Published: Wednesday, 24th December, 2008 10:43am

Retro: Bridge mystery unravelled

by Adam Hewitt

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A CHRONICLE reader and his friend have solved our latest mystery.

David Blagrove, of Stoke Bruerne in Northamptonshire, contacted Retro about the unknown bridge pictured in last week's Chronicle (December 18).

Mr Blagrove, a retired canal haulier whose mother Sylvia was mayor of Reading in 1972, said: "I'm 95% sure it's Bridge 62 on the Warwick and Birmingham canal, near Rowington in Warwickshire. I know it because I spent two nights stuck there in a loaded boat in 1995, taking a load from Newbury to Tewkesbury."

A friend in Reading saw the Retro mystery and told Mr Blagrove about it, aware that he was familiar with all sorts of bridges from his time working on the canals.

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Retro, December 18, by David Cliffe:

- THIS photograph is one of those by Friths of Reigate which was purchased for the library by Berkshire County Council about 20 years ago.

At the time, Friths were selling off their topographical prints, county by county, to library authorities.

Gradually, the Frith photographs at Reading Central Library are being catalogued and scanned so that you can see them on the library website. When I last looked, I'd done over 400, but this is only about a tenth of the whole collection that was purchased. I've given priority to those of Reading and nearby places, and the rest are now being added.

Friths seem to have been very methodical about numbering their negatives, and from the number on this one, 23611, I can tell that it dates from about 1890.

Unfortunately, there are not any others with numbers near to this one in the collection.

Usually, they were very good about writing on the back where the photograph was taken, but in this case, I think they must have got it wrong.

The picture is supposed to show Monkey Island, the island in the Thames near Maidenhead.

The name is a corruption of Monks' Eyot, but that did not stop an eighteenth-century Duke of Marlborough from having the fishing lodge which he had built on the island decorated with monkeys. The fishing lodge is now a hotel.

I think what we are looking at here is a canal: the channel is of even width, except where it narrows at the bridge, and the water looks very still.

The wide path to the right looks like a towing-path, and it even has a pile of horse manure in the foreground.

The bridge, with a telegraph pole on it, looks like a railway bridge, but it could equally well be a road bridge.

Looking at the original, you can see that it is constructed of large stone blocks, and that the paler band just below the top of the parapet is in fact a single row of blocks of paler-coloured stone. It's a bit of a tall order, but I'm hoping that some Retro reader knows the bridge, and can tell us where it is.

Can you help? Call the newsdesk on 0118 963 3151 or email news@readingchronicle.co.uk