September and October whilst the main spars and decking timbers were replaced. Far more replacement of the wooden superstructure was eventually required than first envisaged. Because in the past it became evident that a number of the beams and bearers had been replaced with pine as a cost saving measure, but these had comprehensively rotted from the inside out. Finally, in the first week of November 1993 the restoration was completed and the Bridge was reopened to traffic in a condition far superior to that when it was originally built. The ownership of the bridge changed again in 2002 when it was purchased by a Mr. B.E. Howard of Bedford.
When the public now pay 80p to cross the Bridge in a car they can rest assured knowing that it will be many years before their tolls pay for the huge cost involved in the restoration of this historic Bridge, and that they are helping to preserve an important piece of our national heritage.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ab uvagf erdhverq V'z fher.