Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide -
New Bridge,
River Windrush,
Map: New Bridge
A long mile upstream from Ridge's lies grim old New Bridge, frowning down like a fortress upon your approach. It has six pointed arches of stone (seven, one told me locally, but I could never count them so), and a modern extension of several round arches for times of flood. There is a strong indication of a cross socket over one of the piers on the western parapet. It is new in name only, having been built about 1250 by the monks, it is said, of a former abbey here; and is popularly spoken of as the oldest surviving bridge over the Thames, though some object that it was called "new" in respect of Radcot Bridge, which would then be the most ancient. It lies fifteen miles from Oxford, and has an inn at each end, the Rose in Oxfordshire (the Old Rose Revived, says Taunt), and the Maybush in Berkshire.
Leland crossed here: what a pity that no publisher will venture upon a reasonably inexpensive edition of the old chronicler! His description holds good to this very day. "The Ground ther al about lyethe in low Medowes often ovarflowne by Rage of Reyne. Ther is a large Cawsye of stone at eche End of the Bridge. The Bridge it selfe hathe VI greate Arches of Stone. Then I passyd by a fayre Mylle a Forow lengthe of, and there semyd to come downe a Broke that joynithe with Isis about New Bridge. " The fayre mylle still stands musical a forow lengthe from the bridge; and Leland's rage of reyne has more than once stormed down upon me as I lay under my boat's canvas against the Maybush bank, peering out to watch the thunder wrack stalking across Berkshire on the wings of the strong Southwest.
The bridge was the scene of a skirmish on May 27th, 1644, in which Sir William Waller was repulsed,"retiring," says Taunt,"to Abingdon, where he revenged himself by destroying the beautiful market cross. " Lysons says there were two annual fairs here, on March 31 and September 28.
Immediately against and above the bridge the River Windrush enters on the left bank. It once joined a few yards higher, and its heaped up débris in course of time formed an island at its mouth; so that a new cut had to be made for it. The gradual protrusion of this island into the bed of Thames no doubt caused his present curving approach to the bridge. This beautiful stream, thirty-six miles long, rises near Cutsdean in the Cotswolds, and flows through much romantic Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire scenery and many a little wayside village and larger town: Bourton-on-the-Water, Windrush, Burford, Witney, to name the chief alone. De Quincey wept in vast libraries at the contemplation of the hosts of volumes he could never hope to read. And I too brood over the silver tributaries, ancillas Tamesis, and the villages set like jewels upon their banks, whose charm and interest my lifetime will be too short fully to explore and describe. There are motor-cars, indeed; but Enery Straker would not allow any hanging over their bridges to watch the wavy fish and the swaying weeds; the clack of his gear would fret the soul in their ancient hallowed churches and acres of God; and nowise in his creed of hurry and smash is the talk with their old inhabitants and the dream of the ages that have drifted over their nested elms. They must be walked in, lingered and dreamed in, if they are to become part of one's own self; and
Eheu! fugaces, Postume, Postume,
Labuntur anni.
The Windrush might be navigated by canoe, they say, with portages here and there, up as far as Witney in brimming seasons. Its impregnation with nitrate of sulphur renders the Witney blankets so famous for their whiteness. It is pleasant to know that the Yorkshire mills are not driving its almost immemorial trade altogether away from the little Oxfordshire town; there was a new mill building in the summer of 1907; and as I print these words the town is fighting for the exclusive right to its own name I hope with ultimate success.
Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide -
New Bridge,
River Windrush,
Map: New Bridge