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A packhorse bridge is a bridge intended to carry packhorses (horses loaded with sidebags or panniers) across a river or stream. Typically a packhorse bridge consists of one or more narrow (one horse wide) masonry arches, and has low parapets so as not to interfere with the horse's panniers.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher = cottontown.org )〕 Multi-arched examples sometimes have triangular cutwaters that are extended upwards to form pedestrian refuges.〔 Packhorse bridges were often built on the trade routes (often called packhorse routes) that formed major transport arteries across Europe and Great Britain until the coming of the turnpike roads and canals in the 18th century.〔 Before the road-building efforts of Napoleon, all crossings of the Alps were on packhorse trails.〔Maxwell G. Lay, ''Ways of the World: A History of the World's Roads'' (Rutgers University Press) 1992:23–25; 96.〕 Travellers' carriages were dismantled and transported over the mountain passes by ponies and mule trains. ==Definition== In the British Isles at least, the definition of a packhorse bridge is somewhat nebulous. Ernest Hinchliffe discusses the difficulty of defining a true packhorse bridge in ''A Guide to the Packhorse Bridges of England''. He claims that "before the eighteenth century bridges were described as 'horse bridges' or 'cart bridges'" and his strict definition excludes the latter. He suggests that a classic packhorse bridge should generally be: *less than in width; *built before 1800; *on a recognised packhorse route. He categorises the 190 English bridges listed in his book into three groups: *Group 1: wide or less, built before 1800 and with known packhorse associations; *Group 2: bridges that fail one or other of the above criteria, but which are generally referred to as packhorse bridges; *Group 3: bridges sometimes claimed as packhorse bridges but dismissed as such by the author.〔 The difficulty of classification is illustrated by Moulton Bridge in Suffolk, which Hinchliffe places in Group 1 but which English Heritage describe as "perhaps not strictly a packhorse bridge since it was wide enough to take carts".〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=History and Research Moulton Packhorse Bridge )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「packhorse bridge」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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