Bow Bridge (1836)

Post date: Jul 05, 2012 10:36:35 AM

In the evidence (430 pages thereof) taken before the committee (of the House of Commons) on the Medway Navigation Bill of 1836 (Kent archives -K/Medway, River (x)) two Wateringbury people gave evidence, Mathias Lucas of Wateringbury Place (very extensively) and George Thomas Langridge ("I live at Wateringbury; I am a land valuer and agent; I have a farm at Mereworth"-page 254), both supporting the existing arrangements on the river with the Medway Navigation Company. Much of the evidence we must remember is potentially biased either supporting the existing arrangements, or those wishing to extend navigation up the river from Tonbridge to Forest Row and further improve it between Maidstone and Tonbridge.

Bow or Wateringbury Bridge was not a major item between the protagonists but a few references are made to it.

Wateringbury Bridge is stated as having 7 feet head room over the river, not the lowest but still potentially causing headroom problems with bulky cargoes such as hops or straw.

James Mills a civil engineer giving evidence states that "In my design for improving Wateringbury Bridge, I perceive it was not intended to raise this bridge but to substitute a drawbridge, with levers and chains, over one of the openings."(page 39).

Another civil engineer giving evidence says "There is another obstruction also at Bow Bridge, on the northern side of the river, and a tongue of land is growing out across the line of the stream; if an arch were made under the road at the abutment, which should be raised, and the tongue of land removed, I think it would be an improvement, and tend to clear the river in flood times, which is always the surest way to obtain a good navigation."

When Mathias Lucas gives evidence he refers to the obstruction of shoals in the river and gives the example of Wateringbury as "completely in his my own observation"(page 278) arising from "an excessive land-flood from the breaking up of frost or a succession of heavy rain":

"every year we have a shoal created at the bridge, very near Wateringbury, and I have regularly every year taken 100 tons of ballast from the shoal myself when the river has been drawn for the purposes of removing shoals; we find it very convenient for the purpose of building, and for laying a coat over a road that has been well made with stones; a coat of this river sand and gravel is put above it; but at one place I have taken out 100 tons. The Medway Company at stated periods of the year lower the water for the purpose of shoaling; it is published in the Maidstone Gazette, and I generally receive a letter from them to say when it will commence and how long it will last , that we may make arrangements.

Bow is the name of the road coming down the hill in Wateringbury from the crossroads to the bridge and is also the name often applied to the bridge. It is also the name of the field on the opposite side of the river (Bow Meadow) and hill on the opposite side (Bow Hill). W.A.Bolt says that the name Bow is derived from the Old English "boga" meaning "arched bridge" or "bridge". As well as Bow in London there are Bow Bridges in Cumbria and Somerset in the U.K.

In a number of 17th century documents, certain nearby field names incorporate the word "ford" indicative of a ford crossing of the river possibly where the shoal referred to above forms (which may be where the Wateringbury stream enters the Medway). The bridge is not now nor was it in 1836 in the parish of Wateringbury rather Nettlestead.

See also Wateringbury Bridge 1702 (where the bridge is not referred to as Bow Bridge ) , Bow Bridge past effectual repair (1911), New Bridge across Medway (1912), Russian National anthem (1915).