What is recorded here

One crowded footbridge spanned a kill in the dark age of bronze. They cut straight rods, joined them edge to edge, and set three taller supports across the middle to hold the weight of passing bodies. The peat closed over the work, keeping every mark and measurement intact until a ditch cut the surface open again. What looked like a broken puddle in the clay was actually a road built for people in a world that no longer exists.

Originally recorded as a puddle togher (exposed Wth 0.32m; T 0.18m) exposed towards the top of an ENE drain face. Longitudinal elements extended E-W and consisted of nine pieces of brushwood (diam. 0.02-0.05m), and two small split timbers. The latter had rectangular cross-sections measuring 0.05 x 0.03m. They were in poor condition and were thought to represent a single piece that later splintered (Dunne 1999, 53, 99BG0016A). Excavation in 2002 revealed a platform, exposed 0.07-0.3m below the surface in a drain face, comprising longitudinally placed, very straight brushwood (Wth 5.5m; D 0.21m), two to three layers deep. The elements had not been affected by milling. Three pieces of brushwood (diam. 0.05-0.07m; L 1.74m) at either end and in the centre were at a slightly higher level than the others. The remaining brushwood (av. diam. 0.025m) was densely arranged. Most of the longitudinal brushwood was worked - the ends were mostly found to be chisel points, the facets were cut with a metal axe and one of the worked ends had a raised signature. The remains yielded a date range of 1258-1215 BC (Whitaker 2009, 38). Compiled by: Paul Walsh Date of upload: 26 August 2011

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