Flagstone bridge

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Clapper bridge over Wallabrook in southern Dartmoor ; 4.50 m long, 2.00 m wide and up to 0.50 m thick
Clapper bridge over the Blackbrook River in Devon

A stone slab bridge ( English clapper bridge ; French Pont en dalle de pierre or Pont mégalithique ; Spanish Puente de piedra ) is a footbridge or a bridge that is characterized by the use of large, flat natural stone slabs as a building material, and their stability based solely on the statics stones resting on one another.

function

Stone slab walkways made it easier for people and animals to cross streams and small rivers. Due to the lack of lateral safety devices, however, animals were refused or even accidents more frequently.

construction

In narrow rivers, the 2 to 4 m long stone slabs are laid directly from one bank to the other. With wider ones, they rest on stones that rest on the bottom of the shallow waters, or on low stone pillars, mostly built using drywall construction - then such a bridge is also called a "post bridge". Usually two or three plates of approximately the same size are arranged side by side. Additional structural fixings (e.g. use of binding agents or tenon stone cutting) are atypical for the irregularly shaped bridges. If such a thing is still there, it was added later.

distribution

The bridge type only exists in areas where nature provides large stone slabs; however, this is only the case in a few areas of Europe (e.g. in the mountainous regions of Ireland , Portugal and Spain and in Brittany - e.g. in Dompierre-du-Chemin).

history

In the past, due to the simple construction and the stone material used, a prehistoric ( megalithic ) origin of the stone slab bridges was assumed, but most of them were only built in the Middle Ages or later, until the late 19th century, as part of much-used paths. They can often be found in or near a ford where carts could cross the watercourse, or in places where stepping stones were previously located.

There are no more traces of many historical stone slab bridges. Either their stones were shifted by floods over the centuries and then carried away or the stones were used as building material for houses and walls when the old bridges were replaced by more modern structures or other routes were chosen.

Examples

England, Ireland and Wales

Most of the clapper bridges - over 200 in total - can be found in Dartmoor in Devon . Further copies are u. a. in Exmoor , also in Devon, and in Snowdonia National Park and on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales . The Postbridge Clapper Bridge in Dartmoor is particularly well known for tourists . Another well-known solution, the Tarr Steps , crosses the River Barle in Exmoor .

In Ireland, clapper bridges are particularly in County Cork (Aghavrin, Ballingeary, Ballybeg Abbey, Ballymakeera, Farranamagh, Rahoonagh West); and County Kerry spread (Glen Inchiquin); a younger one is in Bunlahinch , County Mayo .

Continental Europe

France

Bridge at Cabeza del Caballo , Spain

Portugal

Spain (Puente Piedra)

Norway

  • a bridge at street 42

Sri Lanka

In the north of Sri Lanka, e.g. B. at the temple city of Anuradhapura are the Twin Ponds ("twin ponds "), near which the remains of an old flagstone bridge (Gal Palama) over the Malwathu Oya are preserved. Other bridges of this type are scattered across the country.

China

The stone slab bridges also include the Luoyang Bridge , built in the Fujian Province in China between 1053 and 1059 and covered with artistically worked slabs, and the similar Anping Bridge , built in the same province between 1138 and 1151 , which is more than two kilometers is the longest stone bridge in medieval China.

Stepping stone bridge

The stepping stone bridge , also known locally as the “ Ochsenklavier ”, is an old form of water crossing. Flat stones ( Irish clocher ) placed in the water - with narrow gaps in between, allow watercourses to be crossed. Crossings of this type are known from China, France, Ireland, Japan, Portugal and the United States.

In Switzerland (e.g. G59 1st Swiss Horticultural Exhibition in the Nymphenteich on the Zürichhorn ) and in Germany there are modern versions of the stepping stone bridges, for example in Alsfeld , Bergisch Gladbach , Bottrop , Leverkusen , Löbau and Remscheid .

  • Stepping stone bridges in Germany

  • Alsfeld

  • Bad Liebenzell

  • State Horticultural Show 2012 in Löbau

  • Baiersbronn

  • Bochum

  • Stepping stone bridges in Europe

  • Stepping stones in a stream

  • Modern stepping stone bridge over the River Mole

  • Stepping stones in the Dove in Suffolk

  • Stepping stones on the River Rothay in the Lake District

  • Harewood

  • Linton, North Yorkshire

The Stepping Stones over the Wharfe at Kettlewell in North Yorkshire .

literature

  • Tom Gant: Discover Dartmoor . Baron Jay Ltd. Publishers, Plymouth 1978, ISBN 0904593061 .
  • Robert Andrews: The Rough Guide to Devon & Cornwall ; Rough Guides, New York, London, Delhi, 3rd edition 2007, ISBN 978-1-84353-807-3 .
  • Bernhard Graf: Bridges that connect the world. Prestel-Verlag Munich, 2002, ISBN 978-3-79132-700-6 .

Web links

Commons : Stone Slab Bridges  - Album with Pictures
Commons : Stepping stones  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Video
  2. ^ Stone slab bridges in Sri Lanka