Clapper bridge

The Clapper bridge (Eng. adapted: Klapper Bridge ) is a stone slab bridge, which is characterized by the use of large flat stone slabs as building material, and whose stability is based solely on the successive dormant stones.

Etymology

The word " Clapper " derives not from " rattling", but from the Anglo-Saxon word cleaca, which means something like bridging the stepping stones ( " stepping stones bridging ").

Construction

For narrow streams between two and four meters long stone tiles are laid directly from one bank to the other, with wider they rest on stones that are in the water, or on low, usually built in dry construction stone pillars, then "Post Bridge" ( post bridge ) called (eg between Moretonhamstead and Two Bridges ). Usually two or three plates are disposed of approximately the same size next to each other. Additional structural fasteners ( eg binder use or journal Steinbehau ) are not typical of the irregular-shaped bridges. If like is still present, it was subsequently introduced.

Dissemination

The bridge type exists only in areas where nature provides large stone slabs available. They are found in circulation in England in two concentrations, the stone surfaces of Devon and Cornwall, particularly Dartmoor, and the north and west of Yorkshire, there is also an in Eastleach Martin in the Cotswolds. This distribution probably reflects the real distribution pattern, although they were originally more numerous. Clapper bridges are also found in other parts of the UK. Some were established where streams and rivers, especially on the packhorse routes, had to be crossed, thus in the British Isles ( particularly in England and Wales ), but also in mountainous regions of Spain and Portugal.

History

It is often suspected on the basis of simple construction, a prehistoric origin of the obtained Clapper Bridges, most of them were, however, built in the Middle Ages or later until the late 19th century, as part of much used routes. Often they are found in or near a ford where carts could cross the watercourse, or in places where previously there were stepping stones. As a natural construction material offered in the treeless raised bog areas of the British Isles which lie in the area, mainly consisting of granite slabs on.

Many historic bridges Clapper no traces are present. Either their stones have been moved over the centuries of floods and then carried off or the stones were, as the old bridges replaced by more modern buildings or other marked routes have been selected, used as building material for houses and walls.

Examples

England and Wales

Most clapper bridges - more than 200 - can be found on Dartmoor in Devon. Additional copies are, inter alia, in Exmoor, also in Devon, and in the Snowdonia National Park, on the island of Anglesey in Wales receive.

Tourist known in particular the Clapper Bridge at Post Bridge Dartmoor. The plates of this leading over the East Dart Bridge are about four meters long and two meters wide and each weigh more than eight tons. It dates from the 13th century and was built to make it easier to transport the tin from the mines with pack horses to the furnaces of Gavistock and Chagford can. Another known solution, the Tarr Steps, Exmoor leads over the river Barle. It is about 55 meters long and consists of 17 panels that weigh up to two tons each.

The bridge Tarr Steps over the river Barle in Exmoor

Teignhead Clapper Bridge over the River Teign in Dartmoor

The Clam Bridge in Wycoller, Lancashire

Continental Europe

  • Lablachère
  • Pont de César on the Piou near the hamlet of Le Mas de Murat in the Massif Central
  • A bridge at the road 42

China

Also on the stone slab bridges include the to 1059 in Fujian Province, built in the years 1053 in China and finished with intricately machined plates Luoyang Bridge, and the like, built in the same province 1138-1151 Anping Bridge, of a length more than two kilometers, is the longest stone bridge dating from medieval China.

Step -stone bridge

A simpler form is the step- stone Bridge (French: gué - eg in Thouet ) that allows pedestrians, a stream or river bed to cross at low flow in which they are defined in line in the water flat stones ( Irish: clocher ) - with narrow gaps between them - exceed.

In Switzerland ( eg nymph pond at Zurich horn) and Germany there is a modern take of the step -stone bridge as in Alsfeld, Bergisch -Gladbach, Bottop, Leverkusen, Lobau and Remscheid.

Dimension stone Binder (material) Cabeza del Caballo
192390
de