Pershore Bridge wartime plan to keep the Nazis out

IT may lack the majesty of Worcester Cathedral, the vainglorious echoes of Witley Court or be a cradle of anthems like Elgar’s Birthplace, but to many authorities Pershore Bridge, the old one that is, is one of Worcestershire’s most important ancient monuments.

Standing on the edge of town, not far from the “new” bridge, which only dates back to 1926 so is a veritable whippersnapper by comparison, it was built by the monks of Pershore Abbey across the Avon in the late 1400s.

However Brother Francis and civil engineering chums obviously did a good job because their handiwork was still standing 450 years later when a more global conflict erupted and it was thought prudent to prevent any Nazi tanks surging across the bridge to attack the industrial Midlands.

Tank traps in the form of substantial concrete bollards were stationed on its approaches, although being as the original bridge had been deemed unsuitable for increasing road traffic and by-passed by a new bridge in 1926, the monks’ erection would likely have served as a Venus Fly Trap to heavy military vehicles, collapsing around them and dropping them into the swirling waters below.

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Talking of which, something similar happened during the Civil War, when Charles I, in an effort to delay a pursuing Parliamentary force, ordered Pershore Bridge to be destroyed. However the command was carried out with such enthusiasm, much of the bridge crumbled before all the King’s troops were across.

The aptly named Major Bridge, along with three other officers plus 25 privates and “80 countrymen” who had come to assist in the demolition, fell into the river and were drowned.

However, just to prove that bridge vandalism was not solely confined to wartime, in the mid-1960s, a rather splendid bronze plaque attached to the new Pershore Bridge to mark its opening, disappeared.

It was assumed some travelling ne’er-do-wells had prised it off to sell for scrap, until, “acting upon local information”, a diver was brought in to conduct a river bed search.

And hey presto, Roy Garland, who was also a member of the Lower Avon Navigation Trust, found said plaque resting in 6ft of water below the bridge.

Although Pershore old bridge is credited to the 15th-century monks, there had been a river crossing at the spot long before that.

For records show as far back as 1290 Sir Nicolas de Mitton bequeathed the sum of one shilling for the repair of a bridge there. Sir Nicholas was not being unduly parsimonious, for a shilling then was worth rather more than today’s 5p.