Datchet Bridge, Bucks.. Steel engraving. From Eighty Picturesque Views of the Thames and Medway. Note the barge with smoking chimney in the foreground piled high with goods on which a family lives accompanied by their dog. Close to the other bank a man poles a boat with a man and woman pasengers. Fearnside comments, “Soon after passing through Windsor bridge the stream divides; the main body of the water flowing over a weir to the left, and washing the meadows of Eton college, while a canal has been formed to the right, through a lock, for the accommodation of the navigator. The current now increases its rapidity, skirting the walls of Windsor little-park, and passing through Datchet bridge, which is a substantial wooden structure, with nine arches, on stone piers. The river, after a long and widened reach, meanders to the left. On the right, a lengthened canal and lock have been formed, in order to shorten the navigation and avoid the force of the stream” (60).
This volume's Henley plate depicts a barge filled with cargo poled by two men while a third steers an a barge with two sails appears in The Book of the Thames from its Rise to its Fall (1859).
Other bridges
Text and formatting by George P. Landow. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the University of California Library and the Internet Archive and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one.]
Bibliography
Fearnside, W. G. Eighty Picturesque Views of the Thames and Medway, Engraved on Steel by the First Artists. London: Black and Armstrong, [n.d. after 1837]. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of California at Berkley Library. Web. 30 March 2012.
Last modified 30 April 2012