Radcot Bridge

There are in fact three stone bridges at this point on the Thames, from south to north: Radcot Bridge, the Canal Bridge and Pidnell Bridge. The first is nearest to Pidnell (a hamlet in Faringdon parish) and the last is nearest to Radcot. Whilst originally built on the Thames, Radcot Bridge is now on a backwater since the construction, in 1787, of a new cut for the Thames and Severn Canal. The Canal Bridge was built at the same time.

Radcot Bridge is often claimed as the oldest bridge on the Thames, having been built, with pointed arches of Taynton stone, around 1200. The Cistercian monks of St Mary at Cîteaux in Normandy were granted land for the purpose by King John. Much of the structure was broken down during the Battle of Radcot Bridge on 19 December 1387 between troops loyal to Richard II, led by court favourite Robert de Vere, and an army captained by Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby (the future Henry IV). Radcot Bridge was reconstructed in 1393. The bridge was again severely damaged during the Wars of the Roses, and was largely rebuilt as it appears today, with a flattened centre arch.

Radcot Bridge became a toll bridge and its wharf was commercially important as the highest shipping point on the Thames, with the junction of the Severn-Thames canal not far away at Lechlade (Gloucestershire).

The Thames Path crosses the bridges.

Time Team, in a programme first broadcast on 15 February 2009, excavated Matilda's Castle in the summer of 2008. They found that visible earthworks near Radcot Bridge dated from the 17th-century English Civil War, when Parliamentary forces built them to support cannon used to bombard Royalist forces garrisoned in Radcot House. Underneath some of these earthworks were remains of a square Norman keep dating from the time of the 12th-century Anarchy. Evidence suggested the tower was pulled down a century after it was built. Its remains were further damaged by later constructions on the site. Some Roman remains, possibly from a villa, were also found.[1]

• Crossings of the River Thames

• Toynbee, M.R. (1949). "Radcot Bridge and Newbridge" (PDF). Oxoniensia. Oxford Architectural and Historical Society. XIV: 46–52. Retrieved 27 October 2013.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Radcot Bridge.

• Faringdon Online: Radcot Bridge
• New Bridge — Oldest Bridge over the Thames, Vale and Downland Museum