Register of ancient monuments
Reference number 1005803
Oxygrains Packhorse Bridge
Oldham Road
Ripponden
Sowerby Bridge
Calderdale
DESCRIPTION OF THE MONUMENT
Visit date: 14/JUN/1928
This is a typical packhorse bridge of the district crossing the Oxygrains Clough by a single arch. The bridge is 8ft wide with practically no parapet. The arch is built of ashlar, one of two of the stones being 4ft in length and extending halfway across the width of the bridge. Historically it is interesting as being on the line of the packhorse roads by which cloth was carried from Yorkshire into Lancashire. These tracks are now grass grown and difficult to trace. Should the bridge disappear the memory of the roads might be lost.
Visit date: 10/APR/1980
Single arched bridge, arch comprising 12 stones on each side of keystone. The stones are well cut on soffit but rough on road surface. No parapet wall at all and bridge is now only a single thickness of stones. Only little evidence of track which led to bridge now well below the present road surface.
Visit Date : 02/AUG/1986
Only the arch remains of Oxygrains Bridge which carried the old bridle track used by packhorses between Yorkshire and Lancashire over the Oxygrains Beck. The bridge is about 9ft wide and 14ft from bank to bank. the parapets have gone but it is still possible to walk across the bridge. The track of the old bridleway may be traced descending the hillside from the road above which must have been built to replace it and now crosses a newer bridge some 50yds away. The track probably continued down the valley and over Ripponden Bridge (West Yorkshire 215).
