Shillingford Bridge

Shillingford Bridge is Grade II* listed road bridge near Shillingford, Oxfordshire, carrying an unclassified road (formerly the A329 road) across the River Thames in England on the reach above Benson Lock. The bridge provides access between Shillingford to the north of the river and Wallingford to the south. Originally the south side was in Berkshire but was transferred from Berkshire to Oxfordshire in 1974. The bridge is single track and vehicular passage is controlled by traffic lights.There are records which suggest the presence of a bridge on the site in the 14th century but this structure was short-lived and crossing was made by ferry from at least 1379 until a timber bridge was built in 1767. The present stone structure dates from 1827. A toll was payable on both the ferry and the subsequent bridges until 1874 when the County Councils of Berkshire and Oxfordshire joined to buy the bridge from its private trustees and scrapped the charges.BackgroundIn the Patent Rolls of 1301 the Earl of Cornwall is recorded as leasing a fishery "downstream of Shillingford Bridge" and in 1370 a bridge at Shillingford is mentioned again as a boundary of another fishery. This however is the last mention of a bridged crossing on the site until 1763. It is unusual for a bridge to completely disappear but the probable explanation is that the Governor of Wallingford Castle had a small wooden bridge built to give pedestrians and horsemen easy passage to Dorchester Abbey but later had it removed due to security concerns for the Royal Castle. There is no doubt that a bridge did exist as Gough's Camden (1789) records that piles and beams were dredged up at the site of Shillingford Ferry.