Bridges and Waterways of Leominster

Leominster was a town of rivers, streams, rills and marsh. The name comes from a minster in the district of Lene or Leon, in turn from an Old Welsh root lei to flow. The rivers Lugg, Kenwater, Ridgemoor and Pinsley (formerly called “Oney”) all flowed into the borough. The River Arrow passes to the south. A number of brooks also flow into the area. The Lugg flowed into the town, passing under the junction of Bridge Street and Mill Street and down behind what is now Paradise Court. It then was joined by the River Kenwater that flowed from the west in its current position. The Lugg divided along Mill Street, where the cricket ground now stands, into a leat for the corn mill, which ran along Mill Street before heading south-east to join the main flow past Pinsley Meads. The Ridgemoor Brook joined the Lugg at Easters Meadow. In the 1960s, the Lugg Flood alleviation scheme diverted the Lugg along its present course eastwards from Summergalls to join the Ridgemoor Brook to the north of Ridgemoor Bridge.

Blacklock in his The Suppressed Benedictine Minster and other Ancient & Modern Institutions of the Borough of Leominster originally published 1897, stated: “Her Majesty’s ancient and loyal Borough of Leominster has within its borders well-nigh as many Bridges as are to be found in the average old Dutch town plentifully intersected the canals; albeit they are but small and humble in their architecture and perhaps fail to excite the amazement of beholder.”

Leland in his “Itinerary”, from the mid-1530s, stated: “In the west end of the town there be three stone bridges, the first over Pensilly, a streame that runneth a 5 miles out of a more west by south west and runneth a 3 miles taketh with him a lithe Brooke that riseth not much above the Church of Kingsland, and thence runneth under the aforesaid Bridge in Leonminster, a so goeth through the very house of the Pariry, and thence not farre into Lugge by the right ripe. The second over Kene water, that after a small course beneath the bridge goeth into Lug. This Ken is an arme of Lug, and breaketh out of it at a Were a quarter of a mile above Lugge Bridge in Leonminster, from the greatest part of Lug, which is driven by a Damme or Were to serve King’s Milles a lithe lower that the Dammes. The third is called Lug bridge, and as I remember, it is the greatest of the three, and has the most arches.”