The bridge of questions

A day ago , by Richard Lutz

Rainy day, rain all day
Ain’t no use in getting uptight, just let it groove its own way
Let it drain your worries away

RICHARD LUTZ re-visits a wet bridge covered by mystery

That’s right, Mr Hendrix. No reason to get wrought about a wet day when the forecast was heavy showers anyway.

So, on with the rain gear and off to the Old Bridge that remarkably snakes and curves gracefully over the Water of Minnoch.

It lies deep in the Forest of Galloway, southwest of Glasgow, just off a long cross country trail called the Southern Upland Way.

Today, the thick woods are drenched by rain. We are sodden. The tall bracken and early summer vegetation make for a torrential day. Nothing can stop us being soaked within minutes. We head north on this path that splits through Scotland.

There is no one else about. It is monumentally quiet. An ancient wall built with giant boulders is covered with green moss.. Meadowsweet with its pearly colour and deep perfume sweetens the damp air. Mud clasps our boots which fill with water. Above, an unseen raptor pierces the silent woods with its call. A purple orchid glistens below with raindrops.

The Old Bridge is not signposted. You have to know where to turn off the marked winding trail. We plunge through hip high sodden bracken down an invisible rocky path and over a knobbly knoll and a muddy stream. Then, in front of us, the graceful curve of the old bridge emerges.

It is, architecturally, an old packhorse bridge, built about 300 years ago. No one knows its exact age. The official National Record of The Historic Environment lists its origins as ‘period unknown’. Not much help there.

Other than that cryptic note, that’s all that is technically known; the rest is conjecture, stories, rumour, bad facts, myth.

What we do know is what we see: the bridge links two gnarly uneven outcrops over the river. But where does it go? What does it connect? It is not attached. It is solitary. No road comes to it. No lane leaves it. Its strange elegant curve allows it to link the rocky banks. But that’s about it.

Who built its beautiful curve and twist that have stood time and weather? Who used it? Why was it constructed? There are no nearby existing nor recorded farms. There are no remnants of old villages or settlements.

The bridge is sometimes, wrongly, called The Roman Bridge. There are no known remains of the empire nearby. Possibly the name stems from an age old nickname when it was called The Romany Bridge after the travelling families that folklore said camped nearby. But it’s all misty fable, as vague and unknown as the lost roads that wandered toward and away from this old stone bridge.

We stand on its slippery arch and wonder about its past. Lichen, moss and tiny wildflowers decorate the top. There is no wall nor parapet to stop a fall into The Water of Minnoch that rushes below.

The rain thickens. We look for a speck of shelter beneath a slim roof of birch and beech and not so much eat as drink our sandwiches before slogging back to the main path. We leave behind centuries of questions about an old silent bridge built by an unknown hand that goes nowhere except over a rolling river connected now by a fabric of tales.

photos: Billy McCrorie, David Baird