South Gosforth, Three Mile Bridge (and Pigg's Folly)

HER Number:
4008

District:
Newcastle

Site Name:
South Gosforth, Three Mile Bridge (and Pigg's Folly)

Place:
South Gosforth

Map Sheet:
NZ26NW

Class:
Transport

Site Type: Broad:
Road Transport Site

Site Type: Specific:
Road Bridge

General Period:
POST MEDIEVAL

Specific Period:
Hanoverian 1714 to 1837

Form of Evidence:
Documentary Evidence

Description:
The Three Mile Bridge carried the Newcastle to Morpeth road over the Ouseburn. A strange monument was apparently erected next to the bridge by John Pigg, a town surveyor, inscribed with biblical texts. This "folly", drawn by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm [who made a living by accompanying the well-to-do on their travels, and recorded the journeys in pen-and-ink drawings] in the eighteenth century, was removed some time in the nineteenth century. According to Bourne and the Local Historian's Table Book, John Pigg took down "a stately cross which he called idolatry" from the north end of the Barras Bridge by the chapel of St James, and built a curious stone pillar, inscribed with texts of scripture on the Morpeth Road next to three mile bridge. John Pigg died in 1689 and was buried at St Andrew's Church, Newcastle.

Easting:
424250

Northing:
569550

Grid Reference:
NZ424250569550

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
<< HER 4008 >> 1st edition Ordnance Survey map, 1864, 6 inch scale, Northumberland, 88 Samuel Hieronymous Grimm, C188, The Northumberland Sketchbooks, http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/galleries/grimm; E. Mackenzie, 1825, A View of the County of Northumberland, pp 471-472; R. Welford, 1879, A History of the Parish of Gosforth, pp 23-25