page_title: Monnow Bridge
section_title: Depictions in art
hierarchical_section_title: Monnow Bridge / Depictions in art
caption_attribution_description: English: Monnow Bridge, Monmouthshire; etching on paper, part of "Liber Studiorum: A Series of Sketches and Studies" Purchased as part of the Oppé Collection with assistance from the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund 1996
context_page_description: Monnow Bridge, in Monmouth, Wales, is the only remaining fortified river bridge in Great Britain with its gate tower standing on the bridge. Such bridge towers were common across Europe from medieval times, but many were destroyed due to urban expansion, diminishing defensive requirements and the increasing demands of traffic and trade. The historical and architectural importance of the bridge and its rarity are reflected in its status as a Scheduled Monument and a Grade I listed building. The bridge crosses the River Monnow 500 metres above its confluence with the River Wye.
  Monmouth had been a significant border settlement since the Roman occupation of Britain, when it was the site of the fort of Blestium. The River Wye may have been bridged at this time but the Monnow, being easily fordable, appears not to have had a crossing until after the Norman Conquest. According to the local tradition, construction of Monnow Bridge began in 1272 to replace a 12th-century Norman timber bridge. Through the medieval era, the English Civil War, and the Chartist uprising, the bridge played a significant, if ineffectual, role in defending Monmouth.
context_section_description: William Gilpin, in his Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, published in 1782, generated considerable interest in the natural and man-made attractions of South Wales and heralded the development of the Wye Tour as an alternative to the Grand Tour. As a consequence, Monnow Bridge and Gatehouse became a popular subject for artists. A late 18th-century watercolour by Michael Angelo Rooker is now in the Monmouth Museum. The noted architectural watercolourist Samuel Prout painted the bridge in a study dated "before 1814", now held at the Yale Center for British Art in Connecticut. In 1795, J. M. W. Turner sketched the bridge and gatehouse during one of his annual summer sketching tours.
  The watercolourist and etcher John Sell Cotman sketched the bridge in the early 19th century, his drawing showing the overhanging accommodation and guardhouse that were later removed. Joshua Cristall produced a similar pencil sketch in 1803. Henry Gastineau drew the bridge in about 1819. Due to a printing error that confused his drawing of the bridge with one of the tower at Raglan Castle on the opposite page of the printed collection, Gastineau's image often appears with the title Gate and Bridge, Ragland. The artist of the American West Thomas Moran produced an undated pencil drawing of the bridge which is printed in his Field Sketches. A depiction of the bridge in stained glass by Charles Eamer Kempe can be seen in the Memorial of the Boer War window in St Mary's Priory Church in Monmouth.
caption: The bridge by John Sell Cotman, c. 1800
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