The announcement in the papers on May 31 of Lord Monk Bretton’s death on May 26 turned my mind to our bridge over the river Rother.
The bridge had been opened with great pomp and circumstance by his grandfather, Lord Monk Bretton, at a cost of £3160 on April 25 1893, a mere 17 years after its construction was first proposed by the then Highways Board. Carried on two sets of piles, the 140ft bridge had been constructed by Messrs AE Munn of Tenterden, “strong enough to bear a traction engine.”
The bridge afforded a more direct route into Kent than that provided by the Military Road, constructed some 90 years earlier in the time of the Napoleonic wars. It also served to provide speedier passage than the alternative ferry crossing from Rye Harbour to the golf club and the Camber Road.
It was named the Monkbretton bridge in honour of John George Dodson, 1st Baron Monk Bretton, who had been appointed Deputy Lieutenant for East Sussex that very year in 1893. He was a Liberal politician and member of the House of Lords and served as the first chairman of East Sussex County Council from 1889-1892. He lived for many years near Lewes in East Sussex and died in 1897.
Image Credits: Rye News library .