Bridges over the river Hodder; Cromwell’s Bridge

The elegant and enigmatic arches of Cromwell’s Bridge cross the river Hodder at Great Mitton and are all that remain of a bridge originally commissioned by Sir Richard Shireburne and other locals in 1561 to enable the Anglican parishioners of Mitton Church, which the Shireburn family also built, to cross the river to go to service.

The bridge is known as Cromwell’s bridge and not Shireburn’s bridge after the parliamentarian Oliver Cromwell who infamously crossed it with his ‘New Model Army’ in 1648 on his way from Otley in Yorkshire to fight the Royalists at Preston during the English civil war.

Packhorses, parapets and parishioners

The three stone arches of the packhorse bridge originally didn’t have parapets, as is common with packhorse bridges as they impeded the horse, but they were added later to safe-guard crossing parishioners. Cromwell, however, had them removed to make room for his cannon to cross, along with 9000 soldiers. Now only the slender and narrow archways of the bridge remain and it is not fit for traffic.

It seems a shame, in my opinion, that the bridge is now known as ‘Cromwell’s bridge’, and not ‘Shireburn’s’, as it cost Sir Richard, two other members of the Shireburn family, who lived at Mitton hall, and two other members of the local gentry the grand sum of £70 to build which was a huge sum at the time, all that Cromwell achieved was to partially destroy it!

The Shireburns even supplied the stone to build it for the parishioners of Mitton church which seems very philanthropic of them considering that the church is an Anglican one and the Shireburns were devoutly Catholic. After all it was Catholics that Cromwell came north to suppress and is possibly why he vandalised it so much.

Bridge over the river Brandywine

Although picturesque now it must have been very graceful before Cromwell damaged it and it was built here as it is the lowest point of the wide and winding river Hodder at this stretch in the valley.

The author Tolkein, who was a resident professor at nearby Stonyhurst college, a Jesuit school which the Shireburns are also responsible for, wrote part of the Lord of the Rings whilst staying there and thought the bridge to be so enigmatic and atmospherical that it became the inspiration for the Shire’s Brandywine Bridge that Gandalf crosses on his way to Hobbiton.

The course of the Hodder, which meets the Ribble just downstream, resembles the course of the river Brandywine in the books and the point where the Hodder meets the Ribble along with the Calder at Mitton resembles the confluence of the rivers Withywindle and Shirebourne on a map of Middle Earth.

The tributaries of the Brandywine

In Middle-earth geography the tributaries of the Brandywine are;

• The Stockbrook, which arises in Woody End, (the Hodder feeds Stocks reservoir after flowing through Gisburn forest)
• The river Shirebourn, which arises in Green-hill country
• The Withywindle, which originates in the Old Forest (this area is historically named the Forest of Bowland) in middle-earth the Brandywine bridge was originally called ‘The bridge of Stonebows’
• The Water, which meanders through the Shire from its source in the Northwest

Because of this literary connection the bridge is part of the Tolkein trail which starts and ends in the village of Hurst Green.

Cromwell’s Crossing

When Cromwell crossed the bridge on his way to Preston he stayed at Shireburn Hall near the village with his army encamped in the surrounding parkland.

The Hall, which now comprises part of Stonyhurst college, was being built as a home for members of the Shireburn family when Cromwell commandeered it and he was so paranoid of Catholic retribution that he famously slept on an Oak table in the Hall whilst wearing full armour, so as to be ready for any assassination attempt. The table is still there to this day.

The next day, on the 17th of August 1648, Cromwell and his new model army sallied forth for Preston, 13 miles away, using the tactical route of Longridge fell, it is thought he is responsible for naming the fell, which is the southernmost hill named a fell in England. He approached Preston via the village of Grimsargh and surprised the remnants of the ‘Engager’ royalist army on a bridge crossing the Ribble there.

Cromwell left a wake of destruction after him but the bridge at Mitton, which the Shireburns built, still remains standing, it is fenced off and on private land now so can only be Viewed from the surrounding fields and the nearby Lower Hodder bridge which was built to replace it.

You wouldn’t want to try to cross it anyway as it is very precarious and higher over the river than it looks, also it’s very slippy and unsteady to cross, as I found out once when I tried crossing it as a kid and almost fell off it, much to the amusement of my friends when we dared each other to cross it!

A B-H