2001_000

University of Leicester Archaeological Services
years may have sufficed as a ford crossing. At a later date
a more substantial bridge was built of limestone. Evidence
of this first stone construction was found only on the west
bank of the brook, and consisted of a large D-shaped
Although there is no direct evidence that Saltgate Bridge
was built by or for the farming brethren of Burton Lazars
hospital, it is clear that it was standing during the hospital’s
heyday and would certainly have been an important crossing
point, and instrumental in the day to day management of
the planned farming landscape that the brethren had
established.
Thanks are due to the Environment Agency for their help
and co-operation with this project.
Left:Burton Brook in flood, the medieval
bridge still spans the current course of
the brook.
abutment terraced into the bank of the brook. It is presumed
that a wooden superstructure (which has since been lost)
may have sat atop this structure and spanned the brook to a
similar structure on the east bank. No evidence of a
coresponding abutment was found during excavation, but it
remains possible that this may lie just outside of the area of
investigation or its stone may
simply have been reused in
the construction of later
phases of the bridge.
Following several years of
flooding a third phase of
construction was added, in
the form of a well-hewn
sandstone parapet, the
squared blocks of which still bore clear tooling marks. Later
the banks of the brook, just down-stream of the bridge, were
consolidated with a broad layer of pebbles.
Above: well-shaped blocks were used in the
parapet of the bridge during the third phase of
construction.
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