Swarkestone Bridge

This week is the first time of hosting Five on Friday by Tricky at FAST blog. So to welcome him and start things well, here's five views of a rather impressive structure close to where I live. Sorry about the photos. It's not the easier thing to capture on film. (Don't forget to visit Tricky's blog to see what other people have written.)

The Grade I listed Swarkestone Bridge and Causeway, at almost a mile in length, is the longest stone bridge in England. At one time a bridge chapel and toll house stood on the causeway but there is little sign of them now. The structure crosses the River Trent flood plain between Swarkestone and Stanton-by-Bridge and is still a significant crossing for travellers passing from Derby to Melbourne.

It carries a bus route and it's quite creative driving when you meet one coming the other way. As you can see, it's narrow, and the photo shows one of the wider bits!

Built in the 13th century, the causeway is reputed to be the work of two local sisters whose lovers drowned while trying to cross the flood plain in high water. The horrified sisters saw the men swept away by the river and vowed that no-one else would suffer the same fate.  They spent the rest of their lives building and maintaining the causeway and bridge and so were penniless when they died.

Five stiles for Friday

Here I am again with Five on Friday for Amy's meme. This week I'm taking a look at stiles - those wonderful contraptions that let you cross fences, walls and other boundaries. It's to link in to a post I've done this week on my other blog.
Don't forget to click the link at the bottom to visit other people's entries.

OK, so here's the first example. It might look like a gate, but those decorative ironwork pieces are fixed so you have to go around them and squeeze through the gap. It's a way of ensuring that livestock can't get out of a field, but humans have no trouble passing through. This one leads to the churchyard at Breedon on the Hill. (That's the one you can see as you drive up the M(A)42 through Leicestershire.)

Here's a nice stone one from Hathersage in Derbyshire. There's plenty of millstone grit around that area to build sturdy examples like this. They're firm under the feet and easy to cross.

Here's a complex design from the National Trust property Calke Abbey (yes - Derbyshire again). That extra bit on the left with the three uprights is a lift-up section so dog walkers can let their pets pass underneath rather than trying to get them over the top. (Have you ever tried to get a dog to cross a stile?  It's why I have cats these days.)

And this one's in Wales. Probably the tallest stile I ever saw! Those cross pieces at the top make it easy to climb though, because you have something to hold on to. It's near Ruthin

And this complex little number is, as you can see, next to a canal. The Trent and Mersey, to be exact, close to Trent Lock.  I'm not entirely sure whether it's Derbyshire or Nottinghamshire. The Trent is the boundary between three counties (including Leicestershire) at various places along this stretch and it's always hard to tell exactly where you are. The river is behind you at this point.