Red Cross Bridge

Red Cross Bridge was at the bottom of Broad Street over the Pinsley; the stream remained till 1968 but had been culverted for some time before that. The R^ev Townsend in his book calls this bridge Pinsley Bridge but Mr Blacklock, some fifty years later does not agree and placed Pinsley Bridge elsewhere. The shop shown above was formally “The Bird In Hand” public house and retains timber-work that shows a large jetty was over the water. Pinsley Brook flowed down the pathway shown next to Brook Hall. Brook Hall, shown in the first two photographs, had lifting gear in the end gable to take leather off of small skiffs on the brook to be stored in the attic.

There was an opening below the first floor of ‘The Bird in Hand’ where the Pinsley flowed through; you can see the vertical break in the brickwork if you look carefully.

Maintenance of the bridges was once the responsibility of the town’s different Guilds; Leominster’s Court Leet records ‘the Company of Walkers for not repairing the Red Crosse Bridge’ in 1650. (The ‘Walkers’ were the town’s fullers and dyers – fulling was once done by treading fullers’ earth into the fabric.)