Packhorse Bridges

The Packhorse Bridge in Allerford, Exmoor.

A packhorse bridge was designed to carry horse-borne trade across a river or stream. Typically they are very narrow and have low parapets, often being built alongside fords. Whilst they are still commonly found across southern England, particularly in places like Exmoor and Dartmoor, they were also constructed in the far north of Scotland, where examples survive at Carrbridge and at Ardoch Bridge in Braco.

The main reason for constructing a Packhorse Bridge over a regular structure was cost. It was obviously far cheaper in both stone and manpower to construct a bridge just 4 feet wide, rather than 18 or 20 feet for a regular road. Their commonness in Exmoor and Dartmoor can be explained by the general impassability of roads to carts, so with the majority of traffic on packhorse the need for a wider bridge simply wasn't there. Elsewhere, similar bridges were often built as footbridges alongside fords for carts.