St Ives Bridge

One of the good things about doing an art and drawing course 25 miles away from where I live is that I get to explore a relatively new area.

This is the ancient bridge at St Ives in Cambridgeshire - a favourite place for artists, and swans and ducks by the looks of it. The first bridge was built of wood around AD1100 and the present stone bridge was bult in the 1420s. It features a chapel, in the centre of the picture, from which tolls were taken from travellers and it was also used for church services. Only a handful of these chapels have survived from the Middle Ages.

Another odd feature of the bridge is the different shape of the arches. The two arches closest to the far bank of the river have round tops. That is because they are later rebuildings, unlike the original pointed-topped arches in the rest of the bridge. They were pulled down by Oliver Cromwell and the Roundheads in 1645 during the English Civil War and replaced by a drawbridge in case of attack by the Royalists. These arches were eventually rebuilt, but to a different design from the rest of the bridge, in 1716.

Built for horses and carts nearly 600 years ago, St Ives Bridge took the weight of lorries and double decker buses until a new bypass bridge was opened in 1980.

For the record: 16C, sunny spells, brief shower. It's November 1 and the container plants are still out and blooming!