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SX3680 : Lezant: Greystone Bridge

Charles Henderson in Old Cornish bridges and streams (originally published in 1928, reprinted by Bradford Barton of Truro in 1972) gives the following information on this bridge:

"Greyston (sic) Bridge so called from an adjacent Manor, the fairest bridge in the two Shires which it links together. Formerly the approaches to this bridge were very steep but new courses were made for the stage coaches netween Launceston and Tavistock. It has been said that John Palmer, Merchant and MP of Launceston in the time of King Henry VI, was the builder. There seems to be no authority for this, although Palmer as a leading man in Launceston at the time may have had a hand in building the bridge.

"On 27th December 1439, Bishop Lacy granted and Indulgence of 40 days to all penitents contributing towards the bridge of Greyston in Cornwall. Only two years before he had granted the like Indulgence for Horse Bridge, the next bridge below Greyston, 14 miles down stream.

SX3974 : Horsebridge from the Cornish SideSX4074 : Horsebridge

" Greyston and Horse Bridge are twins and clearly the work of one architect. These two great bridges being built simultaneously must surely have been the work of some munificent personage and probably one of the Abbots of Tavistock, whose lovely estate at Endsleigh stretched all down to the river from one to the other.

"Greyston bridge is very well preserved and James Green's report made in 1809 hods good today. The five semicircular arches measure 23 feet in span and spring from imposts 10 feet above the water, which is usually 5 feet deep. The piers measure 27 feet from river bed to parapet. The length of the bridge from arch to arch is 225 feet. The arches and underwork are of freestone, the walls of rubble, the coping of moorstone. There are also two floodwater arches 14 and 10 feet in psan. The roadway is 10 feet wide. It was formerly paved. One half of thre bridge belongs to Cornwall. From the soft colour of the stone the name might at first seem to be derived from Grey stone, but it is not so, for there was a Manor of Greyston long before the bridge was built. For beauty of situation and perfection of form Greyston Bridge has no superior in the two Western Counties."

The book includes four photographs of the Greystone Bridge (and two of Horse Bridge) taken around 1928 by Henry Coates.